Londoner's Diary: Cover girl Amal is a coup for The Economist

In today's diary: Amal Clooney and Nadia Murad finally make cover girls | Rosa Prince writes about Theresa May in new biography | Donald Trump is kept in the dark at the White House | Laura Whitmore and Stephen Fry take virtual selfies | Poppy and Cara Delevingne give us the pelican brief | Sienna Miller offspring likes the gloomy Smiths | David Beckham has Knights on the Brain 
(Photo by The Asahi Shimbun/The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images
7 February 2017

Amal Clooney is officially a cover girl at last. The human-rights lawyer, style queen and wife of actor George Clooney has finally undertaken a covershoot of a glossy magazine. So who managed the coup? Is it Vogue? Vanity Fair? Harper’s Bazaar? Nope: 1843 Magazine, the bi-monthly from The Economist.

This month’s issue shoots Clooney with Nadia Murad, the Yazidi activist, Nobel Peace Prize nominee and the first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking of the United Nations. They make an impressive pair. “Amal Clooney is an Oxford-educated human-rights lawyer married to a film star,” Economist foreign editor Robert Guest writes. “Nadia Murad was born in a poor Iraqi village and once aspired to become a teacher. Clooney is tall, dazzling and so recognisable that people walk up to her in the street and tell her they love her. Murad is small, shy and avoids eye contact. Yet among her people, the Yazidis, Murad is better known and more admired than any other woman on Earth.”

Clooney is certainly happy to take the back seat, ensuring that her case with Murad takes precedence. The pair are battling to bring Islamic State leaders before an international court, to seek justice for the Yazidi genocide.

Survivor interviews are, Clooney says, “the most harrowing witness statements I’ve ever taken.” Her period working in Beirut investigating the death of the Lebanese PM Rafic Hariri in 2005, she recalls, brought risks. “There were times when I would look at parked cars with trepidation.” Red carpets it ain’t. “As I understand it, she’s been asked to be on a lot of covers,” says 1843 editor Emma Duncan. “She chose to go with us because we’re featuring a case that she is passionately involved in.”

Read the full 1843 piece here

--

Rosa Prince has written a biography of Theresa May surtitled The Enigmatic Prime Minister. Tory MP Cheryl Gillan was interviewed for the book. “She’s going to have proper Cabinet government,” she says. “Whereas I always felt, with her predecessor, it had all been decided elsewhere — possibly in the kitchen over a lasagne. That’s not healthy.” Buon appetito, Dave.

Darkness spreads in the White House

IN THE storm of the first fortnight of Donald Trump’s presidency, it has felt at times as if the administration is groping in the dark. In the rush to churn out executive order after executive order, have the practicalities of life in the White House fallen by the wayside?

“Aides confer in the dark because they cannot figure out how to operate the light switches in the cabinet room,” during evening meetings, according to The New York Times, and visitors to the West Wing “conclude their meetings and then wander around, testing doorknobs until finding one that leads to an exit”. Perhaps the team behind Make America Great Again could learn from another iconic slogan — let there be light.

Stephen Fry’s a bit robotic

AWARDS season is almost here, starting with the Baftas on Sunday. Drumming up publicity for the event is red carpet interviewer Laura Whitmore and host Stephen Fry, she's trialing the EE Roboselfie, a robot that lets people submit photos of themselves, which will then appear on the screen ready for the glittering guests to pose with.

Could her appointment have been swayed by the publicity the Baftas gained because of her tête-à-tête at last year’s after-party with star guest Leonardo DiCaprio, who won best actor for his part in The Revenant?

The Delevingne girls know how to get snappy

Poppy, meet pelican. The model and actress hit the headlines last week after being snapped in Los Angeles with David Beckham, who is currently embroiled in an e-mail leak scandal. But now she’s hanging out with a new pal: her sister, model Cara Delevingne, Poppy posted a picture of her with a brown pelican in California yesterday, captioning it Pelican Brief. Considering the novel of the same name, written by John Grisham and turned into a film starring Julia Roberts, follows the pursuit of classified documents which threaten to undermine a public figure, we wonder if Cara’s being completely oblivious or pretty smart.

--

CAREFUL what you say in front of your kids. Actress Sienna Miller is interviewed in this month’s issue of LOVE magazine, where she explains that she is trying to teach her four-year-old daughter about a new album every week. Current favourites, Miller says, are The Smiths: “She was sitting in the bath, singing ‘I know I’m un-love-a-ble’.” Better than Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now, we suppose.

How Becks faces the music

With David Beckham facing new questions over leaked emails, The Londoner thought back to the days of innocence. Or, more precisely, eight days ago when he appeared on Desert Island Discs. The BBC had apparently been pursuing Goldenballs for the much-loved interview for years, and Beckham finally agreed to chat with Kirsty Young for the 75th anniversary of the programme. His top pick was Every Time We Say Goodbye by Ella Fitzgerald. But his selection also included Something About the Way You Look Tonight by Sir Elton John, The Girl is Mine by Sir Paul McCartney with Michael Jackson and Wild Horses from Sir Mick Jagger and the rest of the Stones.

Not that a knighthood is important or anything.

--

Hashtag of the day: Nicholas Soames MP. #dontsayyouwerentwarnedleopardsneverchangetheirspotshugechallengeaheadforusall

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in