Londoner's Diary: Labour and the mystery of the great navel gaze

Elusive: taskforce head Margaret Beckett
Ben Pruchnie / Getty
14 January 2016

Beckett may have been waiting for Godot but it’s now Labour’s turn to wait for Beckett. In May, after Ed Miliband led Labour to its worst election result since 1987, Harriet Harman launched a “Learning the Lessons from Defeat” taskforce. Headed by Margaret Beckett, the group — nicknamed the truth and reconciliation commission — spent the summer looking at what went wrong.

She was joined by Labour general secretary Iain McNicol and MP Valerie Vaz, among others, and presented the results to Jeremy Corbyn in November. What did the report say, or conclude? Your guess is as good as ours — though calls for its release started as early as two months ago, the leader’s office has been sitting on it.

Journalists’ attempts to get a Labourite to leak it have also been fruitless, as have been our bids to talk to Margaret Beckett herself. Corbyn is said to have received the report but it is “considering its contents before deciding the next step”.

The one thing that has leaked is a section written by Deborah Mattinson, of Britain Thinks, who concluded that Labour deserters found Miliband’s Labour “defensive, uninspiring and unimaginative”.

Things may start moving soon, though: MP Dan Jarvis wrote a column in the New Statesman yesterday asking for the report to be published. He’d followed the path of fellow parliamentarian

Caroline Flint, who tweeted on Monday: “In the real world we need to discuss why we lost GE15 & start by publishing the Beckett Report.” Ouch.

Elsewhere, the FT’s Jim Pickard ominously tweeted that he had been “reliably informed” that the report would come out in the next fortnight. Did the leader’s office reply for a comment? Go on. Guess.

***

Philip Pullman has resigned as Oxford Literary Festival patron. This morning the children’s author announced that “because of the Oxford Literary Festival’s attitude to paying speakers (they don’t) I can’t remain as a Patron any longer”. His move has been supported by, among others, Robert Harris: “Good for you, Philip. It’s time writers were given a fee for these events, like any other speaker.”

Farewell after 43 years to Times stalwart

Tributes poured in today as Phil Webster retired from The Times, after 43 years on the paper. The political hack, known for his Denis Healey eyebrows and his love of golf, was admired both by Fleet Street and his Westminster counterparts.

“I know that thanks to Malcolm Tucker it is widely assumed that I spent my whole time yelling at hacks. Well, I never yelled at Phil,” writes Alastair Campbell in a special internal farewell edition of the paper’s political briefing Red Box.

Former Times executive editor Roger Alton recounts Webster being at journalism college with Mark Knopfler. “One of course penned some of the most memorable words of the Eighties and Nineties and became a legend,” he writes. “The other founded Dire Straits.”

Hugh eyes Sir Harold's style guide

To Piccadilly’s Picturehouse Central last night, where former editor of The Sunday Times Sir Harold Evans, pictured right, was moved to tears as he spoke about the victims of thalidomide.

Sir Harold ran the paper’s campaign highlighting the effects of the morning-sickness drug during his 14-year tenure, and spoke after the screening of Attacking the Devil, a documentary about his fight with Distillers, the seller of the drug. “I can never forget the bravery of those who have suffered because of this,” he said.

Also at the screening and after-party, left to right, were Evans’s wife Tina Brown, charity campaigner Alison Wright and actor Hugh Grant. Harvey Weinstein is, apparently, considering making a film about the thalidomide case: could Grant be researching Evans’s mannerisms?

Corbyn fans Raleigh for Jez

Ben Pruchnie / Getty

Ah, running the Labour party — it’s as easy as riding a bike, eh Jez? Corbyn appeared in Stylist magazine’s Most Desired section this week. No, not like that. The Labour leader was declaring his love for the Raleigh Criterium bicycle, “like my own trusty red Raleigh”, pictured, costing £475.

Predictably, there was horror from anti-Corbynistas that the socialist leader desired so expensive a bike to, as the Telegraph put it, “pick up his croissants in the morning”.

Even more predictably, there has now been a backlash against the backlash. A “Let’s get Jez his dream bike!” campaign has launched on Crowdfunder.co.uk, asking people to donate £1 in order to “annoy the Right-wing press and buy Jeremy Corbyn his dream bike for his birthday”. This morning £2,290 had been pledged, and the organiser has suggested all excess would be donated to charity.

How sweet. But — not to puncture dreams or throw a bike spanner in the works — Corbyn doesn’t want a new ride. As he writes, “I’m a big believer in repairing rather than replacing, I suspect I will have my own long after my leadership.”

Time to back-pedal, bike funders?

Back in the Eighties, Frankie Howerd brought titillation to the fine art of tea-drinking with the “Oooh” Typhoo ads. So who better to take on his mantle than Nigella Lawson, who has just been announced as the brand’s new face. Considering she’s been causing giggles with lines such as “I love having an implement in each hand”, Nigella is bound to give Frankie stiff competition.

Jerry's a ballet no-show

You heard it here first: as we yesterday reported, Jerry Hall was due last night to make her first public appearance since the announcement of her engagement to Rupert Murdoch at the English National Ballet’s gala performance of Le Corsaire at The Coliseum. Except, er, she didn’t.

A whole room of guests at the pre-show party at St Martins Lane, including fellow ex-Stones wife Jo Wood and Camilla Kerslake, had Evening Standards folded to the Diary page poking out of their bags, and spent the evening getting whiplash from rubbernecking every time a blonde woman entered the room. One group was convinced she would pop up in Act III for a guest performance. But apparently our advance warning of Hall’s expected attendance scared the ballet lover off. Perhaps she was at home practising her pliés with Rupert?

Memo of the day: to the all-party parliamentary group on obesity, which meets in the Commons today. “Please note,” it says, “that we are unable to provide refreshments.” Very on-message.

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