Londoner's Diary: Will the Festival return to cheer up the nation?

Remembering the old days: Clare Foges
Matt Writtle
19 August 2015

Crack out the bunting and dig out your Union Jack sunglasses from wherever they were flung after the Olympics: patriotism is making a comeback. In yesterday’s Times, David Cameron’s former speechwriter Clare Foges wrote an ode to nostalgia, considering the virtues of throwback policies. But she also casually mentioned “talk in No 10 of a new Festival of Britain; a 20th-century concept to showcase our 21st-century prowess.” How intriguing.

The original Festival of Britain was held in the austerity-stricken post-war year of 1951, in a bid to cheer up the nation. The South Bank was the main focus of attention: the Royal Festival Hall was built, as was the 300ft Skylon sculpture, namesake of the current restaurant. Exhibitions displayed examples of the UK’s achievements in design, architecture, science and the arts, and Brits flocked to London. A revamp could, perhaps, add Stephen Hawking, Thomas Heatherwick and Alexander McQueen — and if tradition is followed then we could expect the Queen to officially open it (George VI did the honours in 1951).

Number 10’s press office played hard to get today but it will hope its attempts at a sequel will be more successful than the time it threw an event billed as the Tory version of Tony Blair’s Cool Britannia party. Blair had Helen Mirren, Noel Gallagher and Vivienne Westwood. Cameron managed Gary Barlow.

Not everyone was convinced that the original festival was a good means of spending taxpayers’ money. Winston Churchill said, when leader of the Opposition, that it was all just “three-dimensional, socialist propaganda”. Others raised eyebrows at the expenditure when the capital needed more housing. Surely the only person who can make a success of this is Boris Johnson.

***

Bad news for London Labour members — the daily emails, calls and texts from leadership and mayoral candidates apparently aren’t enough. Presumably inspired by automated PPI messages, David Lammy’s team have stepped up their game. Potential voters have been getting automated messages from the mayoral hopeful, talking about right-to-buy and rent controls. Labour has promised a crackdown on nuisance calls so maybe this is not the best tactic.

Carswell and Corbyn in the cheap seats

Jeremy Corbyn really does have allies in the most unexpected corners: first there was the #ToriesForCorbyn campaign, now Ukip is coming to his rescue. When Labour MP Lucy Powell complained on Twitter about never having met Corbyn anywhere at Westminster, she got a unexpected reply from Douglas Carswell. “How odd. I chat to him quite often,” he told her, adding: “nice fellow. Down to earth. Not one of the grandees.”

Powell agreed that Jezza seems “nice”, after which the lone Ukip ranger offered to introduce them. “We both sit up at the back”, he explained, though “he may be moving soon.”

But then who will sit next to him?

Saffron adds spice across the pond

Actress Saffron Burrows was in New York last night for a screening of new comedy drama Grandma, starring Lily Tomlin. The 42-year-old Londoner only returned to the limelight last year after taking time off to marry girlfriend Alison Balian and have a son but she has recently been wielding a cello in classical music drama Mozart in the Jungle. Burrows is one of many Brits doing well Stateside but since we’ve borrowed Kevin Spacey and Bradley Cooper lately we suppose we’ll let New York keep her a little longer.

On the road with M&S superwoman

Motherhood? Marks & Spencer? Small fry for Laura Wade-Gery, according to historian William Dalrymple: the only surprise is that she’s yet to take over the world.

The M&S executive, who will shortly embark on four months maternity leave, accompanied Dalrymple on a rather longer period of leave in the Eighties, when the pair followed in the footsteps of medieval explorer Marco Polo. After meeting him at a dinner party at the age of 21, Wade-Gery impulsively decided to travel with him from Jerusalem to Shangdu.

Dalrymple recorded the trip in his 1989 travel tome In Xanadu. Wade-Gery, he wrote, was “renowned as a formidable lady, frighteningly intelligent, physically tough, and if not conventionally beautiful, then at least sturdily handsome”. Already a “fearless traveller”, rumours flew of her “finest moment” in Delhi when, “cornered in a cul-de-sac by a party of rapists” the indomitable Laura had “beaten them off single-handed” and “left one of them permanently incapacitated”. Twenty nine years later, Wade-Gery has had more “finest moments” than you can shake an M&S olive breadstick at and Dalrymple has lost none of his faith in her super-heroic qualities. “Laura will conquer all. She always has,” he told The Londoner this morning. “She’s as unstoppable at 50 as she was at 21.” What have you achieved today?

***

The BBC carefully planned its move to Salford but it failed to prepare for 6ft 6in BBC business correspondent Ben Thompson. “It was the first show in Salford, weeks in the making,” he recalls in Attitude, “and about two minutes before we went on air there were two men either side of me on ladders above my head trying to lift lights up because I was too tall for the studio.” The giddy heights of television.

All Jezzas need a beard

Summer can mean only one thing: the return of Jeremy Paxman’s beard. Last August the broadcaster provided the media with some welcome fluff when he appeared on Newsnight with a furry face, and sent the nation into a lather after he branded the BBC “pogonophobic” — that’s anti-beard, naturally.

But after 147 days and one too many barbered comments, Paxo shaved the whole thing off, bristling that “beards are so 2013”. But it’s 2015, and with style icon Jeremy Corbyn all over the news, fuzz is making a comeback.

Yesterday we spotted Paxo wandering Notting Hill with a straggling Rip van Winkle sprouting from his chin. Thankfully he’s yet to adopt a Jezza-style vest, although it’s surely just a matter of time.

Secret skill of the day from Ray Winstone, who is best known for playing tough guys but yesterday revealed that he is “very good” at flower arranging. Blooming lovely.

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