The Londoner: Jacqui stands up to women haters

Jacqui Smith on makes stand for women MPs | Trevor McDonald cricket on the roof | David Lammy's racist abuser convicted | Beard Liberation Front step aside | Boris Johnson's Heathrow conversation
15 November 2019

Former home secretary Jacqui Smith has warned that she’s “worried for women coming into politics now” because of the growing tide of “abuse and intimidation”.

“We’ve seen younger women MPs with masses to offer just throwing in the towel in this election and others being put off standing. I was home secretary. I’m no shrinking violet,” she told The Londoner this week. “We mustn’t concede our democracy to the haters,” Smith went on. “Let’s stand up for decency and against abuse and intimidation including when it’s against people we strongly disagree with.” The former Labour Cabinet minister was talking on the launch of her book Honourable Ladies, a collection of biographical essays of every female MP to be elected to the House of Commons, each written by a woman, and co-edited by Iain Dale. It is the sequel to a first volume, which was released last year, and contains 287 profiles of the women elected to Parliament since 1997. The new volume shows how much things have changed for women in 100 years. The profile of Patricia Hewitt (Leicester West, elected in 1997) reveals how her maternal grandmother outraged the people of Cambridge by riding a bicycle around the city wearing bloomers. Hewitt herself started being political early: campaigning at school to stop compulsory wearing of gloves in the summer heat of Australia.

Female MPs had a variety of careers before joining Parliament: Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower, 2017) is a former Wales international rugby player, while Rosie Duffield (Canterbury, 2017) was once greenlit to make a puppet TV show. And they don’t always play by the rules. Hannah Bardell (Livingston, 2015) and Louise Haigh (Sheffield Heeley, 2015) played “keepy uppies” in the Commons Chamber last year. Also unconventional was Suella Braverman, who invited her husband, Rael, to Parliament for the day for their first date. They married last year — in Parliament.

“The book shows there’s a lot more colour to our women MPs since 1997 then just the colour of their jackets in the infamous ‘Blairs Babes’ photo,” Smith said. Long may it continue.

IDS' hairy moment

A BRIEF respite for Iain Duncan Smith, who has dodged a challenge from the Beard Liberation Front in his Chingford and Woodford Green constituency, a key Labour target. Members of the group, which campaigns for rights for beard wearers, have stood aside in the marginal north-east London seat despite threats to stand last week.

Organiser Keith Flett told The Londoner his hirsute gang wanted to challenge the clean-shaven former Cabinet minister because he was also bald but couldn’t risk halting the “first bearded Prime Minister since Lord Salisbury in 1902” in Jeremy Corbyn. Could this alliance spell the end of IDS?

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Hamlet’s most famous line was nearly never to be. At a special performance of Allie Esiri’s book Shakespeare For Every Day of the Year at the National Theatre this week — at which Simon Russell Beale trod the boards — the author told the audience that an early quarto of Shakespeare’s read: “To be or not to be, aye, there’s the point.”

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Film-maker Werner Herzog has a broad artistic taste. “Sometimes I see things that are completely against my cultural nature,” the German auteur told Variety. “I was raised with Latin and ancient Greek and poetry from Greek antiquity, but sometimes, just to see the world I live in, I watch WrestleMania.”

When Sir Trevor played an inside edge

When cricket-mad Sir Trevor McDonald worked for Ulster Television he persuaded his colleagues to play on the roof of the hut they worked in. “I frequently wondered as we shouted ‘Howzat!’ what anybody passing in the street must have thought,” the broadcaster told a Guardian Live event this week. But “these escapist games of cricket” also gave them a professional advantage. Up on the roof they could pinpoint where a bomb had exploded “and set off a few minutes before everybody else”.

Super Maro joins the Lauren scrum

The Royal Academy of Arts was a fitting backdrop for the premiere of Sky Atlantic’s documentary on the life of fashion mogul Ralph Lauren last night. Lauren himself, Lady Kitty Spencer, Rugby World Cup stars Nathan Earle and Maro Itoje, actors Claire Foy and Famke Janssen and Vogue editor Edward Enninful attended.

Meanwhile, the V&A hosted the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s 4th Annual Sugarplum Dinner. Mark Ronson, Florence Welch and Julian Fellowes helped raise money for type 1 diabetes research. Speaking to The Londoner, Fellowes admitted that his career hasn’t been without let-downs. “Once I thought I’d got a part in a movie with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford,” he said. “The director was saying, ‘Would you like to be in the front of the hotel because the room’s better or the back because the views are better?’ I spent the whole weekend thinking I’d got this incredible break and on Monday, I hadn’t.” Condolences, Lord Fellowes.

SW1A

Justice for David Lammy. “Sincere thanks to the Met police for finding the racist scumbag who sent me this letter last May,” tweets the MP for Tottenham. The letter, scrawled on ripped notepaper, was filled with racist abuse. Lammy explained that, having pleaded guilty, the offender has been sentenced to a 12-month community order and an eight-week curfew. Lammy added: “You will not silence me.”​

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Boris Johnson’s chief proposer in Uxbridge and South Ruislip is Hillingdon council head Raymond Puddifoot, who just days ago called for a review of the Government’s decision to support Heathrow expansion in 2018. Might be an awkward conversation post-election.

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“Have come to a northern town to do a vox pop about the election,” ITV’s Damon Green says, “and the only people on the high street are another TV crew trying to do a vox pop about the election.”

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