The Londoner: Storm in a teacup as Lords go to war

Tearoom rumpus between Lords and Commons / Lily Allen splits with Meridian Dan / Olivia Colman's trade secrets / British Museum leaks 
3 January 2019

Andrew Adonis says there is a “far bigger issue than Brexit” currently dividing the Lords and Commons: a tearoom.

But it’s a special kind of parliamentary tearoom — one that also serves alcohol — and MPs are trying to ban Lords from entering unaccompanied before 8pm.

The Pugin Room sits in the corridor that separates the Lords from the Commons and has become the site of a turf war between battling parliamentarians.

“We all for years have considered it a place we can have tea and coffee,” Lord Adonis told The Londoner this morning, “not least in meetings between peers and MPs.”

But, the Labour peer and prominent anti-Brexit campaigner says, one day “we were utterly astonished to discover a big sign at the door banning peers from coming in”.

The sign went up, Adonis claims, “because some obscure MPs we’d never heard of apparently couldn’t find a seat”. In the oak-panelled room (and under the gilt brass and crystal chandelier), MPs and Lords can hobnob over a cup of tea or, later in the day, a glass of wine. But some MPs want to stop all that.

It is, Adonis told us, producing a “really serious parliamentary crisis”.

True to form, his immediate go-to solution is a “people’s vote” to defuse what is becoming “a highly charged issue”.

But “there have already been one or two celebrated confrontations” in the Pugin Room, Lord Adonis said.

In November it was reported that Michael Fabricant MP tried to prevent shadow attorney-general Shami Chakrabarti (a Labour peer) from coming in at 7.30pm. Fabricant, wanting to seem fair-minded, next asked Tory peer Michael Dobbs, who wrote the original House of Cards, to leave. Both Chakrabarti and Dobbs refused to go.

But despite reports in today’s New Statesman that Adonis was “mulling a cross-party sit-in”, he feels certain his referendum solution is the winner.

“I’ve no doubt what the result will be,” he told us, “harmony, goodwill and peace will reign.” Sure.

Fright at museum

Getty Images

A leaky roof at the British Museum has led some visitors to express concern that the Parthenon Marbles are in danger. The Londoner dropped in yesterday and found them safe and dry but Dame Janet Suzman, the actor and Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, is using the incident to reiterate calls to send them back to Athens. “Let’s celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Acropolis Museum in 2019 with the return of their prodigals,” she says.

“What a fabulous birthday present that would be! The time has come to do the right thing.”

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Peter Bazalgette, executive chair of ITV, is relieved that the network has moved from its long-established headquarters on the South Bank. “The tower became a bit of a sick building,” he says. “When the lifts broke, we had to buy the spares on eBay.”

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Tonight the cast of 42nd Street cut the famous Baddeley Cake. The ceremony, dating back to 1795, commemorates actor Robert Baddeley, who left £100 in his will for “the purchase of a twelfth cake and wine and punch which the ladies and gentlemen performers of Drury Lane Theatre will accept on Twelfth Night in every year”.

Lily blames tour for her latest split as she and MC Meridian Dan go separate ways

FilmMagic

Singer Lily Allen has announced her split from boyfriend Meridian Dan, declaring: “I’m single, for the first time since I was about 15.”

Allen, whose memoir My Thoughts Exactly stated that she had slept with female escorts while touring during her “deteriorating marriage” to ex-husband Sam Cooper, says similar circumstances have caused the breakdown of her most recent relationship.

“I’ve just come back from a tour in America, which is where I was when things went wrong with Sam, and the same thing happened in my current relationship,” she tells Elizabeth Day on the latest episode of Day’s How to Fail podcast.

“I mean, I didn’t take lots of drugs and have lots of sex with other people. I just became very lost.”

Allen, who has two children from her marriage, describes herself as “co-dependent”, and admits struggling on tour “without that sounding board, that person to talk to every day”.

She is, however, optimistic about this new period of independence.

“We’ve been broken up for about three weeks.

“It’s been bad news after bad news and the fact that I haven’t called him and been like ‘Can you come round for a cuddle?’ is big for me.

“Ordinarily when things get difficult I do need to have somebody around to share those problems with.

“The fact that I’m dealing with them on my own [means] I’m growing up!”

Allen’s relationship with Meridian Dan, a grime MC, dates back to October 2015, when court papers revealed that the pair had been in bed together when her Notting Hill flat was broken into.

SW1A

Ben Bradley, the Conservative MP for Mansfield, says there’s a major drawback to entering politics. “There’s this thing they call the ‘Parliamentary Stone’,” he says, referring to the weight put on by politicians when they first come to the Commons. “Every MP since they were elected” has got heavier, he says, and he hasn’t been spared. “I’ve put on a stone and a half,” he tells Mansfield radio. He blames the “amazing fruitcake” sold in Parliament.

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An esteemed former colleague shares a tidbit on Chris Grayling, who was Theresa May’s campaign manager in the 2016 Tory leadership race. On observing Andrea Leadsom’s now infamous leadership march, the current Transport Secretary had a moment of panic. He rushed back to the office and shared the news: “Andrea Leadsom is having a march, we need to have one too!” Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, then May’s top aides, turned around and, in unison, replied: “F*** off.”

Unsettling front for playing the Queen

Dave J Hogan/Getty Images

Actor Olivia Colman developed an unusual trick to hide her emotions when playing the reserved Queen Elizabeth II in Netflix’s The Crown: “I have an earpiece”, she has revealed. “And if there’s an emotional scene and I’m not meant to be crying, they play the Shipping Forecast”. The actor finds Her Majesty’s stoicism hard to access, given how far removed it is from her own personality. “[My emotions] are very close to the surface all the time,” she told Janina Ramirez on last night’s Front Row on BBC Radio Four. “If you had a sad face I would instantly burst into tears.”

Quote of the day

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