The Londoner: Centrists revive the ghost of SDP

SDP boast "growing" membership / Ed Miliband recites Shakespearean wurst / Alan Rusbridger goes North West / Brits invade New York Fashion Week
10 September 2018

In the quiet scramble for the centre ground, a number of new parties have been formed, not least Advance and more recently Simon Franks’s United For Change. But The Londoner hears that new life has been blown into the SDP, currently being led by William Clouston, a former Conservative Party member, who told us this weekend, “The SDP is back!”

The original SDP was, of course, a giant of the centre ground in British politics, formed following the Limehouse Declaration in 1981, when four former Labour Cabinet ministers, including Shirley Williams and David Owen, demanded a “new start in British politics.” Clouston says the new party will fill “a huge gap in Britain for a communitarian party in the centre.

“We’re producing a new declaration. Obviously the original declaration was 37 years ago. We’re preparing a new declaration to be published in October.”

He said party membership was “growing very rapidly” though demurred when asked to give a figure.

The new SDP will aim for the centre, but will support, Clouston says, “nationalisation and the greater state. We would re-nationalise the railways. That’s part of our social-market heritage, we think market liberalism has overstepped the boundaries.”

The party also sounds similar to Labour on the EU: “We’d describe ourselves as pro-European but EU sceptic. We’re against another referendum.”

When asked why he did not join Britain’s mainstream centrist party, the Lib-Dems, he said: “They are neo-liberal. We are democrats. It is not clear what they are.”

Centrist parties have been all the rage since Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader, Brexit upended the Tories, and Vince Cable and Tim Farron flopped as Lib Dem leaders. But no centre party has broken through in anything like the way the original SDP did — at one point they led opinion polls nationally.

Asked about the revival of his old party, Lord Owen, one of the original founders, told us: “I don’t want to talk about the SDP.”

Downsizing? It's a Sin

Alan Rusbridger discusses downsizing — he has moved from a house in Highgate to a flat in Kentish Town — since leaving the Guardian and taking over at Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford.

“We are now in an apartment in what used to be the North West London Polytechnic,” he writes in the New Statesman.

“I recently did a conversation at Lady Margaret Hall with one of our visiting fellows, the Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant. Where had he been to college? I asked. ‘North West London Poly,’ he replied, adding scornfully, ‘It’s now flats for yuppies.’”

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Boris Johnson’s prolific track record in affairs reminds us of a New Labour minister who did a drive of shame to his wife with news of an affair about to break. After a tearful confession he wiped his brow, hopped back into the ministerial car to London, only to learn from the tabloid that he had confessed to the wrong affair.

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Tony Blair praised personal protection officers on the back of new BBC series Bodyguard. “They’re fantastic people to work with — really great,” he told Nick Robinson’s podcast. “I haven’t actually seen the TV series, but Cherie has. I’m not sure how true to real life it is, [but] I’m glad to see they’re famous at last.”

Brits fashion a model night out with sleepy Rosie and Poppy

Actors Tom Hiddleston and Anne Hathaway joined the fashion world in New York at the weekend. US journalist and snapper Derek Blasberg captured the event. He shared a pic of the group, which included actress Jessica Chastain, on Instagram. “Had a Loki evening (get it? “low key” never mind) with Jess and Annie at Ralph Lauren’s 50 anniversary extravaganza.” Blasberg was referring to Hiddleston’s character Loki in movies Thor and The Avengers. The British contingent also included models Poppy Delevingne and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. The pair were snapped falling asleep at the table. “I guess my conversation isn’t as thrilling as I thought,” posted Blasberg. He also appeared to play a game of “Shag, Marry, Kill?” with models Lily Aldridge, Joan Smalls and Huntington-Whiteley. The occasion, at Central Perk, was Ralph Lauren’s 50th birthday at New York Fashion Week.

SW1A

James Cleverly, deputy Tory Party chairman, tells us he’s writing a short story about a kidnapping in Nigeria in which a “big company” takes the law into its own hands to rescue hostages. The tale, inspired by the Boko Haram kidnappings, explores the tension between unelected corporate power and elected governments. Cleverly is halfway through the story but has hit a wall “because I’m new to creative writing”.

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MP Ian Austin rebuked John McDonnell’s criticism of Chuka Umunna’s “call off the dogs” remark, recalling that the last time they spoke the shadow chancellor responded to Austin with two words: “The first began with F, the second was ‘off’.”

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ED Miliband was caught eating a hot dog while reciting an “avant-garde” version of Hamlet at the Edinburgh Fringe. The Labour MP has since explained: “I was thinking I could be in Hamlet and that the hot dog was the skull.”

Quote of the day

"I have not had and WILL never have Botox." Alan Sugar hits out at the “fabricated” story that he is considering beauty injectables.

Farmers in short supply on Finchley Road

Tulip Siddiq, MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, was photographed with New Labour attack dog Alastair Campbell on Finchley Road yesterday, only she had to stand on a footstool. “The humiliation of being 4’11,” she tweeted, alongside a photo of the two next to a cow at the “farmer’s market”. “There’s a joke somewhere there about spinning and cows,” she told us. There was also a typo, said 6’3 Campbell, tweeting: “Oh dear Tulip! What is the apostrophe doing before the s?” But on grammar, Siddiq wasn’t to be caught short, replying: “You mean, there was more than one farmer there?!#TwoEnglishDegrees #StillNotEnough.”

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