Londoner's Diary: Ken Livingstone’s Moscow trip will ruffle Maria Eagle’s feathers

Ken Livingstone
Carl Court/Getty Images
9 December 2015

If your behaviour as a politician had recently come under fire, would you make things worse by cosying up to Vladimir Putin?

Ken Livingstone made waves last month when he was appointed to work alongside Maria Eagle on Labour’s defence review. Being anti-Trident, his nomination was met with a few raised eyebrows. Later, he called former Labour minister Kevan Jones, who suffers from depression, “disturbed”. Now the former London mayor will be in Moscow on Thursday, to celebrate Russia Today’s 10th anniversary. What could go wrong?

RT, known for its close ties with the Kremlin, is hosting a conference where Ken will talk about “Frenemies: defining foes and allies in proxy politics”. It’s a curious choice since Russia Today has often been called a propaganda tool of Putin and his allies.

“Yes, they’ve got a handful of people talking about foreign policy,” he said when we gave him a call yesterday, sounding somewhat nonplussed. “Yes, it’s in Moscow.” Fair enough. Eagle’s office, however, had another, slightly less chilled response. While one of her aides told us that the defence review “hasn’t formally started yet” — so Ken isn’t skipping school — another was utterly baffled. “I didn’t know he was doing that. What is he going to be doing there?” the aide asked. “When is he going? Is he going with anyone?”

It’s understandable that the shadow defence secretary’s staff aren’t thrilled. After all, Russia Today is the channel on which Livingstone called Eagle “mad” just days before it was announced that they’d work together.

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A spiky debate rages in The Times, after the newspaper launched its hedgehog appeal. Dominic Dyer, CEO of the Badger Trust, yesterday called for a boycott of an appeal that is part of “a wider political agenda of demonising the badger”. Today, barbed responses from hedgehog lovers insist the issue is not as black and white as Dyer asserts. Next step: a public brawl between Tory MP and hedgehog fan Rory Stewart and pro-badger vegetarian Brian May?

At least that's one call Labour got right

Will they? Won’t they? Will Gatwick save the day? Party in-fighting has been raging again — and this time it’s not Labour.

David Cameron was meant to make a decision on the third Heathrow runway before Christmas but the PM’s advisers now want him to keep schtum until May, which means any decision will almost certainly come after the London mayoral election. After all, Tory contender Zac Goldsmith did say he would resign as an MP if his party were to back the third runway.

Who could have predicted that? Mary Creagh, it turns out. The Londoner recalls the one-time Labour leadership contender bet Andrew Neil £5 that the Tories wouldn’t make up their minds on airport expansion. Pay up, Andrew!

Jacob Rees-Mogg
Rob Stothard/Getty Images

Creme Eggs hit the spot for Jacob

Jacob Rees-Mogg may be known for his antics and mannerisms in the House of Commons, but as The Londoner discovered yesterday he is also a more than adept quizmaster.

The North East Somerset Conservative MP, pictured, hosted an annual quiz last night, organised by the Freedom Association and held at Westminster pub The Barley Mow. Prizes for the winners included bars of David Cameron fudge, created as a nod to the PM’s EU renegotiations, and a modern version of Magna Carta.

But more interesting was the blossoming of Rees-Mogg’s friendship with Jess Phillips. The Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, who met Mogg on a Channel 4 programme in September, tweeted last week that she would love to appear on a special edition of Gogglebox with him. The Londoner couldn’t help but ask if he would do it. “No,” he laughed. “I’ve heard of Gogglebox, I’ve been invited to do it but turned it down ... I think you can just about get away with Have I Got News For You but anything else is too far.”

Speaking of which, Rees-Mogg made a startling revelation to The Londoner: the only things he asks for in his dressing room when he is on the BBC panel show are “salted crisps and Creme Eggs, or Creme Egg minis if it’s not the season.”

What a man of the people.

Alan Yentob's still Larkin

You just can’t keep Alan Yentob out of our great British institutions. After resigning from his creative director role at the Beeb, he last night popped up to chair the Josephine Hart Poetry Hour at the British Library, where actors Freddie Fox, Deborah Findlay and Neil Dudgeon read a selection of Philip Larkin’s verse.

Late patron of the arts Hart first persuaded the famously curmudgeonly Larkin to give a reading despite being warned by Kingsley Amis: “Oh no Josephine, Philip won’t like this at all.” Her widower Maurice Saatchi was there in support, as was Melvyn Bragg, both of whom took Yentob, above, for a glass of wine or two in the green room afterwards. Nice of them to help the former creative director while away his unoccupied time.

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A stirring piece in The Spectator entitled “In Defence of Blairism”, written by who else but Tony Blair. After all, why be your worst critic when you can be your own cheerleader? Blair would be advised to remain silent, though: has he forgotten that when he tried to warn voters off electing Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader it led to a spike in Corbyn’s campaign donations? Let it go, Tony.

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Curious combination of the day: a pricey, gas-guzzling black Range Rover was seen in Farringdon last night. Its number plate? J CO2BYN. We’re not sure he’d approve.

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