Londoner's Diary: Theresa May gets a Brexit dressing down from Vogue

In today's Diary: Shulman digs in her heels over Brexit | The blonde at Fortnum & Mason's | Home away from home for Heatherwick | Bakewell hits out at the Beeb
12 May 2017

Theresa May might subscribe to Vogue, but does Vogue subscribe to Theresa May? In the editor’s letter in the new issue, Alexandra Shulman slams the “isolationist overtones” of Brexit. The Prime Minister, a lifelong Vogue disciple, may purse her lips when the mag flops onto the doormat of No 10.

Shulman, pictured, who is to leave the magazine after 25 years, writes about the benefits of escaping on holiday. It is laced with anger about the direction in which Britain is heading.

“In travel we collect experiences and memories that can feed into our lives back home,” she said. “It’s an essential part of the way we live. As I write this, on the day Article 50 is triggered, we must not allow the isolationist overtones of Brexit to challenge our enjoyment of the richness and variety that the rest of the world offers us.”

This isn’t the first time she has voiced opposition to the PM, despite Mrs May saying she worships the fashion bible — on Desert Island Discs she chose a lifetime Vogue subscription as her luxury item. Shulman confessed earlier this year that she had not approached Mrs May for a photoshoot after she became leader of the Tories, even though Anna Wintour, editor of US Vogue, deemed her worthy of a spread, shot by Annie Leibovitz. Shulman said she’d rather have Michelle Obama.

Shulman also chose to end her book, Inside Vogue: My Diary of Vogue’s 100th Year, on the day of the EU referendum result, expressing her unhappiness at it.

But such ruffling of political feathers may cost Shulman a coveted new accessory. Anna Wintour was at Buckingham Palace last week to pick up a damehood. Shulman may find herself out of fashion on an honours list.

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Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn
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Newspapers have attacked Labour’s election campaign for harking back to Marxism and the Seventies. But Francis Wheen, who wrote a biography of Marx and Seventies book Strange Days Indeed, is thrilled. “Labour’s election campaign is doing wonders for my back catalogue,” he says. “First John McDonnell promotes Das Kapital — about which I’ve written a book. Then Jeremy Corbyn is accused ... of wanting to take Britain ‘back to the Seventies’ — about which I’ve written a book. Is it too much to hope Diane Abbott might talk about Tom Driberg?”

Bakewell doesn’t take well to outsourcing

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JOAN Bakewell is losing her faith. News that the BBC is to outsource Songs of Praise production to external parties has enraged the broadcaster, who takes them to task in this week’s New Statesman. “It signals the last vestiges of the corporation’s religious department, which for decades offered me the chance to make programmes — both on radio and on television — for people interested in ideas.” But it’s not all about the hymns. “The corporation is giving up the reason for its existence: the making of quality programmes with public money for the public’s benefit.” The BBC lost Bake-Off, is Bakewell next?

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Quote of the day: '‘If Mrs May is about to swallow the Labour Party whole, she can surely be forgiven if a few of its feathers end up on her lips’

Spectator editor Fraser Nelson considers the remnants of Labour policy in the PM’s election approach.

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More eyes for design than you can count

Dave Benett/Getty Images for The

Design gurus dined in Prince’s Place, Holland Park, yesterday, a new west London base for Rohan Silva’s Second Home — Lord Rogers was star speaker for the evening. Over dinner, Garden Bridge designer Thomas Heatherwick told how he’d met Silva when a shabby “student” knocked on his King’s Cross door and they spent three hours moving a piano through Heatherwick’s house and over a garden wall. Soon afterwards, Heatherwick visited Downing Street for the first time, where he was surprised to see Silva again, as senior policy adviser to David Cameron. “The student was wearing a suit,” Heatherwick said. Meanwhile, cook Lorraine Pascale said Cameron put her childhood home of Witney on the map, and was impressed by his shepherd’s hut. “Must get one,” she said.

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Brexit is dragging us through a hedge backwards. The Times ran a piece this week on how the end of EU subsidies will affect British farmers and huntin’, shootin’, fishin’ historian Max Hastings wrote an acerbic letter in response. “I have never so much admired the selflessness of British farmers as when so many last year voted Leave. Such folk are surely too principled to complain about paying their share of the bill for their fine, patriotic gesture.” Expect pitchforks.

Posthumous win for A.A.

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THE LATE Sunday Times journalist A.A. Gill has one more accolade. Last night at the Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards, he was posthumously awarded Restaurant Writer of the Year. Gill’s partner, former model and Tatler editor-at-large, Nicola Formby, pictured, whom Gill described as “the blonde” in his restaurant reviews, arrived with their 10-year-old twins, Edith and Isaac, and also Flora, Adrian’s daughter with Home Secretary Amber Rudd.

Gill’s acerbic reviews are sorely missed — our personal favourite was his spinach/Kate Moss analogy: “Spinach is the Kate Moss of vegetables. Goes with everything, boils down to nothing.” But there wasn’t a dry eye in the house when Isaac stepped up to the podium to collect the award on behalf of his father. Gill beat Tom Parker Bowles for his Mail on Sunday food column, but Bowles was gracious in his defeat. “I’d be lucky to lick Adrian’s boots,” he said.

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Tweet of the day: “When you have to tear yourself away from the TV to go to work before you find out if the ladies of Rip-Off Britain got justice”

Lin-Manuel Miranda, writer of the hit musical Hamilton, has got addicted to UK breakfast TV while working on the Mary Poppins sequel.

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Paws for thought after Hazel dies

Sad news from Finsbury Park’s Park Theatre: Hazel, the much loved resident dog, passed away on Wednesday. Hazel was adored by the theatre’s staff and tributes have poured in from actors including Sir Ian McKellen, pictured with Hazel. The theatre is naming a seat after her.

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Dress code of the day: Pippa Middleton is rumoured to have asked guests to her forthcoming wedding to bring two outfits — one for the ceremony and one for the reception. Something old, something new?

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