The Londoner: Corbyn called out on anti-Semitism

John Mann calls out Jeremy Corbyn's record on anti-Semitism | Popcorn, King Lear and Anthony Hopkins going mad in Stevenage | The Russians leave Stanley Johnson swinging | True-blood stars' hounds held at Heathrow
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Londoner's Diary29 March 2018

JOHN Mann, Labour MP for Bassetlaw and chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group Against Anti-Semitism, has accused Jeremy Corbyn of failing to seize opportunities to tackle the problem within the party. Mann told The Londoner that in the past “18 months to two years” he has repeatedly tried to talk to the Labour leader one-to-one on the issue. Mann says that despite numerous phone calls, emails and letters sent directly to Corbyn and his office, and even “speaking to him in the corridor, asking for a meeting, him saying yes”, no discussion materialised.

Furthermore, Mann strongly refutes the assertion by a number of leading Corbyn supporters that the leader has signed all the Early Day Motions condemning anti-Semitism.

“One of the things he’s put around everywhere is that there have been five Parliamentary resolutions about anti-Semitism and he’s the only person who’s signed them all,” says Mann. “Actually, I have personally tabled about a dozen and he hasn’t signed most of them. He may not have seen them, but it is simply a lie that he has signed them all, that he has signed more than anybody else. It’s a lie, it’s not true, it’s false news. It’s fake news.”

He adds: “I asked for precise action and I raised abuse of BBC journalists, and the anti-Semitisim that was impacting them, but he didn’t agree. I asked for action, he said, ‘Yep, it’s very, very important to the Labour Party, we’ll be taking action’. This was 18 months to two years ago. He offered nothing precise.”

Mann, who has been the victim of serious threats of violence, currently being investigated by the police, is passionate about fighting the issue within Labour because, “it’s what the Labour Party is about, it’s about tackling all forms of discrimination. And you have to put your own house in order first — make sure your party is not racist before you start preaching."

In April 2016 Mann pursued Ken Livingstone up a BBC stairwell after Livingstone had claimed Hitler was a Zionist. "Anti-Semitism remains the one acceptable prejudice in the Labour Party," Mann says. "They're glorying in it."

Popcorn, King Lear and Anthony Hopkins going mad in Stevenage

The cast of King Lear at a preview screening
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EMMA Thompson was at The Soho Hotel for a screening of the BBC’s new adaptation of King Lear last night. The original work isn’t exactly a bundle of laughs but Thompson, who plays Goneril, was in good spirits, bringing her daughter Gaia Wise and wearing a snazzy pair of silver shoes.

“Popcorn while watching Lear? Somehow it doesn’t seem right,” she joked on entering the screening room. The film stars Anthony Hopkins as the king, and his performance, if anything, is too good.

Richard Eyre, the programme’s director, told how they shot the famous madness scene with Hopkins dressed in wild disarray in Stevenage shopping centre. “A lady in one of those mobility scooters, clearly with no idea who he was was, came up to Anthony and pointed him in the direction of the nearby hostel.”

Later, a large cake was carried in, in celebration of Eyre’s 75th birthday.

The Russians leave Stanley swinging

Stanley Johnson (Photo by Mary Turner/Getty Images) 
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Following reports of manipulation in the Brexit vote, the Foreign Secretary’s father now thinks it was the Russians wot won it. “I am more than convinced that dark forces not a million miles away from the Kremlin were involved both in the US election and the Brexit vote,” says Stanley Johnson, Boris’s father.

Johnson senior has swung from Remain to Leave but says he’ll swing back again if there definitely was Russian involvement. “I’ve said if it could be shown there was tampering, I and people like me, would have to reconsider.”

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After Brexiteers threw dead fish into the Thames to highlight the plight of fishermen Miriam González Durántez found a better use for them: a haddock à la marinera recipe. “Do not be tempted to overcook the fish,” the lawyer writes. “If you are a Brexiteer you should be particularly careful because, let’s face it, you are prone to overdoing things.”

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Last week Eurovision legend Katie Boyle died aged 91, and received a glowing obituary in The Guardian. It was written by Dennis Barker. But as Barker himself passed away in 2015, Boyle enjoyed the singular triumph of outliving her own obituary writer.

True-blood hounds

PISTOL and Boo, the pet dogs of former couple Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, were once caught up in a quarantine scandal when the couple flew them into Australia. Now a new pair of celebrity canines are having border trouble. Banjo and Dave, the dogs of True Blood stars Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer, have been held at Heathrow airport since Sunday.

“They’ve travelled together multiple times to [the] UK with exactly the same paperwork they’re now being held for,” Brentwood-born Moyer says. “I’m all for protecting our borders but this is ridiculous.” #FreetheHeathrow2

BARONESS Trumpington, below, says she had a #MeToo moment with David Lloyd George, bottom. The nonogenarian, former Bletchley Park codebreaker and onetime Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health says the war-time prime minister asked for her measurements.

“I was only 15 when I met him”, she tells The Oldie. “He has quite a reputation. It was at his farmhouse. He measured me — with a tape measure. It was odd, but nothing happened.”

She never had any trouble with Winston Churchill. “[He] was both fun and frightening,” she says. “He loved animals. He liked to have animals all over his bed. Lloyd George, of course, liked to have girls all over his.”

Quote of the Day

"Losing has never felt so good"

Andrew Gwynne MP, Labour's campaigns and elections chair, is stil putting a positive spin on the 2017 defeat.

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