As College Green becomes the new Speakers’ Corner, battles between broadcasters and protesters who try and disrupt their interviews are reaching a new pitch, including claims some are being paid to protest. Tom Newton Dunn, the Sun’s political editor, tells The Londoner protestors have “gone from just wanting to get their message across and being irritating. Now they want to actually disrupt and stop broadcasters being able to do their jobs”. Newton Dunn was doing the Sky press review from the Green on Tuesday night and told us the noise from a protester screaming “Brexit now” was so loud he lost his train of thought. He tweeted that the activist — believed to be French — had told a Sky News producer he had been paid £80 to do so. But a friend of the protester later told the Standard he had lied to “trigger” and provoke Sky News. Pro-Remain protester Steve Bray, who has been standing on College Green for 26 months shouting “Stop Brexit” denied being paid £80 a day but told The Londoner he uses crowd-funded money to afford his shouting and nearby apartment. Bray tells us even if Britain remains in the EU, he won’t quit College Green: “Oh, I would campaign for proportional representation.”
Both broadcasters and MPs have continually described a climate of intimidation. Robert Peston, writing in this week’s Spectator, said: “I couldn’t hear a word I was saying.” SNP home affairs spokesperson Joanna Cherry says in the New Statesman a Leave campaigner repeatedly shouted “you’re a f***ing disgrace” at her. But it seems neither the protesters nor the broadcasters are going anywhere. BBC News told The Londoner: “We moved from lapel mics to headset mics but we don’t have any more plans to change the way we broadcast from College Green. We don’t want to cancel out all of the background noise — it is good to capture the mood.”
ITN News said: “We are just having to adapt but we’re not moving off the square.” Perhaps the new Speakers’ Corner would be better known as Shouters’ Corner.
Chinese whisper that reached Sajid
Dominic Cummings is an “extraordinary advertising copywriter”, says Rory Stewart.
“We had dim sum in Leicester Square [during the leadership contest] and he said to me, ‘Rory if you’re to win this election, you need to say that if you become prime minister, you’re going to do three things: you’re going to deliver Brexit, beat Jeremy Corbyn and reunify the country,’” Stewart told a How To Academy event last night.
“Sure enough, the next day I saw Sajid Javid saying, ‘We only have to do three things…’”
A Cummings plan…
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An eagle-eyed passer-by on Saturday spotted Trafalgar Studios had upgraded Evening Standard theatre critic Nick Curtis’ review of Joe Egg from four stars to five. Curtis says he’s complained and that they’re changing it but was reminded of another theatre critic, Jack Tinker, who insisted a theatre complete his quote “it will run and run” by reinstating the words “...I fear”.
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OMNI-PRESENT Dominic Cummings has been seen in Downing Street carrying one of Persephone Books’ tote bags. Earlier this month the publisher said it was “devastated” and this week retweeted someone calling Cummings a “demonic succubus”. No love lost, then?
Sadie and Meg in a cleansing mood
Last night was a quiet one for former party-animals Sadie Frost and Meg Mathews as they relaxed at the launch of Khera-Griggs Mind, Body, Spirit Cleanse Clinic at Urban Retreat in Knightsbridge. Frost recently premiered her short Running Man at the Raindance Film Festival in London. The film is about four teenagers going on a drugs trial and one has an adverse reaction — mania ensues. “It starts off as a buddy movie and turns into a pyscho-horror,” Frost said. “It’s a lot of fun. It’s very up.” Frost’s slate for the next year is filling up nicely with filming behind and in front of the camera in London and Ibiza.
Meanwhile, Emilia Fox, Millie Mackintosh and Daisy Lowe were treated to a VIP preview of bridal-wear designer Halfpenny London’s Songbird collection at Petersham Nurseries.
Finally, many happy returns to Vanessa White who celebrated entering her fourth decade last night at Bagatelle London.
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Commons Chaplain Rose Hudson-Wilkin (below) is leaving. She is the first black person to hold the position and told her leaving do at the Speaker’s House that much was made of it when she was appointed. She said someone once wrote her partner was the “man who went to Oxford, but she was the girl from Montego Bay”, which gave her the title of her autobiography.
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“It’s not the length that matters, it’s what you do with it (for extensions as well as for other things),” tweets Aurelie Bonal, press attaché at the French embassy, complete with an aubergine emoji. Oo la-la.
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Lord Duncan’s shock encounter in the Lords has been meticulously recorded in Hansard. “Lord Duncan of Springbank: ‘Going forward, they seek to disapply — bugger! Noble Lords: Oh! Lord Duncan of Springbank: Sorry about that; that was a big fly—bigger than normal.’” Talk about Lord of the Flies.
Curtain call Brett would rather draw over
Suede frontman Brett Anderson remembers the glory days even though he doesn’t get fan-girled very often now.
“One thing I find hard to deal with is when someone comes up to you and goes, ‘Are you famous?’” he told an audience in the Southbank Centre last night, while discussing his memoir, Afternoons with the Blinds Drawn. It wasn’t always like this. A super-fan once dragged him behind a curtain at Portobello Market.
“She pulled me in and pulled down her trousers and she had Suede tattooed on her bum.
“I backed away.”
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Quote of the day
‘The new job means I’ve had to go clothes shopping five years earlier than my usual once-a-decade trip...’
New Any Questions host Chris Mason faces up to the downside of a promotion at work
