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One Nation Conservatives are following a Labour blueprint to survive the divisions wracking the current Tory party, senior sources have told The Londoner.
“We set up an organisation like Labour moderates used to do in the Eighties when they were capable of fighting the far-Left,” a source said last night at the One Nation group’s rally at Conservative Party conference, pointing to Roy Hattersley’s Labour Solidarity. The One Nation Conservatives was founded in March by MPs including Nicky Morgan, Amber Rudd , Damian Green and David Gauke, who are seeking to anchor the Conservatives in the centre ground by drawing on a tradition that stretched back to Benjamin Disraeli, and calling for unity and perseverance.
The source added it would be “the ultimate irony” if, having watched Labour battling the hard-Left for years, “at the moment that faction in Labour won, the Tories learnt all the wrong lessons”. The One Nation group hopes that it could work as a “support network” for moderates.
Indeed, Green, introducing rally speakers Morgan and Gauke, poked fun at the party’s current factionalism, saying: “I note that one of the PM’s PPS’s is here. I don’t know whether he’s here being a spy or just to check.”
Culture Secretary Morgan tried to galvanise the room, arguing that the Tories are “most successful when we reach out and are a broad church”. Though she conceded: “We all know there is one particular issue of our relationship with the European Union that has been difficult for the Conservative Party.” “You can say that again,” one audience member shouted.
The next speaker was former justice secretary Gauke, one of 21 MPs to have lost the whip after voting to block a no-deal Brexit. Green revealed he and colleagues are “working very hard” to ensure “that they can return to the fold”.
Gauke said One Nation Conservatism appealed to “the better angels of our nature”. The One Nation group must hope the PM’s PPS was taking notes.
Badgering Balliol
Earlier this month The Londoner reported that students at Balliol College, Oxford, had launched a Change.org petition calling on the college to publicly disavow Boris Johnson, who attended Balliol from 1983 and 1987.
The campaign continues apace: a source tells The Londoner that at a dinner this weekend to mark 40 years of female students at Balliol, guests were seen sporting badges reading “Balliol Women Against Boris”, “Prorogue? No, Rogue” and “Proud To Be A Girly Swot”. The creator took 75 badges to the dinner and we are reliably assured they were snapped up in minutes.
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The 2017 general election gifted us Grime4Corbyn — could the Labour leader’s next support movement be dancehall? Mr Irate’s music video for song Man Like Jeremy features the act sporting Corbyn-esque grey beards. Choice lyrics include: “I might vote Labour/Because I want to make more paper” and, “We go hard and tough like Jeremy... He’s a G.” Must be election season.
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High fives at the British Museum, which has been reinstated as Britain’s most popular attraction after a counting error. The title had been claimed by Tate Modern for last year — until experts realised the BM’s system hadn’t been counting visitors properly. Doesn’t it have an abacus?
Lottie makes a Grande gesture
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Models Munroe Bergdorf, Lottie Moss and Sophia Hadjipanteli celebrated the launch of Ariana Grande’s new perfume — Thank U, Next — on Friday night at Protein Studios in Shoreditch. Grande’s anthem broke the internet when it was released last November and she says the eponymous scent represents the message of her song: “The emergence of the perfume from the broken heart represents moving forward from a challenging chapter.”
On Saturday, as part of the Raindance Film Festival — London’s soggy equivalent of Sundance in Utah — there was a screening of Hurt by Paradise, written and directed by actor and poet Greta Bellamacina. Cast members Jaime Winstone and Camilla Rutherford attended the event at Vue in Piccadilly, as did Bellamacina’s husband, Scottish artist Robert Montgomery, and actor Tanya Burr. Bellamacina has described her film as like “a Woody Allen film, if it were made by a 25-year-old girl”.
SW1A
Liz Truss is hoping to win the Cabinet selfie challenge — the battle for who can accrue the most selfies by the end of Tory conference. The Londoner caught up with her at the IEA and TaxPayers’ Alliance drinks reception last night, when a delegate hopped in to ask for a selfie. “Make sure you tag it CPC19,” the Trade Secretary added. When The Londoner queried her request, Truss’s eyes lit up: “We’re having a competition.”
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“I’LL pay for your healthcare,” Health Secretary Matt Hancock told an event on NHS funding. Yes please! “Not with my personal money. But I’ll allocate taxpayers’ money.” Fine. “Or your money.” Hmm. We prefer the initial offer.
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Jacob Rees-Mogg told a fringe meeting last night: “I know some of you look at me and think how on earth can I be criticising the British establishment? Am I not the living embodiment of the British establishment?” Bad news Jacob…
A laughing stock with live stock
Alan Carr says he’s not an outdoors type. The comedian — who is a judge alongside Graham Norton on the new UK version of American reality TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race — says that although his husband Paul runs a farm “I just mince around in some wellies”. Carr adds: “I am so crap down there because it’s all shit and death. “You see an animal on its side and you’re like: ‘Please be a narcoleptic, please don’t be dying, please be having a kip.’”
Quote of the day
'It's important to rebel a bit'
Antiques Roadshow host Fiona Bruce like to take a walk on the wild side.