Tony Blair’s hitman Alastair Campbell doesn’t have a good word to say about Jeremy Corbyn, so perhaps that helps to explain his summit with Theresa May’s joint chief of staff Fiona Hill. The former Labour spinner and the powerful consigliera in the current Tory Downing Street regime appeared to get along famously during an hour-long conversation at the Royal Horseguards Hotel, just off Whitehall.
So intense was the encounter – which took place on a Wednesday morning, before Prime Minister’s Questions – that the political pair didn’t allow a bomb scare outside to intrude, moving deeper into the hotel lounge instead to continue the confab. We may only speculate on the precise details of the consultation. And yet, as a snout observed, it isn’t rocket science to appreciate that Hill would value tips from Campbell, while a New Labour zealot plying his trade to high-paying clients through the lobbyists Portland could perhaps benefit by privately mentioning his access to power. My enemy’s enemy is my friend.
Is Ted Heath the next VIP blank to be drawn by police investigations into historic child sex abuse? The Wiltshire plod announced a year ago, with great fanfare outside the deceased PM’s home in Salisbury, that it would pursue allegations against Sailor Ted. Extra officers were assigned and his archive, held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, was examined. I hear that the Tory peer David Hunt, the ermined chair of the Sir Edward Heath Charitable Foundation, recently met the cops. The word is that the Heath inquiry has uncovered nothing damaging and is now going through the motions.
The whisper in Labour circles is that the Momentum chair, Jon Lansman, is emerging as an unlikely voice cautioning against permanent revolution in the party and opposing a formal challenge from within Corbynista ranks to the deputy leader, Tom Watson. His strategy is two steps forward, one step back. Jezza’s vanguard is as disputatious as any other political movement.
The Tribune Group of MPs, relaunching on 2 November in parliament, will be a challenger on the Labour left to the Socialist Campaign Group, which ran Corbyn as its leadership candidate. Will Hutton is to speak at the Commons gathering. How times change. I recall Tony Blair courting “Stakeholder” Hutton before the 1997 election, but then ignoring him in high office. With luck, the Tribunites will be smarter and more honourable.
Politics imitates art when a Plaid Cymru insider calls the nationalists’ leader, Leanne Wood, “our Birgitte Nyborg”, a reference to the fictional prime minister in Borgen. Owain Glyndwr must be turning in his grave, wherever it is.
Kevin Maguire is the associate editor (politics) of the Daily Mirror
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This article appears in the 19 Oct 2016 issue of the New Statesman, Brothers in blood