Given the unexpected visitor at Ken’s latest pledge launch this morning, feathers seem ruffled and people are certainly not talking about Ken’s latest magical money promises. Which is just as well given that they are either outside of the Mayor’s purview or outside of London’s budget.
Boris launched his new “Better Off With Boris” logo with it adorning his Progress Report at Mayors Question Time this morning. Ken copied it with a “Better of with Ken” logo which looks remarkably similar. Alas Team Ken in their hurry to cobble it together forgot to register BetterOffWithKen.com.which now links to the NotKenAgain.com website. Another fine mess…
As regular readers will know, Guido has always had an eye for fashion.
He thought he’d let GQ’s Olivia Cole, our new fashion correspondent, give us the low down on the US trip though:
“Hot fuchsia pink, a conspicuous absence of a formal jacket for the President’s welcome and stepping off the plane in a pair of skinny black cropped trousers and best-of-British Burberry coat, Samantha Cameron is plainly determined not to look like a cardboard cut out politician’s wife. Let’s remember that it’s not just frocks, it’s business and British business at that.
The LK Bennett shoes worn so far are, frankly, a bit yawn but on the other hand they are likely to be comfortable and possible to wear for hours at a time (you can’t always say this for more fashionable footwear) Perhaps a £900 shoe is deemed a bit much. Her black trench coat worn yesterday was by Burberry – the pragmatic item mythologized by creative director Christopher Bailey and re-invented every season. Cynics sick of fashion commentary accompanying the Special Relationship love-in should take a look at their bank balance – founded 1856 , Burberry today it’s a FTSE 100 company with an annual turnover of £1.5bn.
As well as flying the flag for an established British success story like Burberry, this touring fashion show is championing emerging London businesses too. Mrs Cameron’s hot pink fuchsia top (with an on trend peplum) and blue, aquamarine and cream dress today are both by one-to-watch Serbian born, London based Roksanda Ilincic. With red carpet fans from Kate Hudson to Cate Blanchett, and Keira Knightley, in recent years her stock has been quietly and elegantly rising. Her signature is brilliant classic-with-a-twist tailoring (her dresses fit perfectly, surely a must have for an occasion in the spotlight). Her always surprising use of colour gives a very modern edge to dresses inspired by Parisian silhouettes of the 40s and 50s. For those that gripe “it cost HOW MUCH”… “£1200 for a jacket… in a recession” it’s worth remembering that for the designers, the resulting publicity is frankly priceless.”
We’ll have the full state banquet report tomorrow…
Olivia Cole is the Literary Editor of GQ. And Neo-Guido’s sister.
Earlier Dan Hodges reported:
On Monday a meeting was held at Labour’s soon-to-be-vacated Victoria Street headquarters to which staff were informed of the latest stage of the party’s internal reorganisation. Descriptions of the event range from “disaster”, through “multi-lane pile-up”, to “carnage”. “I’ve never in all my life seen anything like it,” said one shocked observer. “Normally people are quite restrained. But it all came pouring out”.
Patrick Wintour also wrote up the disaster in the Guardian, calling it “stormy”. Guido had the leaked names of the new Directors of the Party last Friday and this went down very badly. Now it is clear why: the Party machine are not on board with the changes. According to one source in the room, Simon Jackson, whose policy role has been filled by Torsten Henricson-Bell took the invitation to “speak frankly” very literally:
“If you think that our problems are structural or organisational then you are kidding yourselves… If you think we are somehow divorced from the politics then you are being ridiculous…”
Cue much clapping from the staff. Another disgruntled staffer pointed Guido to the words of Hilary Perrin, a party figure for some two decades, who apparently claimed that in all her time in the party she had never known morale so low.
General Secretary Iain McNicol was apparently very apologetic that the news of the new directors had leaked before the announcement. He also said that no one was being sacked, but then in David Brent style, he could not promise that there would not be redundancies. Ed’s new Chief of Staff Tim Livesy gave the staff an ungodly dressing down for leaking to Guido: “this is not transparency, this is a breach of trust… this is a test.” A test he clearly failed given that the whole thing leaked in less than 24 hours…
Ken ran away when he was asked a very simple question about his taxes.
Watch how his leather-jacketed heavies try to drag our 19-year-old Jeremy Pax-Hen away…
[orderorder-live-event altcast_code=”1ac1b21676″ height=”700″ width=”480″]
To get away from questions about his taxes…
GuyNews video coming up shortly. It was a pretty hectic chicken raid, assorted Labour heavies got heavy. Ken chickened out and ran away…
