London Diary: A winter of discontent?

While Britain’s foreign minister Boris Johnson wrote to Prime Minister Theresa May saying that the UK must not stay within a single market, or pay towards a European Union, it seems the people have not given up. The Remain campaigners have refused to accept the decision as done and dusted. They continue to rage against the referendum result. Recently, the two opposing groups took out rallies and nearly came to blows. The Remain group managed to organise rallies in London, Edinburgh, Oxford and Cambridge. The march for Europe, which took place recently wanted to somehow delay Article 50, which is the trigger for leaving Europe formally. Can the British Parliament debate the decision, or should they just move on? According to the Prime Minister, the time has come to move on, but the air is full of acrimony. Can this lead to a long-running dispute among the people? Possibly! We are certainly heading for a winter of discontent.

As Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump struggles with declining votes, his penchant for creating news has not dimmed. And, then, he likes to put the media on the mat, even when they might be correct. Mr Trump has now launched an attack on the media for allegedly stating falsely that his wife was an “escort” before she met him. And Melania, too, has sued the Daily Mail for over $150 million for the alleged calumny. At least, if she wins she would have the satisfaction of buying a couple of mink coats! Or perhaps another yacht! The London Film Festival has been announced for next month. Stars from around the world will showcase their new films. As of now, we expect Nicole Kidman, Lupita Nyong’o, Oliver Stone, Amy Adams and others. The festival opens with a film by Amma Asante, a British director. The film titled A United Kingdom depicts the story of the king of Bechuanaland who met and married a London office worker in 1948.

Many Indian maharajas had a liaison with women they met in London. How about a Bollywood version of this idea? Nicole Kidman is in a film Lion with Dev Patel based on a memoir of Saroo Brierley’s A Long Way Home. Sigourney Weaver is in A Monster Calls and Gemma Arterton in Their Finest. As in the past years when I have been there, it promises to be a humdinger. So it’s good to be oldfashioned. In a recent interview John Le Carre, the famous spy-turned-author, stated that he wrote his books in the “unmechanised” fashion, in longhand, in diaries, notebooks — on all and any available paper. Always on the go. Le Carre was being interviewed on the publication of his autobiography The Pigeon Tunnel. It is being serialised in the Guardian.

But what surprised everyone was his admission that his father, a conman, who was often in jail, was abusive and had beaten his mother and Le Carre as well. The latter would then sometimes lie in wait for his father, sleeping outside his mother’s room guarding his mother from him. He says that he rarely felt affectionate towards anyone in his childhood, except his elder brother who was like a parent to him. May be someone will make a good film of the book as Le Carre’s Smiley novels have been.

London is the favoured destination for hundreds who commute to work from some distance every day. In this, it’s more like Mumbai. The commute can be often very uncomfortable. Southern railways, which carries many hundreds from the green and leafy parts of the counties of Kent, Surrey and Sussex, is a byword for misery. There are frequent delays and cancellations. Now thanks to the change of Cabinet, the new transport secretary has put in an extra £20 million to improve services. It will pay for improving tracks and a better response system to fix faults on the line. The commuters will wait wearily before they announce whether it makes any difference to their daily misery!

Where do retired or defeated MPs go for an afterlife? There is always the BBC’s popular programme Strictly Come Dancing. Vincent Cable, a member of the Cabinet during the last coalition, has been there as has been Ann Widdecombe who was a ferocious presence on the Conservative backbenchers in the Commons. Now comes the turn of Ed Balls, who was a Cabinet minister in the Labour governments and Shadow Chancellor in the 2010 Parliament. He lost his seat by a small margin. So he has now decided to take the plunge and appear on Strictly… as the show is fondly called. It is hard work doing “ballroom” dancing, specially if your partner is sprightly and talented. Ed is known for his cooking talents and his piano playing. Now comes the real test. Given the trouble the Labour Party is in, he is better off falling on his face on live TV than running for Parliament again!