Zarah Sultana’s rise to the top has been anything but smooth
STEFAN ROUSSEAU/PA
Zarah Sultana was in Liverpool at the weekend for the Your Party conference, though she initially refused to enter the actual venue, criticising the “toxic culture” (it’s her party and she’ll decry if she wants to). Meanwhile on Radio 4’s Profile, Sultana’s husband, Craig Lloyd, revealed that she is “pretty much obsessed with” the television programme Married at First Sight. We find this surprising. What can Jeremy Corbyn’s co-founder possibly see in an enterprise where people hastily commit to a permanent relationship with someone who might be completely unsuitable for them, meaning that fundamental differences eventually force them apart?
If Corbyn wished to relieve tensions with a singalong, then John Lennon’s Imagine might not have been the best choice. As a practising Muslim, imagining a world with “no religion” is not likely to be on Sultana’s or her fellow independent MPs’ wishlist. Roshan Salih, the editor of the British Muslim news site 5Pillars, was quick to condemn the “atheistic hymn”, saying: “If you’re a Muslim you shouldn’t be joining this lot.” Maybe if Lennon’s Imagine had mentioned a world ‘without a leader,’ this would have been more appropriate.
• Chaos and splits as Jeremy Corbyn’s party rejects him as leader
Running out of steam
Potential bad news for Tricia Hillas, the Bishop of Sodor and Man, as it’s rumoured that her diocese might be under threat from Church of England accountants. Only five years ago we reported that Covid-19 had left the diocese, which covers the Isle of Man and its adjacent islets, on the verge of financial ruin. Will Dame Sarah Mullally, the incoming Archbishop of Canterbury, be Hillas’s saving grace? Regardless of the outcome, the influence of the diocese will live on with Thomas the Tank Engine. The line that Thomas chugs along is on the fictional island of Sodor, where things also have a tendency to go off the rails.
The late Tom Stoppard didn’t reserve his wit and humour for the words he got paid to write. He could be just as funny when corresponding in private. His fellow playwright Harold Pinter was never a man who suffered too many accusations of being excessively modest, and so it proved when a proposal was put forward to change the name of London’s Comedy Theatre to the Pinter Theatre. The great man canvassed far and wide, with Stoppard one of those who received a letter. His reply was very simple: “Have you thought, instead, of changing your name to Harold Comedy?”
Stoppard’s real thing
Stoppard displayed the same coolness when confronted by movie royalty. David Mamet tells The Free Press that when Steven Spielberg was looking for a screenwriter for Jaws, he approached Stoppard. The playwright declined the offer on the grounds that he was writing a play for the BBC. “I’m offering you a fortune to collaborate with me on a Hollywood blockbuster,” said Spielberg, “and you turn me down to write a play for BBC TV?” “No,” replied Stoppard, “BBC Radio.”