The Londoner: Luciana Berger 'on course' to take Finchley

NEW Liberal Democrat Luciana Berger may be on course to win the Finchley and Golders Green seat at the upcoming election, according to a new poll.

A seat poll commissioned by the Liberal Democrats and conducted by Survation has seen Berger open up an eight-point lead over her Conservative and Labour rivals, The Londoner can reveal. Asked which way they would vote if a general election was held tomorrow, 33 per cent of the 400 people surveyed said they would vote for the Liberal Democrats, with the Conservatives and Labour trailing on 25 per cent and 21 per cent respectively.

The poll, conducted on October 2, shows a staggering 26-point surge for the Lib Dems, who received only 6.6 per cent of the vote at the 2017 election.

It also indicates that the Lib Dems have been successful in their strategy of associating incumbent Tory MP Mike Freer with Brexit. Freer currently serves as a whip in Boris Johnson’s Government.

“People want to see an end to this Brexit chaos,” said Berger on the release of the poll. “They don’t want a Conservative MP who is facilitating a calamitous campaign of taking the country to a no-deal cliff edge.”

Freer, in fact, voted in April for a confirmatory referendum during a series of “indicative votes” held by MPs to try to chart a way through Brexit. But, according to the poll, his support has nevertheless plummeted by 22 per cent in the constituency, which voted 69 per cent in favour of Remain.

Labour’s support also appears to have collapsed in the constituency and the party is even struggling to field a candidate. Sara Conway, a Barnet councillor and former frontrunner, quit the race after she told the Jewish Chronicle that claims of anti-Semitism had been “weaponised by certain media commentators” and that the row was “whipped up”. Twenty per cent of the constituency’s residents are Jewish.

Berger herself quit the Labour Party in February this year after claiming the party had become “institutionally anti-Semitic”.

Confident Evaristo had Booker in sights

Bernardine Evaristo’s joint Booker Prize win didn’t come as a huge surprise to the novelist. “When I was shortlisted I was like I’ve got to win it, it’s mine. To one or two people I said, ‘It’s my f***ing prize,’” she revealed at an Intelligence Squared/gal-dem talk last night. On the day of the result her confidence started wavering but eventually the judges awarded the prize to both Margaret Atwood and Evaristo, who won for her novel Girl, Woman, Other. She said: “My shock was absolutely genuine. But at the same time deep down I thought... ‘Yep.’”

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Presenter David Olusoga is still feeling the aftershocks of his TV show Civilisations, even though it finished airing last year. Olusoga says the show’s international appeal catches him off guard. “I wake up in the middle of the night to 400-plus tweets from Venezuela,” he tells The Londoner. “There’s no escape.”

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Lobbyist Iain Anderson launched his book F**k Business in Westminster this week and admitted people would be “amazed” he has forged a communications career after bungling an F1 photo op while advising Ken Clarke during the 2001 Tory leadership race. “It’s quite easy to get Ken into a racing car, it’s very difficult to get Ken out of a racing car.”

Eamonn on best behaviour at the Hero awards

Television personalities found themselves thronging The Bloomsbury Hotel last night at The Best Heroes awards. Bake Off series seven winner Candice Brown, actor Danny John-Jules and presenter Eamonn Holmes were among those celebrating at the event. Holmes, who posed alongside sports presenter Jacquie Beltrao, managed to stay out of trouble after his far-from-heroic incident at the Labour conference last month. The Londoner revealed police officers, one of whom was armed, were called after Holmes jokily lobbed an empty plastic bottle that accidentally hit a BBC presenter.

Also at the Best Heroes awards were television presenter Saira Khan and former Mis-Teeq singer Sabrina Washington, who has just released a new single called Gone. Washington’s comeback track tells the story of a “pop babe that took to the bottle when she left the stage”, though the singer has now given up the booze.

SW1A

Diane Abbott says she was shocked to see so many “posh white girls” on her first day at Cambridge University. “I had no idea what it was about actually. I’d just read novels by people who went to Cambridge.” On her first day the future shadow home secretary looked around the room and thought, “What the f**k have you done, Diane?” She added: “That’s probably the theme of my life.”

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Thangam Debbonaire says: “When you are playing Beethoven you really can’t think about politics — it’s a massive stress reduction.” The Labour MP is one quarter of chamber group the Statutory Instruments, which also includes Channel 4 News presenter Cathy Newman, and researchers Emily Benn and Katherine Chibah. The group are rehearsing late at night in Parliament again after taking a summer break with an eye on a Christmas gig. As Shakespeare didn’t quite say, if music be the food of de-stressing, play on...

How Lenny got sister's knickers in a twist

Lenny Henry recalls a brawl with his sister when they were children, after she caught him trying on her underwear.

“There was this big fight — like a cloud with the fists coming out in the cartoons. I still had her pants on as well,” he tells the Southbank Centre’s Book podcast. Eventually his mother settled it. “She said, ‘You can’t go in Kay’s room any more, you know? There’s women’s tings in there. She will kill you next time.’ I was in there the next day.”

Quote of the day

'What colour is the sky on your planet?'

Labour MP Kevan Jones blasts the party's claims that it's in the best ever shape to fight an election