Sarah Sands: What would a victory for Emmanuel Macron mean for London?

Today, the French election darling Emmanuel Macron is speaking in London to get the votes of French Londoners. As Boris Johnson was fond of saying, to the irritation of the French ambassador, London is France’s sixth-biggest city.

Macron fits in well in London, which is one of his drawbacks in France. He is a pro-European, centrist former Rothschild banker who looks even younger than his 39 years. He goes against the current trend for older men needing the validation of younger trophy partners. He could be France’s Justin Trudeau.

Metropolitan expats find him appealing and worrying. How does he match up against Marine Le Pen? Her card is security, and it is a hard one for him to play. He could toughen up on immigration but he strays into her area. She looks as tough as hell and he does not. Furthermore, Le Pen’s asymmetric politics make her hard to fight squarely. She is a social liberal who supports same-sex marriage. She is an economic protectionist who does not love bankers. She is bankrolled by Russia. She is a mix of far Right and far Left. The common link with Brexit and with Trump is a distrust of globalisation. Russia has also taken an interest in each election and Macron believes its cyber-hackers are bombarding his campaign at the moment.

What is the best outcome for London? In some ways, Macron could do us most competitive damage. He is economically plausible and making a tempting case for financial institutions worried by Brexit to move to Paris. If Marine Le Pen gets in, France would be a less attractive place for liberal internationalists. It would also mean that one of the two remaining central pillars of the European Union would collapse.

As a German official told me the other day, France was Germany’s saviour after the Second World War. Theirs was the European project. Without France, Germany is alone. Oddly, the “patriotic spring” has not reached Germany. There may be an anti-immigration mood but, according to the diplomat, there is no Brexit “contagion”. Germany believes its soul is in the European Union.

The Prime Minister’s stated position is that Britain wants a strong European Union to trade with, but I wonder if that is the view of Brexiteers. Those who see it as a corrupt bureaucracy, as does Trump, must surely want to see its decline hastened. The domino effect has to be a calculation.

So I shall go to watch Emmanuel Macron speak today, because a lot seems to be riding on him. Can he reverse the trend, as Tony Blair has tried to do, attracting enormous hostility? Will France provide an alternative political narrative or is the message the same, in different lands and different guises, that it is time for a new world order?

The 250,000 French in London have already made a cultural contribution to the city. South Kensington is full of little Macrons on scooters in padded navy jackets. The Eurostar is the love train between the countries. Now the EU stands or falls on the fortunes of Macron, who is not a conventional politician but a conventional member of the French establishment. Who dares predict the result?

Having no food intolerance is now socially embarrassing

Samantha Cameron looks radiantly healthy in her photoshoot for The Times, to promote her new clothes collection. I recognise the Ella Woodward clear eyes and translucent skin, which is the facial uniform of Notting Hill. And sure enough, Samantha had just finished her January detox: gluten-free, dairy- free, alcohol-free.

The grand finale of the diet is the list of food intolerances revealed. Conversation is the same in London’s Cowshed constituency and at London Fashion Week. “Intolerant of hemp? No! I am eggs and Merlot!” I queued behind a woman at a salad bar in Kensington who summoned the weary-looking East European cook to see if there was a hint of onion in any of the dishes. “I have just discovered I am onion-intolerant!” she crowed.

My brother, half of the cabaret duo Kit and McConnel, has a favourite one about a shy woman who became the star of parties once she had located food intolerances. I have not been so lucky. I paid for a blood test that I hoped would be life-changing. Imagine the person I could be if I was no longer constrained by gluten. Alas, common old me. Out of a list of 100 foods I was tolerant to all of them. There is a slight chance I could appeal on coriander. But basically I have the constitution of a Nicholas Soames rather than a Samantha Cameron.

Post-Brexit, Britain could take its lead from Unilever

There is a Brexit dimension to almost everything. When I heard about Kraft’s proposed takeover of Unilever followed by the sudden retreat I had mixed feelings.

Don’t we want big sexy deals that raise share prices and create excitement and work in the City? Bankers! Lawyers! PRs! London at the centre of the action. Not fortress Britain.

And yet and yet. The origin of Unilever is moving. Lever Brothers was a paternalistic Victorian company, a little like Cadbury, which paid for its workers to go to concerts. Workers before shareholders. Is this a post-Brexit model we should be creating? Presumably Theresa May is conflicted. What should the future look like?

* A University of Edinburgh study shows how much people change over their lifetimes. What remains true is the human voice — it is why radio is, to me, so mystically potent, particularly in the age of social media. I met Steve Hewlett, the Radio 4 presenter who has just died, only a few times but like many radio listeners I feel close to him because of his voice. It struggled recently but the humanity and humour remained. The Longfellow quote “the human voice is the organ of the soul” never seemed truer.