Chelsea owner Todd Boehly, pictured, has infuriated local residents over plans to build an all-day music venue near the club’s Stamford Bridge stadium, leading to a bad-tempered meeting earlier this month.
After 350 residents objected to the idea of a venue on the stadium concourse, Chelsea’s President of Business, Tom Glick, agreed to meet them to assuage their fears.
However, the meeting descended into farce, as angry questions interrupted a planned presentation. One local said: “We are neighbours of yours, but you need to treat us with respect”.
Glick said he had “underestimated” local anger over the idea. Now the plans, which include a marquee, have been put on hold.
Results on the pitch have not been good in US businessman Boehly’s first year either. Chelsea are currently sitting at tenth in the Premier League.
Starmer stays shtum on Iraq War anniversary
As a young lawyer, Sir Keir Starmer condemned the Iraq War as a “breach of international law” in an article for The Guardian, and marched in protests against it. Twenty years on, his position seems closer to “no comment”.
On the anniversary of the start of the war this week, we asked Starmer’s team if he still agreed with what he wrote in 2003, or ex-Labour leader Ed Miliband’s view that the party was “wrong to take Britain to war”. They chose not to reply.
Sir Keir has got close to the war’s joint architect, Tony Blair, taking his advice on winning elections.
Top Home Office civil servant
Home Secretary Suella Braverman may not welcome a new interview by her top civil servant Matthew Rycroft on the Rwanda asylum scheme. Rycroft got in trouble when he didn’t have stopping small boats as a top priority. Now he tells Civil Service World: “If a minister has chosen to do something, which is lawful, our job is to implement it in a compassionate way, whatever it is.” But is it lawful?
Christie’s song choice hits the wrong note
Christie’s picked an odd song for an online video to promote this week’s modern British and Irish sale. Over a montage of clips of works by artists such as Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore was played... Gary Glitter’s Rock and Roll Part 2. The singer, who is a convicted paedophile, had just been recalled to jail for breaching his bail conditions. Followers wondered if it was the best time to choose the tune.
I can KOKO, so can you
Models Soo Joo Park, Georgia May Jagger and Jourdan Dunn went to a dinner at Camden’s House of KOKO to celebrate singer Shawn Mendes’s collaboration with designer Tommy Hilfiger last night. Hilfiger and Mendes were in town too, as were Pamela Anderson and Alexa Chung. In Berlin, actors Chris Pine and Hugh Grant went to a screening of their new film, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Grant has admitted that he had to apologise to crew after having a tantrum on set.
