George Clooney last night condemned Donald Trump’s comments claiming postal votes in the US election are rigged as a sign of the “insanity” of today’s political climate.
“It’s insanity. We have the President of the United States right now trying to say that our mail-in ballots could be fraudulent,” the actor said.
He Zoomed in to London from Los Angeles, where he, his lawyer wife Amal (pictured with him, right) and their twins have been “stuck” all summer due to Covid-19, for a discussion with Edith Bowman at a BFI London Film Festival event.
“There have been something like nine actual frauds of a single mail-in ballot over the last 40 years when there have been like a billion votes,” Clooney said, adding “we are working with different sets of facts [in the public sphere today], and I worry about that.”
Clooney also discussed his upcoming Netflix film, The Midnight Sky, in which he plays a 70-year-old scientist living alone in the Arctic and working to stop a group of astronauts from returning home following a global catastrophe.
He sports a long beard and shaven head for the role and joked that Amal “was really happy when the movie was over”.
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Emmanuel Anyiam-Osigwe, founder of the British Urban Film Festival, says Bafta still has “a long, long way to go in its aim ... to remain relevant as a bastion of diversity,” after the academy announced films at BUFF will be eligible for Bafta awards. While it “can only be a good thing” BUFF is “under no illusion” about the work still to be done, he adds. Getting there.
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Andrew Neil has shared a song recorded for his new channel GB News, launching early next year. Crooner Jon Barker sings a ditty with some questionable lyrics, at one point praising Neil as “the insurgent with the quip”. That’s the same Andrew Neil who was editor of The Sunday Times, a BBC political interviewer and is current chairman of Spectator owner Press Holdings...
Emin shows it’s easy to shine a smile under mask
Tracey Emin made it down to the National Gallery last night for a private viewing of the Artemisia and Sin exhibitions, the latter of which shows her work. Happily, it was the National’s first event since lockdown — and it looked like Emin was smiling beneath her mask. More of this, please.
SW1A
Tory MP Esther McVey tells us the young shouldn’t feel uninspired growing up during the pandemic. “I was growing up to the music of The Specials who sang ‘This town is coming like a ghost town’... I used that as a fuel.” Stay positive.
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Bob Seely knows how to arrange a Zoom background. The Isle of Wight MP joined a Tory party fringe event for The House yesterday with a guitar artfully placed on a chair behind him. A swish black jacket hung on the other side. Rock on...