Dame Helena signs her book, Just Law, in Waterstone's, Hampstead

WHEN I met Dame Helena Kennedy shopping in Primrose Hill recently she greeted me with a quick kiss on the cheek.
She was casually dressed, jeans, loose jacket, comfortable looking.
But what a transformation on Monday evening when she enjoyed sofa politics with Michael Portillo for Andrew Neil’s This Week show on BBC2.
She looked positively glamourous.
My colleague couldn’t help passing on my thoughts at a book signing of her latest paperback Just Law at Waterstone’s in Hampstead High Street on Tuesday evening.
Dolled up? “Oh, it’s the make-up artists, they do wonders,” she replied in that enchanting soft Scottish accent of hers. How did Helena, who lives in Belsize Park – a Labour woman through and through – get along with that softest of Tories, Michael Portillo?
“They kept asking us to sit closer together,” she said. “They like things cosy on that show….”
For politicos and serious minded readers, Helena, a QC, talked at Waterstone’s about Just Law and an earlier book, published in 1991, Eve was Framed which claimed that British justice was a male bastion.
“I have had to discuss a new stereotype the ladette,” she said. “If it’s shown that a woman accusing a man of rape was out binge drinking with her midriff bared it’s almost impossible to get a conviction in court.”
A woman of strong political convictions she took a swipe at the government’s piecemeal attrition of civil liberties in the name of national security.
“I’m a Labour peer and proudly so,” she said “but my first loyalty has to be to the protection of human rights. I think that one of the problems of this government is being too enraptured with the business of power.”

It could never happen here... or could it?

A LABOUR party committee man in Hampstead was in deep denial over the postal ballot scandal when we talked over the phone the other day.
Headlines at the time had been all about the remarks of a judge in Birmingham, Richard Mawrey QC (pictured), who had compared Britain to a ‘banana republic’ following the guilty verdict on Labour party officials for rigging a local postal ballot.
“I hear,” said the committee man “that the judge is a Tory.”
Once he had hung a label on what was a nasty dilemma for him our committee man didn’t have to give it another thought.
Nor did a Labour councillor I met at the Town Hall over the weekend.
A comment in last week’s New Journal warning about the risks involved in postal votes had clearly rattled the councillor.
Fraudsters may be found among Labour supporters in Birmingham but nothing wrong could occur in Camden – according to the councillor. “It can’t happen here”, said our councillor, head firmly in the sand.

Brian’s right up against it – but John’s off

FRIENDS of planning chairman Councillor Brian Woodrow are wondering whether he might be challenged for his position for the first time in years at the Labour Party’s annual reshuffle on Monday night.
It would be a way for party organisers to put to rest an embarrassing Standards Board investigation into his behaviour, allies in the party fear.
Councillor Woodrow remains silent on the possibility.
At the same meeting, it should also be interesting to see whether Theo Blackwell, who was overthrown as deputy leader last year, will have a shot at getting his old job back.
Surprisingly, finance wizard John Mills seems to find business pursuits in Hong Kong more interesting than electioneering in Camden. He returns on May 2.

Anne’s face was a picture at gallery’s 90th birthday bash

ANNE Robinson, the formidable presenter of The Weakest Link has always prided herself for her line in wisecracks, so perhaps it wasn’t such a surprise to see her at the 90th birthday bash for the Ben Uri gallery.
The Boundary Road, South Hampstead, gallery has been a home to Jewish art since 1915 but wasn’t big enough for Sunday’s party, which was held at the Robert Sandelson gallery in Cork Street, Mayfair.
Anne told me: “I’m not Jewish but I’m backing the plans to open a Jewish Tate in London.
“We don’t have a site yet, although Brian Sewell has suggested Somerset House and I think the Queen should give up Buckingham Palace for it.”
Guests at the party bought £125 raffle tickets guaranteeing them a picture off the wall at the end of the night.
But Telegraph journalist Joshua Rosenburg and his Daily Mail columnist wife Melanie Phillips seemed to be playing fast and loose with the rules.
Joshua, a legal expert, sneakily swapped the painting he won – a stark black and white print entitled “locked in” – for a pretty painting of flowers.
He explained: “Everyone’s doing it.”
Melanie, who has strong views on law and order, eventually relented.
Pictured above: Top left, Anne Robinson in good voice, centre, gallery chairman, David Glasser and right Joshua Rosenberg and Melanie Philips.