Cuddles Coleman

LONDON Assembly members seemed to be missing their old sharp-tongued colleague Brian Coleman at their first meeting since the City Hall elections this morning. They spent at least ten minutes sharing memories of the outgoing Camden and Barnet member. Labour’s Len Duvall said Coleman was capable of great “acts of kindness” that people did not often associate with him, although accepted that he wasn’t “a cuddly person”. Lib Dem Caroline Pidgeon also formally thanked Mr Coleman for his work but conceded she too had “no cuddling anecdotes, maybe I was missing out on something”.

To this, Jenny Jones revealed she was the one who got all the hugs: “I have to disagree with what Len was saying, Brian was a cuddly person”. She went on to tell of the time the Evening Standard had asked her whether she had ever “smoked dope”. Jenny went on: “I told them that I had smoked dope on my 50th birthday. Brian Coleman came into my office and said you’ve made a terrible mistake admitting that in the paper…. you should never admit your age in the papers.” And everybody fell about laughing. And it was almost lunchtime.