Barry gardiner

With the BAFTAs last Sunday and the Oscars next week, film award season is well underway. And while it’s too late for new entries this year, Mr S hears of a dark horse for next year’s competitions. Step forward, Labour’s Barry Gardiner, who is the unlikely star of a documentary about his recent private members’ bill to ban ‘fire and rehire’ practices. Gardiner, Jeremy Corbyn’s colourful shadow trade secretary, ran a series of eye-catching stunts to raise publicity for the campaign, including gatecrashing the 1922 drinks at Tory party conference: a move that prompted frenzied speculation of an imminent defection. His efforts to change the law might have been unsuccessful but at least

As a young man, Barry Gardiner planned to become an Episcopal priest, serving as secretary of the Scottish Christian Movement. Fortunately for the country however, Gardiner decided that first academia and then politics were his true calling, rising eventually to the giddy heights in government of being Gordon Brown’s special representative on forestry and then Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow trade secretary in opposition.  Having stunned Westminster with a one day wonder bid to be Labour leader, he returned to the backbenches last April where he has largely remained a dutifully loyal presence in spite of some social distancing rule breaking. But as a onetime wannabe vicar on the holiest day of the Christian calendar, Mr