Up the shirkers! Red Len lives it up at £1,200 a night Monte Carlo hotel
AS THE country’s most powerful union baron – and the man responsible for Jeremy Corbyn’s rise to power – ‘Red’ Len McCluskey has led his militant members onto the streets to march against austerity.
So where better for the Unite leader to relax this weekend than in Monte Carlo’s Hotel de Paris, where typical ‘junior suites’ cost £1,200 a night and the Michelin-starred restaurant charges £280 per head for the gourmet menu.
The 66-year-old former docker spent Friday evening at the hotel’s world-famous Le Bar Américain, with a group of friends including a mystery socialite.
Mr McCluskey, who recently helped to thwart a putsch against Mr Corbyn by Labour MPs, was seen laughing and drinking glasses of white wine on the bar’s terrace overlooking the Mediterranean.
Last night ‘Red Len’ was mocked by a Tory MP for ‘living the high life’ while fellow trade unionists in the RMT were ‘crippling the country with strikes’.
The five-star Hotel de Paris, opened in 1863 and is one of the world’s most luxurious hotels, where the cheapest room is £450 a night.
It boasts two Michelin-starred restaurants, including Alain Ducasse’s flagship Louis XV, which serves lobster and foie gras dishes and
‘Mr McCluskey is enjoying the high life’
contains a 400,000-strong wine cellar. Le Bar Américain is described in guides as displaying ‘an elegant low-key ambiance of beautiful wood, leather armchairs, soft lighting and windows onto the sea, with live music every evening’, and ‘evoking the air of a 1920s speakeasy fit for the characters of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel’.
The wine list includes a Jeroboam of Dom Perignon Rose champagne, vintage 2000, costing £12,800. A glass of Glenlivet 1943 single malt whisky is £820, and a bottle of beer is £13. On the bar menu, a 50g selection of caviar comes in at £224, while a steak is £51 and a lobster club sandwich is £54.
Unite, the country’s largest union, is Labour’s biggest backer, giving £19million to the party during the last Parliament alone.
Mr McCluskey has played a key role in propping up Jeremy Corbyn. Even though only 15 MPs backed his candidature, under party rules affiliated trade unionists had a third of the votes – so when Mr McCluskey swung his 1.4million members behind Mr Corbyn his victory was all but assured.
Last month he thwarted an attempt by deputy leader Tom Watson to negotiate Mr Corbyn’s resignation after the mass exit of MPs from his front bench, clearing the way for Mr Corbyn to stand for leader again in September’s contest against Owen Smith. One of Mr McCluskey’s closest friends, Karie Murphy, is the director of Mr Corbyn’s office.
Party moderates believe that Unite was also the hidden hand behind last week’s failed legal bid to allow 130,000 recent Labour members – the majority of them Corbyn supporters – to vote in the contest.
Last night a fellow drinker at the hotel’s bar suggested the mystery socialite in Mr McCluskey’s group was Farah Sassoon, a Labour donor who first came to public attention three years ago when she was pictured draping her leg across Sally Bercow’s lap in a cab on a night out. She has given more than £40,000 to Labour, and a further £5,000 to John Bercow’s bid for re-election as Speaker – triggering controversy when it emerged he had handed her a Commons security pass.
Tory MP Stuart Andrew said: ‘While his fellow trade unionists are crippling our rail services with strikes, Red Len is enjoying the high life – it’s clearly Monte Carlo o or bust for McCluskey’.
Last night a spokeswoman for Mr r McCluskey said he was visiting thee hotel in a private capacity for a friend’s birthday and the union hadd not contributed towards the cost of his visit. She did not say whether he had stayed in a room at the hotel.
Ms Sassoon could not be reached ed for comment.