Trevor Nunn: ‘I chucked stones at the local Tories’

Despite parliamentary concern at the levels of online abuse suffered by Mps at the last election, sir trevor Nunn has decided that this is the moment to boast about his credentials as a political street-fighter.

the theatre director proudly recalls how, as a youth growing up in ipswich, he threw stones at the tory election candidate.

‘My dad brought me up to vote Labour. there was never any question of anything else,’ says sir trevor, who received a knighthood in 2002, four years after being named as a prominent donor to the Labour party under tony Blair.

‘the Labour Mp came canvassing on his bike and we all stood and cheered him. the Conservative came round in his car and we all threw stones at him.

‘Jeremy Corbyn has amazed all us,’ adds thrice-married Nunn, 77, a former artistic director of the Royal shakespeare Company.

‘if only he could have campaigned when Brexit was up for grabs as he campaigned for this General

Election, with a microphone high in the crowds, whipping people up into a frenzy.’

Perhaps ‘the people’ might become more frenzied if they knew a little more about Nunn’s sophisticated financial arrangements, which he entrusts to renowned tax specialist James Midgley, who is a director of Sir Trevor’s personal service company, Awayvale Ltd.

Via his LinkedIn page, Midgley assures potential clients of ‘bespoke financial management systems that help them make provision for tax — and [pay] as little as possible so that they know what can be spent and invested’. Nunn, who in 2011 enjoyed a year- long affair with Nancy Dell’Olio, frisky ex-lover of former England manager Sven- Goran Eriksson, can undoubtedly testify to Midgley’s financial dexterity.

Records recently filed at Companies House disclose that Awayvale retains assets of nearly £3 million, of which £1,508,861 has been loaned to Nunn — a nakedly capitalist ploy which minimises his tax bill.

Which presumably explains why the director is so sanguine about Corbyn’s proposal to increase corporation tax to a swingeing 26 per cent.