EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Corbyn spin doctor Seumas Milne's wife is divorcing him one year after pictures of his clinch with Australian lawyer

As the Stalinist right-hand man of Jeremy Corbyn, Seumas Milne has an iron grip on the Labour leadership.

Back at home, however, the all-powerful spin doctor has been forced to let go.

I hear he has left the home he shared in Richmond upon Thames with his wife of 26 years, Cristina Montanari.

‘Seumas has moved out and his wife has filed for divorce,’ claims one of his associates.

Married spin doctor Seumas Milne in a cinch with blonde barrister Jennifer Robinson

Married spin doctor Seumas Milne in a cinch with blonde barrister Jennifer Robinson

Has the hard-Left son of late BBC director-general Alasdair Milne now joined the Notting Hill set?

For Seumas, 59, has been spotted skulking round the swanky area of West London that is home to David Cameron, George Osborne and their well-heeled Tory chums.

Last summer, Milne was pictured canoodling with high-powered Australian lawyer Jennifer Robinson, 36, at the five-star Courthouse Hotel in East London’s trendy Shoreditch.

Unmarried Jennifer is a close friend of Amal Clooney and was a bridesmaid when her fellow human rights lawyer married George Clooney in Venice in 2014.

After pictures were published of Jennifer’s clinch with Milne, one newspaper was briefed, ungallantly, that the former Guardian journalist was ‘not a willing participant’ in the encounter, provoking much amusement.

Has the hard-Left son of late BBC director-general Alasdair Milne now joined the Notting Hill set?

Has the hard-Left son of late BBC director-general Alasdair Milne now joined the Notting Hill set?

Miss Robinson has worked for controversial Wikileaks founder Julian Assange for eight years. He has been holed up at the Ecuadorean embassy in Knightsbridge since 2012, after Sweden issued an international warrant for his arrest over allegations of sexual assault and rape.

Before she was snapped with Milne, she already appeared to be a fan, congratulating him on becoming Labour’s top spin doctor with the message: ‘This is brilliant news for Jeremy Corbyn. Congrats.’ Her barristers’ chambers, Doughty Street, represented Corbyn at the High Court during one of his leadership battles.

Miss Robinson was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, where she attended Balliol College, Milne’s alma mater. Milne was previously a pupil at £40,000-per-year Winchester College, where he stood in a mock election in 1974 as a Maoist Party candidate.

He has two grown-up children with Italian-born Cristina, who is said to work as a private tutor. Their son and daughter were educated at selective grammar schools, reportedly at Cristina’s insistence.

Last night, Milne declined to comment. 

 

The smart set's talking about... Prince Harry's model ex love

Sarah Ann Macklin was reported to have secretly courted Prince Harry at the same time as he was trying to woo Meghan Markle.

Now, the 28-year-old Burberry model appears to have found an aristocratic replacement among the Prince’s pals.

I hear that Sarah Ann, who has a degree in nutrition, is going out with Viscount Erleigh, 32-year-old heir to the Marquess of Reading and brother of girl-about-town Lady Natasha Rufus Isaacs.

‘They are a couple,’ one of their friends confirms.

Investment banker Julian Erleigh and Sarah Ann revved up their romance last weekend at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in West Sussex.

The pair were introduced to each other by Julian’s sister Lady Nats, who is something of a matchmaker extraordinaire.

The fashion designer also introduced the Prince to Zimbabwe-born Chelsy Davy back in 2004.

Chelsy and Harry went on to enjoy an on-off relationship that spanned six years.

Lord Erleigh quietly split up recently with his beautiful girlfriend of four years, Olivia Callaghan, 26, who runs a toy company.

Sarah Ann is signed to leading agency Select Model Management and has worked for brands including Abercrombie & Fitch and Matthew Williamson.

She turned heads in a racy photo-shoot for Esquire magazine in 2012, wearing a lace bra.

Her new boyfriend may have a grand title, but will he measure up to Sarah Ann’s former boyfriend, the supermodel David Gandy?

 

Lily Collins splashes out as dad Phil falters

Lily Collins, who plays frail Fantine in BBC1’s forthcoming adaptation of Les Miserables, is the picture of health as she frolics in the sea at Ischia in Italy.

Wearing a £176 Stella McCartney swimsuit, the 29-year-old actress is on holiday with friends, staying at the five-star Hotel Regina Isabella.

Her father, the Eighties pop star and former Genesis drummer Phil Collins, meanwhile, looked more like her grandad than her father as he hobbled aboard a yacht in the South of France’s St Tropez.

Phil, 67, who fathered Lily with the second of his three wives, Jill Tavelman, needed a walking stick following a hotel room fall last summer.

The poor chap, who can no longer play the drums or piano, had to perform recent concerts while sitting in a chair.

 

Cressie ditches the 'pretty blonde' look

Do gentlemen no longer prefer blondes?

With Prince Harry now married to dark-haired Meghan Markle, his ex-girlfriend Cressida Bonas has undergone a radical transformation.

The blonde 29-year-old actress shared a photograph online yesterday of herself with brunette locks. Well, aristocratic Cressie did declare earlier this year: ‘I really don’t want to be typecast as a pretty blonde.’

 

Oscar-winner Jeremy Irons has castigated U.S. star Scarlett Johansson after she pulled out of a film in which she was to play a transsexual. She bailed in the wake of criticism that the role should have gone to a trans actor.

‘Acting is about playing different sorts of people,’ Irons tells me at the Xerjoff Royal Charity Polo Cup.

‘You don’t have to be a murderer to play a murderer, you don’t have to be a trans-sexual to play a transsexual. It’s ludicrous — she shouldn’t have done it.’ 

 

Are the owners of London’s royal haunts feeling the pinch now that Prince Harry has given up his boozing in favour of cosy nights in with his clean-living wife? 

His former favourite nightclub Boujis closed down just after he met Meghan Markle. Now, another of his regular venues, Albert’s Club in South Kensington, has shut its doors. A spokesman insists it will be launched again in a different location.