Cllr Gould takes time out from the celebrations to catch up with all the latest news and the ceremony at the West London Synagogue [Lara Arnott]

Peeps, the week in local politics

SOME may think every council project hits delays somewhere along the line, and occasionally sneaks a little over budget.

You’ll have to ask somebody else about the cost but, after postponements and hurdles caused by the Covid pandemic, Peeps can report that Town Hall leader Georgia Gould finally married the love of her life on bank holiday Monday.

She was wed to civil servant Alex Zatman in the West London Synagogue near Marble Arch, decorated with purple and green suffragette colours. Baroness Julia Neuberger, the synagogue’s senior rabbi who is often heard on Pause For Thought and other radio slots, conducted the ceremony, explaining each part to those who had never been to a Jewish wedding before.

While traditions were maintained, Cllr Gould came in to Leonard Cohen’s Dance Me To The End Of Love.

She wore trainers underneath her white wedding dress but still struggled when it came to the tradition of the couple breaking glass. As the wedding certificates were signed, the synagogue’s singers sang versions of the couple’s favourite tracks by Fleetwood Mac and Oasis, but departed to the sound of Alastair Campbell, the former Downing Street communications chief, playing the bagpipes.

Cllr Gould’s family – her mother is publishing powerhouse Baroness Gail Rebuck and her father was the late pollster Lord Philip Gould – have shared a lifetime friendship with Mr Campbell’s own clan, including the campaigning writer Fiona Millar, his partner, comedian Grace Campbell, their daughter, and sons Rory and Calum.

The couple in Regent’s Park on the day Mr Zatman proposed in May 2019

Several Labour Party heavyweights were on the guest list with former leader Ed Miliband, London mayor Sadiq Khan and Lord Peter Mandelson among those clinking glasses at each toast.

Another to join the celebrations was Dame Margaret Hodge – who was responsible for Cllr Gould’s first appearance in the Camden New Journal.

As a 15-year-old fretting over exam stress, she had appeared in a front page story about joining a deputation of students from Camden School for Girls asking Ms Hodge – then a government minister – for education reforms.

It would be remiss of Peeps not to reprint that picture from our front page back in 2003 again this week.

Dame Margaret Hodge meets 15-year-old Georgia Gould, far right

Hampstead and Kilburn MP Tulip Siddiq and several familiar faces from Camden Council were also at the reception, as well as friends from local charities and former classmates from CSG.

In his speech, Mr Campbell was one of many who recalled Cllr Gould’s father, imagining a conversation with him from a “focus group” beyond the clouds and suggesting how proud he would have been that his daughter had broken through a geographical divide to marry a northerner with a northern accent.

Mr Zatman is from Manchester and an avid Manchester United fan; Lord Gould, conversely, instilled a love of Queen’s Park Rangers in the bride.

Like her closeness to her sister, Grace, their relationship had always been close and Cllr Gould had even travelled to far-flung polling events across the UK with him as a teenager. He died from cancer 10 years ago and is buried in Highgate Cemetery; the family visited the grave before the wedding.

The reception, with a strictly vegetarian menu, was at London Zoo – not too far from where Mr Zatman had proposed in a “secret” rose garden in Regent’s Park, not knowing then that the coronavirus crisis would lead to an extended engagement.

Here an anecdote was shared about how Mr Zatman had once said he had the easy part of the relationship, telling her: “You are busy trying to make sure the whole world is looked after – and I only have to look after you.”