PANDORA

Body blow to Klein as Anita shows her rival no mercy

Anti-globalisation campaigners must prepare to choose between two of their most high-profile activists. Although Anita Roddick and Naomi Klein have collaborated on publications in the past, Roddick, left, has now launched a withering attack on the pin-up girl of the movement.

"It's difficult to know what she really thinks," says the Body Shop founder about Klein, whose book No Logo has become the Das Kapital of McDonald's- hating types. "I guess she might have quite a critical attitude towards the Body Shop, but we both know that real change has to come from the financial institutions and not from one company."

Klein, right, was invited to pen an essay for Roddick's 2001 book, Globalisation - Take It Personally, but her attractions since appear to have waned for the pioneering businesswoman.

"For Naomi Klein, who is in a very academic position, it's very easy to adopt those postures, as she doesn't have to look after a company nor feed her workers," continues Roddick, whose Body Shop chain now boasts more than 1,900 outlets in 50 countries.

"I don't believe that wealth is a bad thing when its objective is to create and share; it's greed that's bad."

Roddick, who relinquished the joint title of chairman of the Body Shop with her husband, Gordon, in 2002, adds: "Perhaps it's my Catholic education that's inculcated me with the idea of sharing, but accumulating tons of money for oneself is an obscenity."

Celebs can't save pub

EVERYONE FROM the PM down is keen to sign up celebrities to help a good cause. But the sad experience of a pub in Camden, north London, suggests that it isn't always helpful.

A writer named Tess Read is campaigning to save the Crown and Goose in Delancy Street from being turned into a beer hall, and she's signed up many of the area's trendy residents.

"Phill Jupitus, [right] Robert Elms and the band Madness have agreed to support us," she tells me. "And Jon Snow [left] said he'd do anything he can to help. Unfortunately, I've heard the council is about to approve plans to convert it into a hideous modern monstrosity."

Blunkett's hat-trick

SO FAR, 2005 has been a pretty good year for David Blunkett. The former Home Secretary has been allowed to keep his old ministerial residence (a nice pad in Belgravia) and his chauffeur. Can he have scored a hat-trick and avoided council tax too?

"If the official residence is declared by the minister, or former minister, to be a second home, then council tax is not payable on it," a spokesman for the Cabinet Office tells me. "The cost of maintaining it includes the cleaning and all the bills would fall to the Government, with the possible exception of telephone bills, where sometimes the minister might make a contribution."

But then, they don't comment on individual cases, so we can't be sure.

Where are all the women directors?

JULIET STEVENSON has nailed her colours to the feminist mast with an attack against sexism in the film industry.

"I had a look in Time Out today and of the 118 films on in London, only nine are directed by women," she tells me, with unnerving accuracy. "There must be something wrong there."

Stevenson, left, who is most famous for her role in Anthony Minghella's Truly Madly Deeply, thinks that female directors give films different qualities from the Spielbergs and Scorseses of this world. "Women entertain self-doubt more frequently than men do, and they are often good at self- parody," she says.

Not that the 48-year-old actress is angling for a move behind the camera.

"I worry that if I became a director, I would forget my children completely," she explains. "They already have to deal with a schizophrenic woman, but if I was directing as well they would be sidelined."

Piers Morgan's reputation as a fearless newspaper editor has transformed easily into that of a ferocious commentator, but Pandora hears that in fact he's a big softie. "I cry terribly in films," he told me at last week's opening of The Anniversary.

"Fever Pitch was the teariest film I ever watched. As for Castaway, I cried the very moment Tom Hanks beat death. In fact, I even cried the moment I heard the storyline."

Useful information for politicians lined up for a grilling on his chat show, Morgan and Platell, which has been recommissioned by Channel 4 despite being described by one reviewer as "the most awful political show in living memory".

pandora@independent.co.uk www.independent.co.uk/pandora