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Labour leadership hopeful Owen Smith has been seen buying an ice pick at his local branch of Millets.
Smith was seen sidling into the outdoors supplies shop in a ‘furtive’ manner before browsing the stock, whistling with the faux-innocence of a teenager working up the courage to buy a copy of Razzle.
He waited for the shop to be empty of other customers before approaching the counter and asking manager Simon Williams if he had any icepicks, preferably under the counter ‘if you know what I mean’.
When asked, Mr Smith added that he’d like his ice pick in a plain brown wrapper.
“I was a bit surprised, as Owen never struck me as the sort for mountaineering”, Mr Williams told us.
“More the sort to have a bit of a midlife crisis and take up cycling, I would have said from experience. We get a lot like him buying lycra.
“But I can’t imagine what he’d use an ice pick for. I asked, and he just laughed and said he was going to pick a friend’s brains.
“We’ve had a bit of a rush on with them lately, actually,” he added.
“We had that Michael Gove in last week looking for the exact same thing.”
Upon leaving the shop, Owen Smith hailed a taxi and asked to be taken to Islington.
