This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The author and journalist Naomi Klein has likened Donald Trump to a “fatberg”, a congealed lump of fat and sanitary products that causes dangerous blockages in sewers.

'Total monster': fatberg blocks London sewage system Read more

Klein, the Canadian author of bestsellers including No Logo and The Shock Doctrine and a Guardian contributor, was the international guest speaker at the Labour party conference in Brighton. Previous speakers have included Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela.

Before Klein spoke, Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, said: “I look forward to hearing [Klein’s] insights into the upheavals in global politics and how we can make common cause to tackle the challenges of our times and build societies in the interests of the many, not the few.”

In remarks greeted by laughter and applause, Klein said: “It’s tough to know exactly how to adequately sum [Trump] up. So let me try a local example.

“You know that horrible thing currently clogging up London’s sewers – I believe you call it the fatberg – well, Trump is the political equivalent of that.

“He is a merger of all that is noxious in the culture, in the economy and in the body politic, all kind of glommed together in a self-adhesive mass. And we’re finding it very, very hard to dislodge.”

Earlier this month, a fatberg that weighed the same as 11 double-decker buses and was as long as two football pitches was found to be blocking a section of the London sewers in the East End of the city.

The congealed mass of fat, wet wipes and nappies was one of the biggest ever found and had to be removed to avoid flooding the streets above with raw sewage. Clearing it with shovels and high-powered water jets would probably take three weeks, authorities said.

After the discovery of a huge fatberg on the other side of London in 2013, a Thames Water spokesman told the Guardian: “It’s steaming and it unleashes an unimaginable stink.”

Its discovery, he said, had saved the borough of Kingston from “a terrible fate”: being turned into a de facto cesspit.