Stricken

I suspect the little old Islington Tribune will get pick-up over the weekend, for its interview with the departing boss of the Arts Council, England, Dame Liz Forgan.

She describes the moment of her sacking, by then Culture Secretary, the starey-eyed Jeremy Hunt. “I went to see him about something else and he said ‘Before I talk about anything I have to tell you something’. He looked so stricken, I thought he was going to say he had caught some fatal disease, but he said, ‘It is one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make, but I am not going to renew your contract’."

“I said, ‘Why not?’ And still to this day I didn’t get a straight answer out of him. I said, ‘Look Jeremy, I think this is wrong, it’s a mistake. People will think it’s political’. ‘Oh, no, no,’ he said. He was completely within his rights to do that. It is a ministerial appointment. It’s renewable and the expectation is that unless you’ve done something terrible you get your contract renewed."

“And I hadn’t done anything terrible. On the contrary, I had actually saved his bacon by getting the spending review sorted with the Arts Council team, having to make nigh on 30 per cent cuts to its budget of £600million..... I was pretty cross.  But, you know, that’s politics.”