I am doing a post rather belatedly of my visit on Friday to Portcullis House. I was there to see Adam Dant’s Election Special in which he trailed the politicians and recorded not so much them as their public in a large graphic collage based on Leeds Town Hall. But I was also taken upstairs to see the run of recent political portraits, including Tony Benn by Andrew Tift which I had seen before, Margaret Beckett in egg tempera by Antony Williams, and, most impressively, Michael Foot as a snowy white magus by Robert Lenkiewicz, the eccentric painter of Plymouth.

Worth noting the work of RAs, notably Michael Hopkins’s design of Portcullis House – not an easy commission for a Committee of MPs who could never make up their minds.
Yes, I knew it was a very complicated commission post-Glyndebourne and should have said what I feel – that it is ageing well, particularly its beautiful use of materials and the great wooden arched interior. Charles
Did you see my tiny bronze maquette of Thatcher in a bullet proof glass case?
No, I wish I had. Charles