Yahoo News Judge is judged — and loses posts
Barbara Judge, the chair of the Institute of Directors who resigned this week following accusations of bullying and racism, has stepped down from a number of other institutions, including Dementia UK, where she was a trustee, and the Royal Academy, where she was a board member.
Lady Judge holds positions at 14 organisations. The Londoner contacted 12 and learned that at least six of them are reviewing her position, or have dropped or suspended her already.
“Lady Barbara Judge has stepped down from her role as a trustee at Dementia UK in light of the allegations,” a representative said this morning. We had heard that the Royal Academy had excused her from her role on the board before the 41 accusations from 14 employees at the IoD came to light, though they say she still an Emeritus Trustee.
Today, Historic Royal Palaces tell us "Lady Judge has voluntarily decided to step aside from her fundraising role with Historic Royal Palaces while she pursues a solution to the allegations."
Two days ago, Hibob, a tech start-up, quietly removed her from its website.
Lady Judge is also chair of the Association for Consultancy and Engineering, the fraud-prevention service, Cifas, and tech start-up Smart-Up, which was co-founded by Henry Lane Fox, brother of Martha.
SmartUp recently backed Judge, saying: “Of course, we at SmartUp do not condone racism or sexism in any way. However, Barbara has pushed back strongly on the allegations and the process of how they were conducted, and she remains chair.”
Judge is also honorary visiting professor at the Cass Business School and a visiting fellow at the University of Oxford’s Said Business School Centre for Corporate Reputation. “We are concerned about the allegations that have been made relating to Lady Judge’s conduct in her role as chair of the Institute of Directors,” a spokesperson said today. “We are reviewing these allegations as a matter of urgency.”
Earlier this week we reported that Judge was planning to sue the IoD. The claims against her are understood to have been covertly recorded by Stephen Martin, the IoD’s director general. Judge’s interim replacement is Chris Walton, the former chief of easyJet.
The very fine art of capturing Mrs May
Caricaturist Martin Rowson was much happier at the Wednesday launch of Andrew Gimson’s Prime Ministers, a book he illustrated, than when Theresa May replaced David Cameron.
“I was sitting at my drawing board weeping, thinking holy s**t, I cannot draw the Prime Minister,” he said, adding: “As a caricaturist you know when you’ve got them because you have your hand up their soul, as it were, and I hadn’t got Theresa May at all.” But then he had a flash of inspiration: “I hadn’t got her eyes far enough down her face.”
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Don’t Cry For Me, Iron Lady? Andrew Lloyd Webber says Margaret Thatcher once sneaked in to watch Evita and loved it. “A few years later at a dinner in her Downing Street flat she joked that I should compose some entrance music for the next Tory party conference like Eva’s on the balcony of the Casa Rosada.”
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Artist Alba Hodsoll launched her exhibition Seed at Camden’s Cob Gallery last night. The sculptures and paintings use large coco de mer seeds. They look pretty saucy. “My last show was all about sex in pornography, but in this one I wanted to be gentler,” Hodsoll says. “Sexuality is about so much more than sex.”
Ecclestone clan makes an optimistic show after insults from Petra's ex
The Ecclestone family showed some solidarity last night after James Stunt, the ex-husband of Petra, gave an interview to Tatler, in which he attacked the whole clan. Stunt took aim at his in-laws, blaming Petra’s father, ex-Formula 1 magnate Bernie Ecclestone, for the breakdown of his marriage, compared his head to a “melon” and Petra’s mother Slavica to Lady Macbeth.
Tamara, Petra’s older sister who is married to Jay Rutland, took to Instagram to hit back at Stunt: “What kind of a ‘man’ does this on his daughter’s birthday?” she wrote. “Unless he stops telling lies about my family we will have to start telling the truth about him.”
The family was in Westbourne Grove’s Maddox Gallery for Dan Baldwin’s fittingly titled exhibition, A New Optimism. He says his work represents his stance towards a “darkening global mood”.
This has presumably been brought on by Trump, not Stunt.
SW1A
Labour’s Emily Thornberry says she doesn’t understand why children take their father’s surname. “I kept my last name when I got married because I’m ‘Emily Thornberry’, but when I had my first child my husband swooped. I just thought, ‘This is a bit of my body that is now out in the world. How sweet he thinks he’s got something to do with it’.”
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A power cut has halted supplies of bacon butties in the MPs-only tea room of the House of Commons. The immense weight of scaffolding caused a pipe to break, flooding a basement and electrics. MPs may wait a while before they get hot food again, but a Commons spokesman said "A power supply issue affected two of our catering outlets and a very small number of offices on the estate on Tuesday 13 March. Contingency plans were activated and engineers temporarily reconnected power supplies in the early afternoon, ahead of a permanent fix being implemented over the weekend."
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Is Jacob Rees-Mogg obsessed with his nanny? Whenever we see him he brings her up. Asked if he’d like a biography written, he replied: “Well, it wouldn’t sell very well. Other than my mother and nanny there wouldn’t be many subscribers.”
Quote of the day
‘In honour of the late Stephen Hawking I have spent the morning staring into space’
Grayson Perry pays homage to the world’s favourite theoretical physicist
Lightsabers at the ready for Felicity
Star Wars Rogue One actor Felicity Jones has returned from a galaxy far, far away and landed very, very near, in Holland Park. She has secured a space at Second Home, the west London outpost of the office hub and members’ club set up by Rohan Silva.
There she will join the River Café’s Ruth Rogers and WAH Nails founder Sharmadean Reid. Singer Annie Lennox and comedian Alan Carr are regulars, too. Jones needed a base to go through scripts. The hub’s Star Wars fans have been running around making lightsaber sounds in preparation. Why wouldn’t she love that?
