National Gallery 27 hang hopes on MPs

Campaigners who have launched an industrial tribunal against the National Gallery are taking their case to Parliament. “The National Gallery 27,” a group of lecturers who used to give public talks at the gallery, are meeting Labour MPs Stella Creasy (far right), Neil Coyle and Helen Hayes (right) on Wednesday afternoon. The group complain that although they had performed their talks at the gallery for decades — one for an impressive 45 years — they were regarded as self-employed.

When the Gallery moved staff from temporary to permanent contracts the majority were dismissed with little or no notice.

“Initially we were invited to a meeting where the gallery said they were having to restructure, which we all understood,” one of the claimants tells us. “But out of the 27 people now going to tribunal only eight people were given contracts.”

The campaigners have had to crowdfund their legal representation and are still £20,000 short of their £90,000 target having been unable to reach terms with the gallery.

They hope that the intervention of the MPs will see questions asked in Parliament over what could be a landmark case for people on temporary contracts. The National Gallery is part-funded by the taxpayer and sits under the remit of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. Their legal bills for the tribunal next week will be met by the public purse. “We didn’t want to go down the legal route,” the claimant explained to the Londoner.

“We don’t want to incur costs against the gallery as we all worked for a collection we loved.”

The National Gallery contends that it has done its best for staff. “Jobs were offered to all of our existing freelance service providers last year. We have taken a deliberate choice to move towards a model that offers people secure employment, with additional pension and worker benefits.”

Jacqui’s blue-light dash to London

Jacqui Smith, the former Home Secretary, says she learned to be “scrupulous” about concealing briefing notes nearly a decade after PC Bob Quick had to resign for inadvertently revealing top-secret documents about an imminent terror raid in 2009.

“I knew that it was all going to kick off,” Smith says of the incident.

“I’d literally just got to Brighton [on holiday] and my phone went. At the same time protection officers started walking towards me. We had to ‘blue light’ it all the way back from Brighton to London.”

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David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, attempted to sum up Brexit on the magazine’s latest podcast: “It sounds to me like it’s a ... giant bollocks,” he said. A silence followed, before his English guest offered: “No one in England would use that idiom, David, although it is, indeed, as you say, ‘a giant bollocks’.”

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Remnick’s view is echoed by Stewart Jackson, aide to David Davis, who on the subject of the withdrawal deal growls: “There’s nothing so depressing in modern politics as reams of Tory MPs posting sycophantic tweets about how everyone was cheering Mrs May to the rafters at the Little Snoring WI coffee morning. Spoiler: it’s invariably utter confected bollocks.”

Potter star Jason and Cressida sprinkle some magic at the Walpole awards

Walpole hosted its annual Luxury Awards at the Dorchester last night, compered by actor Jason Isaacs. The Harry Potter star — he played Malfoy’s deeply sinister father — was fresh from his recent outbust on Twitter where he wrote of Donald Trump’s showing in the US midterm elections: “This gangster needs to end up in a boiler suit to match his jaundice. Americans, call your reps and demand answers. Europeans, er, do some retweeting and worry.”

Luckily for guests, Isaacs appeared on mellower form, dapper in his black tie and leading the presentations as a host of British design talent won awards. Actor Cressida Bonas handed over the Luxury Maker of the Year to Mulberry’s creative director, Johnny Coca. Cressie was joined by fellow presenters Yasmin Le Bon, Lady Kitty Spencer and June Sarpong.

SW1A

Tony Blair, on the day he departed No 10, “stood on a footstool, made a handsome little speech” and then all his staff “drank champagne” recalls his former aide Theo Bertram. Hours later Gordon Brown (below) arrived, heralding a new era of “no champagne, only coffee”. Bertram continues: “Unlike Tony, from the very first moment he arrived, Gordon seemed to find it hard to enjoy being Prime Minister.”

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Bertram, writing in The Jackal, also reveals that No 10 is “falling apart” — not just metaphorically. Its Pillared Room “has had to be reinforced with steel columns, disguised as marble pillars”. These give “the effect of being in a sumptuously decorated multi-storey car park”. But there are thrills, including an “old sword from the Emir of Kuwait [which] sits in its sheath on a side table” and “a bookcase on one wall, where, from the spine of her autobiography, Margaret Thatcher fixes you with a cold stare”.

Quote of the day

'This is a process not a moment’ Steve Baker MP, who claimed last week there were enough letters of no confidence to force a vote on Theresa May’s leadership, now says coups take time

All’s well if and when it ends well

Earlier this month Boris Johnson told friends he’d been “working flat out” on his book about Shakespeare. But now the Brexit champion has conceded defeat. The book, entitled The Riddle of Genius, has been in the pipeline since a reported half-a-million-pound book deal in 2015, but was put on hold when Johnson became Foreign Secretary in July 2016. Until yesterday, Amazon still listed its launch date as December 15. Today it has been changed to October 3, 2019. Is Boris too busy with political manoeuvering? “I’m not commenting on that one,” a representative said.