Keir Hardie’s spectre still haunting Labour

Rab Butler spoke of the art of politics but the politics of art is quite another matter. The summer recess will find many of Britain’s politicians perusing the world’s museums and art galleries. So as a treat to his readers Mr S can now reveal, via a Freedom of Information request, the treasures from the Parliamentary Art Collection that adorn the offices of the two front benches.

Sadly, much of the collection is rather predictable. Rishi Sunak, for instance, has depictions of a number of his predecessors. Tory deities William Pitt the Younger, Robert Peel, Benjamin Disraeli, and Winston Churchill all line his walls. Other PMs featured in the cabinet list include Spencer Perceval, the only one ever to have been assassinated, who hangs in the office of Alex Chalk, the Lord Chancellor. Might it have been placed there as a cautionary tale to a rising Tory star? Fortunately for Chalk, the only assassinations carried out in Westminster these days are political – just ask Nadine Dorries.