The Victoria and Albert Museum kindly threw me a leaving party after eight years as chair, plus a particularly apt present: a specially commissioned illuminated V&A logo made from powder-coated steel by the designer Toby Albrow. The logo is a reference to my megalomaniacal taste for giant logos atop museum buildings. We have placed a huge one on the roof of the Young V&A in Bethnal Green, and an even bigger one – 20 feet high – on the new V&A East in Stratford, visible from three miles away in Canary Wharf. What an exhilarating and happy gig the V&A has been. I’m going to miss it and the people. They hung my leaving portrait in the directorate corridor six weeks early, just to remind me it was over.
My attentive bank manager alerted me that ‘Barclays head office is currently investigating you as a potential PEP’. It seemed most unlikely; I’m not in any way a Politically Exposed Person. PEPs are supposed to be Colombian drug barons or Russian money launderers, – why would my high street bank of 50 years be investigating me? It had a sinister Nigel Farage vibe to it. My manager wondered: ‘Do you know any MPs or have you ever met an MP in the past? That can leave you open to bribery.’ Nothing more was heard for a month, until I was told: ‘The appeal process is progressing. The issue seems to be your chairmanship of the V&A, which they believe was an appointment by the prime minister.’ It was a red flag, apparently. How very surreal. In earlier days, your bank might have invited you to a slap-up boardroom lunch in their City HQ as chair of a national museum. Now you’re lumped in with sanction-busters. I hope they never discover I’ve become chair of Historic Royal Palaces, a royal appointment.
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