Picture of a politician

I've never thought that highly of David Miliband or for that matter his smarter kid brother of "Mithter Thpeaker, the prime minithter hathn't anthered my quethtion" fame.

Come back Spitting Image.

- Until the weekend that is. Since then my respect for him has risen enormously. Well from about zero in fact. And it's all to do with a painting and the right to hang whatever you want on your walls at home. And it all happened by accident.



We're not talking Che Guevara or Hieronymus Bosch posters here - we're talking about 13 ladies dancing, naked in a circle. The artist was Michelle Dovey.

An amateur photographer kindly asked if she could take a picture of Mr and Mrs Miliband, in their home. They obliged, as it was for a competition, rather than the usual paparazzi. This was the result.


The photographer won her competition, the picture was published, then despite other more significant matters in national and world news, all he'll let loose.

Stephen Bayley, a style critic, whatever that is, wrote a long piece about the picture in the Torygraph. It attracted 150 comments on the electronic version.

Extracts from the piece include:-

Criticizing David's shirt - fair
Criticising part of a visible cushion - overzealous

As to the painting he described his delicious voyeur’s sense of delight at the discovery of a hitherto secret (and very horrible) family indiscretion. A bit like finding a severed head in the linen basket, a gun in the bathroom cabinet, a whip in the downstairs loo.

He poured scorn on Louise Miliband for having bought tfor picture for David’s 40th birthday.

He Even implied that it was one of those decisions possibly made after lunch.

He described the painting, that looks like it was based on Matisse's La Danse series as not even bad. "It is middle-brow junk. It is the sort of thing you can find arriving in Ford Transits at the dreadful Affordable Art Fair in Battersea Park."

He quoted many other writers, presumably on the basis that it's easier than producing original thought of ones own.

In summary, the piece was hurtful, snobbish and smug to the point of inducing nausea.

This is the same Stephen Bayley who was involved in the Millennium Dome fiasco. Even Mandelson sussed him out and he resigned from the project. His contact details on the web are self-opinionated beyond belief.




This is the same Stephen Bayley who wrote a pile of crap called Woman as Design, Conran Octopus £50, all 336 pages of it.

But revenge is sweet. Amazon is selling this for £27.

His book called Taste at £47 is going for just over £4.

Well done David, for standing up to this nonsense. You can hang what you like on your own walls. But hold back on the flying ducks.

There's probably never going to be a better time to buy a Michelle Dovey painting. She does trees too. You don't have to keep it in too prominent a position, but you could make a few pounds over the next five or ten years.





And finally, the winner of the caption competition.



Hillary Clinton explains the length of Bill's problem - to the nearest inch.




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