Above Politics

Someone has produced a portrait of Theresa May for the Parliamentary Art Collection, which has received gushing acclaim from all quarters and served to rehabilitate the ghastly hag in the eyes of discerning journalists. Tumbledown Tessie is aptly depicted with the expression of a twitchily unpleasant headmistress, standing against a Wizard of Oz curtain draped in a military coat (apparently out of self-pity - "a politician does go into battle every single day" without, of course, having the slightest choice in the matter) and clutching a very thin, decidedly closed book to indicate her cultural breadth. "In its careful composition and clearcut shapes, its penchant for the symbolic object and the expressive gesture, it leans heavily into the Renaissance, each element a kind of mise en abyme into art history," which evidently is what caused a discerning journalist to pronounce it really rather wonderful.

The piece was commissioned by the Speaker's advisory committee on works of art, which "serves to memorialise public servants who have made a significant contribution to UK political life." The Great Migrant Cat Lie, the hostile environment and the appointment of the National Johnson to one of the former great offices of state were certainly significant contributions to the present world-beating condition of UK political life; how far they were acts of public service will doubtless be determined by analysts more nuanced than your correspondent. It is argued that such little indiscretions were all just part of the politics she was thrust into: the poor old trout never campaigned either for her seat in the House of Expenses Claimants or for the leadership of the Conservative and Unionist rabble, but was forced into both as a painful and reluctantly undertaken duty. One supporter of this view is the artist, who found her as decent and honest and dignified and stylish and statuesque as one would expect for £28,000 a daub, and who presumably makes no claim to be a realist.