Finding yourself in opposition in the House of Commons can be uncomfortable for those who once led the nation, especially for someone also credited with a vital military victory. So it was for Winston Churchill. But in 1949 he was consoled with the extraordinary gift of a French impressionist masterpiece: Claude Monet’s depiction of the Palace of Westminster, wreathed in heavy mists.
This generous present, now worth many millions, was accompanied by a note to Churchill wishing that “the fog that shrouds Westminster”, ruled then by Clement Attlee’s Labour party, would soon lift.
