The V&A in London’s South Kensington is Britain’s go-to museum for fashionistas and the one with the most social cachet thanks to grand opening parties. Exhibitions this year have featured Coco Chanel, Elton John, Naomi Campbell, and, this month, a Taylor Swift songbook trail with 16 stage looks on display. Yet the selection for the coveted post of a new chair has been mired in a lengthy and politically charged process for more than a year after Nicholas Coleridge’s departure to chair Historic Royal Palaces and become provost-elect of Eton College.
Like all posts for trustees, board members or chairs in the arts, media and sport, the starting point is a panel run by the Department of Culture. But under the last Conservative government, the process was widened to include special advisers and the Cabinet Office, before, finally, Downing Street. Critics said this led to more Tory donors and allies getting top jobs. These included Richard Sharp at the BBC, Michael Grade at Ofcom, John Booth at the National Gallery, and David Ross at the National Portrait Gallery.
