Noah Charney

Saturday

Noah Charney

LIVE | Reform conference round-up – everything you need to know

23 min listen

Noa Hoffman, James Heale and Tim Shipman host a special live recording of Coffee House Shots from Reform conference. They discuss whether a damaging 48 hours for the party have breached the walls of Birmingham’s NEC, whether Nigel Farage can weather serious questions over Reform’s funding, and whether Zia Yusuf should throw his phone in the nearest river and get off Twitter. Produced by Oscar Edmondson, Henry Lloyd and The Spectator’s events team.

Wednesday

Noah Charney

The portrait that Churchill couldn’t face

Winston Churchill was no Adonis but most of his portraitists did what they could to flatter him. However, when the British artist Graham Sutherland (1903–80) was commissioned to paint a full-length portrait of Churchill in 1954 for 1,000 guineas (about £27,000 today), paid by the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and to be presented in a lavish public ceremony, things did not go well. Sutherland was chosen not by Churchill but by members of the Houses of Parliament in honour of his 80th birthday. Churchill asked to be portrayed in his Knight of the Garter robes but the commissioners specified he be portrayed as he most commonly dressed when visiting Parliament.