How refreshing ... we have a new minister joining the fray: Eric Pickles has issued a list of 50 ways to save. This has the potential to be insulting, foolhardy or both.
One bright idea suggests that councils should lease works of art not on display. Many councils own art galleries and museums and have extensive collections which never see the light of day, but merely gather dust in storage.
The museums industry has responded that the suggestion is ill informed - don't you just love understatement: such an English form of criticism - and that there is no market for leasing art in this way.
We wonder who Pickles thought would be rushing forward to pay to borrow pictures from museum stores and how he thought they were going to solve the problem of insurance, handling and proper care. Insurers and curators are very protective of works of art. Would lessees be trained in picture conservation and care and then issued with white gloves?
The next headline might be 'Leased Pickle picture damaged by bread roll ... Shock!'
