'Sounding off' in the column of that name in last Sunday's Observer (we go to press on 22 March), Melvyn Bragg - novelist, broadcaster, Controller of Arts Programmes at LWT, President of the National Campaign for the Arts, Labour peer and otherwise big-haired all-rounder - lavished praise on Chris Smith. He ended with an anecdote about

a meeting in the Cabinet Room at No. 10 the other week. The Prime Minister and Chris Smith had shepherded together a score or so of us from the arts world . . . A strange sound was heard . . . The Arts Minister was being praised.

LRB 5 April 2001 | PDF Download