A supergroup of some of the country’s best-known cartoonists is sticking two fingers up to the Government with a colouring book that’s to be given free to refugee children when they arrive in the UK.
They were inspired by immigration minister Robert Jenrick’s orders to paint over a mural of characters including Mickey Mouse at an asylum seeker reception centre in Kent earlier this year. Artists such as Quentin Blake, Ralph Steadman, Terry Gilliam and Posy Simmonds are among 50 names who have contributed to the “Welcome to Britain” project. The staff from the Beano mag also helped. The group are doing an initial print run of 1,700 books to be handed out at refugee centres, before bringing out a sale book for Christmas. The proceeds will go to charity.
The book, created by the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation with the help of campaigning platform 38 Degrees, is a celebration of our culture, with images of Big Ben, an English Breakfast, and the Loch Ness Monster. On the cover is Britannia, the female personification of Britain.
Organiser Guy Venables told us the mural cover-up “really hit a nerve with us cartoonists”. He had initially wanted to repaint the mural, but then came up with a book idea. “It shouldn’t ever be controversial to be nice to children,” he said, and added his hopes that in the future the children will remember that “the whole of the cartoonists of a country had their back”.
Venables said everyone he asked had agreed to do a drawing, so it became a game of playing “name your favourite cartoonist” among organisers. “Then we had to check they were still alive” he joked. He couldn’t find the details of Gerald Scarfe, Jamie Hewlett of Gorillaz and Axel Scheffler, illustrator of The Gruffalo. Anyone got their numbers for book two?
Caine the main man, even at 90
Sir Michael Caine delighted guests by turning up at a screening of his new film, The Great Escaper, at the BFI last night, with support from his wife Shakira and pal Jerry Hall. It’s based on the true story of a WW2 veteran who broke out of his care home to attend a D-Day memorial. Sir Michael, 90, gave tribute to late co-star Glenda Jackson, who died this year. “We had a great time making a picture, and there were no signs of it, but when we finished the picture Glenda died,” he said. “I’m so happy to be here because when I was 89 I thought, ‘I’m never gonna get a leading part again, am I?’ And this man,” he said, gesturing at director Oliver Parker, “he came along with a leading part.”
Maybot memories
In Cabinet meetings, ministers talk over disagreements on Government policy. But how much chit-chat is too much? Theresa May’s cabinets could go on for hours and bore ministers to tears, according to Ben Riley-Smith’s new book The Right To Rule, about the Tories’s 13 years in power. “A couple of us would literally make a point of going, ‘No, I’ve got nothing to add,’ just to win the bet on who spoke the shortest,” confesses a ministerial source. Greg Clark, May’s business minister, is said to have set a record for blathering on. He spoke for 26 minutes (they timed him) on an off-topic tangent. Rishi Sunak’s are shorter, it seems: the agenda for one was leaked yesterday.
That’s Gucci
Journalist and editor Teo Van Den Broeke held a fine bash at the new Gucci boutique in Bond Street for his memoir The Closet this week. Pals including actors Russell Tovey and Omari Douglas, model Elodie Russell and art director Federica Labanca supported. As fashion week ended, actor Zawe Ashton, costume designer Sandy Powell and model Sheila Atim were at a Roksanda dinner at the Belgravia Montrose skin care clinic last night.
