A rightwing commentator and activist who has a record of accusing arts and heritage organisations of “wokeness” has been appointed by the prime minister to a role at the Victoria and Albert Museum, in a move likely to inflame accusations that the government is waging a “culture war”.
Zewditu Gebreyohanes, who has worked for the right-leaning Policy Exchange thinktank and is also a director of a group that has been waging a campaign against perceived “wokeness” within the National Trust, is one of three new trustees of the V&A appointed by the prime minister via the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
In her work for Policy Exchange, Gebreyohanes has accused Kew Gardens of going against its legally defined purposes by pursuing a “modish agenda” through “decolonising” its botanical collections and accused institutions of pursuing a “post-BLM trend” to “take action in relation to the public representation of history on a whim”.
Before the V&A and DCMS made any announcements, she was congratulated online on her appointment by Restore Trust, which the National Trust (NT) has accused of waging a politicised assault on it.
Gebreyohanes, who graduated from King’s College London in 2020 with a degree in philosophy, politics and economics, recently became a director of Restore Trust, which last year sought to win seats on the NT’s governing council at its annual general meeting in October. The group claimed to represent grassroots opposition to what it characterised as the NT’s woke agenda, and said it wanted to steer the trust “back to its core purpose of looking after our heritage and countryside”.
The appointment, which could be one of the last culture war interventions by the DCMS under the control of Nadine Dorries, comes after the V&A was earlier this year urged by Labour to investigate why the museum auctioned a private tour as a prize at a Conservative fundraising dinner when one of its other trustees is a Tory party chair.
Ben Elliot, a V&A trustee, is co-chair of the Conservative party and has faced repeated questioning over the use of his concierge firm, Quintessentially, and services it has provided to Russian oligarchs.
The appointment was attacked by Labour. Barbara Keeley, shadow minister for the arts and civil society, said: “Public appointments should be based on merit, not how much you’ve donated to the Conservatives or whether you work at one of their thinktanks.
“The constant stream of cronyism in public appointments without any public scrutiny or accountability threatens to damage the reputation of many of our great British institutions.”
The National Trust issued a statement in which it said: “We are aware of the government’s appointment of Zewditu Gebreyohanes to the board of the trustees of the V&A. Trustees play a crucial part in the governance of any organisation, including our national museums, and are influential in setting their direction and culture. We work well with the V&A and have a very high regard for them as close partners and colleagues.”
The two other appointees are Rosalind Polly Blakesley, professor of Russian and European art at the University of Cambridge and Rusty Elvidge, a managing director at Credit Suisse, who advises ultra high net worth entrepreneurs.
Blakesley is a fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, and co-founder of the Cambridge Courtauld Russian Art Centre, a syndic of the Fitzwilliam Museum and trustee of the Samuel Courtauld Trust, and has served on the boards of the National Portrait Gallery, Kettle’s Yard and the Hamilton Kerr Institute.
Elvidge has been a collector since he was at Bristol University and used to buy antique silver and jewellery at auction rooms and fairs in the West Country. He has also collected Regency furniture, English watercolours and over the past 20 years paintings by the Bloomsbury set, modern British artists, as well as contemporary art and pottery.
A government spokesperson said: “All trustees are appointed through a fair and open competition, run in accordance with the governance code on public appointments, as regulated by the commissioner for public appointments.”
