Cronyism isn’t nice but it had become a fact of life – barely an eyebrow was raised when Sue Woodford became chair of Arts Council London and would therefore have a big say in funding for the Southbank Centre, then chaired by her husband Clive Hollick – and the Nolan Rules about political interference were put in place to stop it. But perhaps they weren’t designed for BoJo. It is in the Mayor of London’s ‘gift’, as they liked to say as if he’s some kind of Medici, to appoint Lady Hollick’s successor, and he needn’t have consulted anybody. He wanted Veronica Wadley, who as editor of the Standard had been his cheerleader in his election campaign last year. He even mentioned it to Arts Council England chair Liz Forgan who apparently had no objection. But then he decided to make things fair and above board and suggested to the DCMS that they go through a short-listing process anyway, even though it was not necessary, and Ben Bradshaw agreed. A short listing committee was put together – Forgan, Johnson’s culture chief Munira Mirza and the former civil servant David Durie. They got together a long list of four to whittle down to three who would then be interviewed by two Greater London Assembly civil servants. So they wheeled in the four: Wadley; Patrick McKenna, who used to run the Really Useful Group; Tim Marlow, Sky’s voice of contemporary art and director of White Cube; and Nicholas Snowman, former boss at the Southbank, at Glyndebourne and now at Strasbourg Opera. Unsurprisingly, given the field, two of the board decided that Wadley was the least well qualified for the job. 0irza thought she was perfect, and so did Boris who threw his toys out of the pram when Wadley’s name duly didn’t go forward, insisting that an all male line-up was not acceptable (he’s very PS, Boris) she should be considered, and Ben Bradshaw, the culture secretary, accused him of breaching Nolan. Happily, I gather that Boris is now rowing back from his decision to leave the post vacant ‘until there’s a new culture secretary’.