Amusing to-ings and fro-ings at the Hayward Gallery in London this morning, with press officers scurrying around the preview of the Warhol exhibition trying to find a suitable backdrop against which to photograph the new culture minister, Barbara Follett. "We're paranoid about captions," said a director of communications. There was no question, then, of snapping her against those signature Warhol cows, or his heads of Chairman Mao. Or against a wall text, a quote from Warhol: "I never read. I just look at pictures."
Finally, then, the room full of gently floating helium balloons was selected, and a slightly uncertain-looking MP for Stevenage placed among them. Occasionally she batted one away as they threatened to engulf her.
Then the traditional questions. What did you last see at the cinema? A look of blank terror and a second or two of verbal fumbling before: "What's it called? Burn Before Reading? Burn After Reading? Last Wednesday." The new Coen Brothers' movie, not yet out here, so presumably caught in the US.
The last exhibition? "Gosh, I can't remember." Then she imparts that she studied fine art (in South Africa; she did not complete her degree) and makes "terrible paintings; realistic portraits of my family".
She goes to the opera regularly, part of a group including Hodge and Patricia Hewitt – to Glyndebourne and English National Opera. She's seen "the second half of a lot of recent plays" (tending to lateness because of voting commitments); and loves cathedral and church architecture, a shared passion with her husband Ken Follett, the author. But she really, really doesn't like Gaudí.
She was given the job on Saturday night, has had a quick briefing, and was "trotted around the course" by Hodge, so there were few clues this morning as to what Follett – once Tessa Jowell's PPS – would focus on during her tenure. But she expressed interest in the creative industries and said she felt there was still more to be done "on things like film. It is sad to see that Dreamworks has made a contract with an Indian company," she said.
We'll see what she makes of the job in the weeks and months to come. There are few clues so far. Margaret Hodge, incidentally, has stepped down having been granted compassionate leave since her husband is unwell.
Have a look here at Follett's website and the story about her alcoholic father's being expelled from Ethiopa having fallen into a drinks trolley at a banquet in honour of Tito.
