Bananas feel the heat of Pickles

NOT everyone has welcomed the proposed siting of the National Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre opposite Parliament in Victoria Tower Gardens. The veteran Conservative MP Sir Edward Leigh, for example, has argued it could affect the drainage of a riverside location.

But Sir Eric Pickles, the government’s envoy on post-Holocaust issues, assured the Board of Deputies that the Westminster spot was “where it is going”. And, to laughter, he dismissed the “Bananas” – objectors who took the position: “build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything”.