The Sunday Times February 6, 2022 2GN V2 3NEWS
significant as it is the biggest British insti-
tution to cut ties with the family. It follows
a landmark move by New York’s Metro-
politan Museum of Art, which removed
the family name from seven galleries in
December after protests led by the artist
and former OxyContin addict Nan
Goldin.
The Sacklers often stipulated that their
name adorn the places they supported,
which critics say has the effect of “art-
washing” their opioid money.
The Sackler Galleries at the British
Museum are home to Egyptian treasures
uncovered by Sir Leonard Woolley in the
1920s, and at the Victoria and Albert
Museum visitors cross the Sackler Court-
yard. The National Gallery’s Sackler
Room holds paintings by JMW Turner
and John Constable, while Oxford Uni-
versity has a Sackler Library that includes
books on classics, archeology and the
ancient world.
Sir Anish Kapoor said cuts to cultural
institutions meant “the arts are under
assault” and that “museums, theatres
and orchestras have little choice but to be
money launderers for big business”.
Kapoor, 67, whose ArcelorMittal Orbit
sculpture is in the Olympic Park, east
London, said: “The Metropolitan
Museum in New York is to be congratu-
lated on listening to Nan Goldin and art-
ists from around the world and removing
the Sackler name from the museum. Brit-
ish museums must be courageous and
follow suit.”
It can also be revealed that:
lTrustees of the Royal Botanic GardensLiam Kelly and Sabah Meddings
Since Tate Modern opened in 2000,
more than 40 million visitors to one of
the world’s biggest collections of contem-
porary art have shuffled up and down the
Sackler Escalator.
Until now, that is. The plaque com-
memorating the billionaire family’s
donation to help turn the former power
station on the south bank of the Thames
into Britain’s most-visited cultural attrac-
tion was torn down late last week as the
Tate led a rush of arts and education insti-
tutions to cut ties with the Sacklers.
The name has become tarnished
because the family built a £9.6 billion
fortune on the back of a scandal that has
killed more than 500,000 people in
America. The family owned Purdue
Pharma, which made the highly addic-
tive painkiller OxyContin. After aggres-
sive sales and marketing campaigns, it
was prescribed to millions for long-term
use. The Sacklers have been accused of
misleading doctors, patients and regula-
tors about the drug’s addictiveness,
which they deny. Last year’s TV drama
Dopesick was based on the scandal.
The family have been among the big-
gest donors to the arts and education for
decades. Since 2009 they have given
away almost £170 million in Britain. The
Sackler name will also be removed from
Tate Modern’s Sackler Lifts, while the
Sackler Octagon at Tate Britain will be
renamed.
The decision by the Tate, which also
has galleries in Liverpool and St Ives, isThey
donated
£170m in
BritainTate leads rush
to cut ties with
Sackler clan
The opioid scandal family is having its name
removed by museums, galleries and universitiesTate Modern in London removed the name from the Sackler Escalator, below, last week amid anger over
the source of its funding. Far left, Dame Theresa Sackler, who led the family’s charitable giving in BritainALAMY
in Kew, southwest London, have agreed
to strip the family name from the Sackler
Crossing, the prize-winning bronze and
granite footbridge designed by John Paw-
son that opened in 2006.
lKettle’s Yard, a modern art gallery at
Cambridge University that is opening an
exhibition by the Sackler critic Ai Weiwei
next weekend, removed the family’s
name last July because it “is no longer
associated with benevolent philan-
thropy, but instead with creating a major
health crisis and subsequent deaths”.
lImperial College London has per-
formed a U-turn on a decision to name a
laboratory after the Sacklers, following a
£2.5 million donation in 2018.
lSussex University is renaming a
research centre funded in part by a
£2.5 million donation from the Sacklers.
lShakespeare’s Globe on the south
bank of the Thames is “actively searching
for a replacement donor” to the Sacklers
after a 15-year sponsorship deal for its
education centre expires in 2025.
The revelations will come as further
humiliation for the Sackler family, espe-
cially Dame Theresa, 72, the third wife of
the late Purdue co-owner Mortimer
Sackler. She was at the forefront of the
family’s philanthropic activities in the UK
and sat on the Purdue board.
It will also heap pressure on other
institutions — including the V&A, Oxford
University and the National Gallery — to
cut ties with the family.
Nicholas Coleridge, chairman of the
V&A and organiser of the Queen’s Plati-
num Jubilee pageant, said the museum in
South Kensington would not follow suit
because it was “very grateful” to Theresa
Sackler for serving as a trustee and fund-
ing an education centre that has helped
young people access the arts.
“Neither the director nor I have
received any letters from any of the four
million visitors to the V&A,” Coleridge,
64, said. “We don’t think there’s very
much to be gained by taking that step [to
remove the name]. We don’t think, at
the moment, there’s much pressure to
do so.”
In 2019 the Sacklers agreed a $4.5 bil-
lion settlement that would protect them
from personal liability, but that was over-
turned in December. The family is close
to a new deal, to include funding opioid
addiction treatment. In England opioid-
related hospital admissions rose by
48.9 per cent between 2008 to 2018,
from 10,805 to 16,091.
The Sacklers did not respond to
requests for comment.
@iamliamkellyYoung people could afford to
get on the property ladder if
they gave up luxuries such as
their gym membership and
foreign holidays and looked
at cheaper areas, according to
Kirstie Allsopp.
The Location, Location,
Location presenter said she
felt “enraged” when people
claimed they could not afford
a home. Some graduates and
school-leavers could consider
moving back in with theirparents, she added. Allsopp,
50, bought her first property
with family help at the age of
21, when the average house
price in the UK was about
£51,000. Adjusted for
inflation that is £112,000,
compared with £255,556 for
the average home today.
“When I bought my first
property, going abroad, the
easyJet, coffee, gym, Netflix
lifestyle didn’t exist,” she
said. “I used to walk to work
with a sandwich. And on
payday I’d go for a pizza, and
to a movie, and buy a lipstick.Interest rates were 15 per
cent, I was earning £11,500 a
year.” Allsopp added that
while interest rates were
much lower today, there were
new “drains on the finances
of the young homebuyer”.
She said things such as
film-streaming services,
overseas holidays and regular
gym visits were taken as
standard parts of their
lifestyle by today’s young.
She said: “I do think you have
to ask yourself what your
degree is giving you. Could
you get a job at 18, stay athome with [your] parents for
three years, and save every
single penny, enough for a
deposit?”
Allsopp said that she had
seen many first-time buyers
on her show make
“enormous sacrifices” to own
a home. “I don’t want to
belittle those people who
can’t do it,” she said. “But
there are loads of people who
can do it and don’t. It is hard.
We’ve fallen into the trap of
saying it’s impossible for
everybody. I was brought up
to believe owning your homeis the be all and end all and in
a way I still believe that ... It’s
about where you can buy, not
if you can buy. There is an
issue around the desire to
make those sacrifices.”
Allsopp, who has
presented Location, Location,
Location with Phil Spencer
since 2000, recommends the
young considering moving
north. “It is difficult: if you
were born down south, and
have family down south, my
life is down south, but if we
want a family house we have
to move,” she said. “If I hadany roots further north and I
was trying to buy [I’d do it].”
The programme recently
worked with a young woman
who had moved back with
her parents during lockdown.
“She realised she loved
Newcastle and bought a great
flat for £160,000, a two-bed
maisonette with a garden.
Where else can you do that?”
A first-time buyer who gave
up a Starbucks latte every
weekday, an ordinary Netflix
subscription, gym
membership, and two return
flights to Europe a year oneasyJet would save about
£1,600 a year. However, if
they moved into their
parents’ house and did not
pay rent, they could save on
average £7,000 a year.
The average deposit for a
first-time buyer is £59,000,
according to Halifax. To save
that, you would need to forgo
your Starbucks latte, Netflix
subscription, gym
membership and easyJet
flights for 37 years.
Phil and Kirstie unfiltered,
Home, pages 6-Of course young people can afford a home — just move somewhere cheaper, says Allsopp
Rosamund Urwin
and Hugh GrahamKirstie Allsopp bought her
first home when she was 21‘It is my sincere wish that Camilla will be Queen Consort’
for you.” The Queen
responded: “Most addresses
are usually pompous. This is
so much nicer.”
The monarch will spend
today privately with family at
her Norfolk estate.
Royal sources said the
Queen, who has been doing
light duties for more than
three months since doctors
advised her to rest after a
hospital visit, planned to play
an active part in four days of
national jubilee celebrations
in June.
An aide said: “She will take
a sensible approach to
engagements at the jubilee
but the public should expect
to see her. She will be at
events, alongside her family.”
@RoyaNikkhahThe Queen, at
Sandringham
yesterday, wants
to reward Camilla
for her loyalty to
Charlesabdicate or withdraw from
her role: “As we mark this
anniversary, it gives me
pleasure to renew to you the
pledge I gave in 1947 that my
life will always be devoted to
your service ... I lookforward to continuing to
serve you with all my heart.”
The Queen was said to be
in “sparkling form” yesterday
as she hosted a reception at
Sandringham for local
volunteer and community
groups, her first big public
engagement since October.
Local schoolchildren gave
her a “loyal address” saying:
“You have shown a caring
manner, determination, and
dedication to help other
people. We think you’re
doing a great job! We are very
lucky to have had you as our
Queen for so long. We are
proud of you for helping us
through this pandemic...
and by your actions setting a
good example, especially as
the last year has been so hardJOE GIDDENS/AFP; MAX MUMBY/INDIGO/GETTY IMAGES
her own family how happy
she makes the prince.”
Hugo Vickers, the royal
historian, said: “This is
something that needed to be
sorted out during this reign,
otherwise there would have
been a question mark over it
and the duchess would have
been queen by law, if not by
name. It is fascinating and all
about a smooth transition.”
In her new year’s honours
list, the Queen personally
appointed Camilla as a Royal
Lady of the Most Noble Order
of the Garter, the oldest and
most senior order of chivalry,
for her “service to the
sovereign”.
The Queen also used her
message yesterday to dispel
any speculation that she maythrone, the Queen spoke of
the importance of the role of
consort: “I was blessed that in
Prince Philip I had a partner
willing to carry out the role of
consort and unselfishly make
the sacrifices to go with it. It is
a role I saw my own mother
perform during my father’s
reign.”
She expressed thanks for the
“goodwill... support ...
loyalty and affection” shown
to her “in this country and
around the world” and said:
“When, in the fullness of
time, my son Charles
becomes King, I know you
will give him and his wife
Camilla the same support you
have given me.”
Sources close to theQueen, 95, said she was keen
to use her decades of
experience to resolve the
issue of Camilla’s future role
while she still could and had
been focusing on tying up
loose ends since Philip died
last year.
A senior royal aide said:
“Ever since the duke’s
passing there has been an
element of ‘I won’t be here
for ever’ and an eagerness to
pass on her experience to
people and put certain things
in place. She is making the
point that she learnt from her
own mother and father, and
her own experience, what
that role of consort takes.
“This reflects the duchess’s
17 years of loyal service and
Her Majesty can see within→Continued from page 1→→Continued from page 1Continued from page 1