This tale of Buckingham Palace commissioning portraits of 10 Windrush passengers is warm and moving. But its attempt to gloss over an ongoing Home Office scandal makes it feel hollow
When David Lammy stood up in parliament in April 2018 and criticised Amber Rudd’s “hostile environment” that had seen many of the Windrush generation deported, detained and denied healthcare, he bellowed that this was “a day of national shame”. The approach that began under Theresa May in 2012 became a scandal and led to the resignation of Rudd as home secretary and a pledge from the government to reform the Home Office to ensure it could never happen again. But the past six months have seen Suella Braverman dropping key commitments, and the Home Office unit responsible for reforms has been quietly disbanded, just in time for the 75th anniversary of Empire Windrush’s arrival in Tilbury.
There is plenty to admire in Windrush: Portraits of a Generation, which follows 10 fascinating and inspiring members of the Windrush generation having their portraits commissioned by Buckingham Palace – and created by 10 different artists. Those portraits are now part of the royal collection, which is immensely significant for both the artists and their subjects. But the programme is out of step with the news, and seems to want to take a broader national shame and wrap it up in a neat bow.
Windrush: Portraits of a Generation aired on BBC Two and is available on BBC iPlayer.
