The British Library bid farewell to Arts Council England’s Chairman last night with a special event looking at arts, culture and empathy. Peter Bazalgette, who has held the post since 2012, gave a speech looking at how the arts make us a more ‘civil society’.

Mr Bazalgette said he’d seen inspiring work all around the UK during his post, and was most proud that the nation is ‘spreading the benefit of the arts more widely and correcting the historic imbalance in favour of London’.