Artist claims Commons committee tried to censor exhibition

The official artist commissioned by the House of Commons to make a series of drawings marking this year's general election has vowed never to work for MPs again, saying they tried to censor his works.

David Godbold was paid £10,000 to produce 18 ink drawings, which went on display in the Commons yesterday. Most were made on the back of discarded election literature. He alleged the exhibition had been held up, and lawyers brought in, after the Commons authorities demanded changes to one of the exhibits.

"It's been a very bumpy ride," said Godbold. "The work that got here is the work in its entirety, but we had to go through very complex discussions with lawyers to make that happen."

His claim has been dismissed as "absurd" by the chairman of the Commons works of art committee, the Tory MP Hugo Swire. The row was over a drawing made after Godbold had spent a day with the Tottenham MP David Lammy, now a junior culture minister, who showed him a letter he had received, full of racist abuse. Godbold used it as background for a drawing of Moses carrying tablets of stone, on which Labour's election promises were listed, with the caption: "Feeling litigious?"

Mr Swire said: "The one single issue raised was over the publication of one of his drawings on a racist letter which bore an identifiable individual's signature."