Museums have closed and festivals lost funding – but Labour will restore Britain’s creative superpower status
A culture change is on the way when this moribund government of the living dead is gone. Clock-watching, we wait for that witching hour on election night when it is blown away by the power of the vote. If you remember that morning in 1997, a fresh air blew and with it came a new mood, language, attitudes, habits of mind. This time the contrast will be starker, this dead government darker by far than John Major’s.
Culture itself was one mark of the scale of change when Labour’s Chris Smith sent attendances soaring as he abolished charges for museums and galleries. Creative UK this week put out its manifesto for the election, representing the vast industry covering all the arts, from the Royal Shakespeare Company to the thriving video-games industry, fashion, architecture, design, advertising, the phonographic industry and more. The arts are a vital British export, and key to the country’s soft power. But that can’t last if its funding keeps falling: the organisation warns politicians that they must shake off “complacency around the UK’s superpower creative status”. Arts infrastructure is eroding for future artists, designers and audiences.
