Since Labour returned to power in the 2024 UK General Election, announcing their landslide victory with a speech at the Tate Modern, little has been made of their cultural policy. In this free episode, Juliet talks to Dr David Hesmondhalgh – Professor of Media, Music and Culture at the University of Leeds, and the author of Culture, Economy and Politics: The Case of New Labour (2015) and five editions of The Cultural Industries – about Labour’s approach to art and culture, looking at their policies and the ideology behind them.
Looking primarily at England as cultural policy is devolved in the rest of the UK, Juliet and David discussed the move away from Jeremy Corbyn’s arts policies; Labour’s Plan for the Arts, Culture and Creative Industries and the 2024 manifesto; the centrality of local government and education to cultural policy; Margaret Hodge’s review of Arts Council England; the timidity of Labour’s approach and the limits of their idea of ‘creative industries’; how this has differed (or not) from the Conservative and New Labour governments before them; and the need to shift the emphasis from financial returns to the intrinsic social and cultural importance of the arts.
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