10. CULTURE AND EVENTS - backwardness and elitism
Friday, 01 May 2009 13:50
Johnson published no manifesto on culture policy in London before the election. No policies were in place and instead his adviser on arts and culture policy wrote the policy after the election, and published a document, called the ‘Direction of Travel document’ and renamed ‘Cultural Metropolis’, on 24th November 2008. Overall Johnson’s policies pull back from London’s international cultural cutting edge in favour of backward-looking, elitist, small-scale and narrow cultural contributions.
Elitism and backwardness
* Johnson’s culture adviser Munira Mirza argues that too much emphasis has been placed on making culture “user-friendly”, rubbishing hip-hop, new media and film, and counter-posing them to opera and ballet (“Give young people high culture not hip-hop – Johnson”, Guardian, 24/11/08) This is in line Boris Johnson’s approach, who in a speech at the Royal Academy on 3rd June last year, declared himself an “unashamed cultural elitist”.
* Counterposing the “high” arts of the past to the new ways in which culture is reproduced today is backward and elitist.
Cuts to public events, particularly on Trafalgar Square
Boris Johnson did publicly pledge that the diverse festivals celebrating London’s communities would not be cut back or discontinued. This has been dishonoured by:
* cancelling the annual Rise festival, Europe’s largest anti-racist festival
* cancelling the annual summer Trafalgar Square festival
* cancelling the annual Africa Day festival in Trafalgar Square
* cutting support to lesbian and gay Londoners and festivals, including withdrawing all support from Soho Pride
* withholding permission for the use of Trafalgar Square from a number of fully-funded external events, such as the Thai festival
* reducing the budgets for festivals such as St Patrick’s Day, which saw its funding cut in half and the abolition of the annual St Patrick’s Day dinner, which was self-financing.
St George’s Day was celebrated this year with the claim that it had been long-neglected whereas in fact London-wide events were initiated by Ken Livingstone in 2004 and took place each year after that. This year’s event reportedly attracted around 1000 people to Trafalgar Square (Boriswatch.co.uk, 27 April 2009); compared to at least 5,567 who attended in 2007
New priorities
* Expanding music education and a ‘musical instruments’ amnesty
While laudable, this has been a government-led priority for three years with a range of initiatives and funding available already in this area which other areas of arts and culture lack. No new funding has been made available despite the considerable publicity.
* More access to the arts in the outer boroughs
There is little the Mayor can do without a strong policy push directed at those councils who have generally not funded cultural provision in the past, to change their priorities and find some significant funding. This has evidently not taken place so far. Instead a range of small events have occurred.
* The story of London
A ‘new’ festival to take place in June this year, launched with a photocall with a Tudor theme. The planning and development of the festival takes the blueprint used under Ken Livingstone, of providing a significant marketing budget and other promotional support to develop a pan-London festival based on arts, cultural and heritage organisations developing their own events and programming within the over-arching theme. However, for the Story of London festival, the marketing budget is minimal and the other promotional support has been abolished (see Promotion of London).
Announced an arts "Oyster card"
* Electronic pass giving free or discounted entry to venues such as museums, theatres, and leisure centres. So far no progress has been announced.
‘New’ initiatives that had already been announced
* Establishing a £1.4m a year fund for cultural projects contributing to the Olympic Games cultural programme funded by the LDA.
Ken Livingstone in fact announced this fund in March 2008 and pledged that at least the same amount would be available every year until the Olympic Games. Funding has only been agreed for one year by Johnson.
* London film day
A day or days of film events and screenings – which already took place as part of expanding the annual London Film Festival beyond central London, and using Trafalgar Square as a film venue during the festival. No new funding has been allocated.
