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May 01, 2005
Labour fail Scottish arts
Sean Connery is attacking Labour’s lamentable record in the arts. He points out that we have had six arts ministers since devolution and none of them have acheived anything. The focus of his complaint is frustration over the delays in getting the Scottish National Photography Centre (SNPC) established in the former Royal High School on Edinburgh’s Calton Hill, despite a generous grant from Sony.
Ian Rankin’s broader criticism of arts policy is also quoted in the article by William Lyons:
The cultural strategies do not seem to be leading anywhere. What the art world desperately wants is decisions to be made and a minister who is going to stick around for more than 12 months.
We need continuity in this young Parliament. But what are we on now, our sixth cultural minister. We need someone who has experience of the arts world and you only get that with time.
Meanwhile we see other smaller countries doing much more with the arts. Look at Wales and their brand spanking new opera house. In Scotland we don’t even have an opera chorus. We spend too much time squabbling and shoot ourselves in the foot before we start.
And as I have argued before, Scotland needs a new national theatre and opera house as a focus for the performing arts in Scotland, to provide facilities to attract leading foreign companies to Scotland and revive the floundering Edinburgh International Festival.
As Connery points out [Labour] “talk about education, education, education” but the arts are for all, not just for reluctant (?) school kids. The arts can be influential in every aspect of our national life. Standards of literacy (traditional, visual and computer), communication skills, design sense etc. should be set in the arts world and applied in our economic, social and political (!) life.
The arts are also good value for money. Scottish artists, particularly performing artists, have a record of excellence that should be the envy of other sectors of the economy. We should be investing in them and in Scotland’s future as a leading European centre for the arts.
news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=465862005
Posted by Simon Holledge at May 1, 2005 12:19 PM
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