It turns out that being locked up in the house does not lead to increased productivity. I’ve been in isolation over the weekend, theoretically catching up on my English university course work. However, having had plenty of time to watch the government make a mockery of the entire creative sector, I've decided to write a quick blog post to express my disappointment (though not my shock) and vent a bit of frustration. I'll get on to the rage-sparking advert in a second.
At university, I live with two drama students and one English student, and all of us are musical, artistic, and looking to enter the creative sector post-graduation. The same creative sector which, incidentally, contributes £10.8bn a year to the UK economy. Most of my friends at university and beyond have had jobs in either hospitality or the arts (theatres, venues, pubs, restaurants etc.), and the vast majority have been made redundant or furloughed. This term, despite the coronavirus, I have seen hundreds of students alone push through to create something artistic for the general population: friends have released music; put on live shows; zoom theatre; created virtual galleries; I myself am directing a show with no audience and social distancing (cheeky plug, live-stream tickets here). Over the period of national lockdown, the nation saw a huge influx in free arts materials as the creative sector propped up the mental health of a country riddled with cabin-fever and inactivity. We have adapted, bent over backwards to get back to performance and shows, and the nation (government included) rely on Netflix, Hollywood, and Spotify more than we realise. Every creative company I know rose to the challenge as much as they possibly could - off next to no funding.
Which brings me nicely to my next point: the severe under-funding of the arts sector during this pandemic. After a nationally trending #letthemusicplay movement on social media, alongside several other campaigns demanding support from the government during the shutdown of all creative industries, the government announced a warmly-received £1.57 billion in early July to prop up the culture sector - £880m in grants and £270m of repayable loans. Although understood that this would be spread thinly, and most freelancers (many of whom already live below the poverty line, with irregular income) would not be eligible for either the grant nor SEISS funding, it remained a welcome piece of news. However, over 3 months on, theatres have yet to see a penny of this pledged money. According to ACE (Arts Council England), this is due to the “the complexity and volume of applications". Although this is unsurprising, given the sheer number of creative businesses on the brink of collapse, it is an absolute travesty that this pledge appears to me to be the government's way of quietening the voices of some very (justly) angered businesses, without actually doing anything to help them. The problem here is that the majority of creative businesses (specifically theatre and music) run on constant, steady profit margins from full-capacity audiences - without a season of shows, they go bankrupt, simple as that. Workers are having to be made redundant every day - the industry doesn't need money in three month's time, it needed it three months ago. Every week I read about a new venue being shut down and hundreds of jobs being lost. Not every venue can raise, or should be expected to raise £10k in charity as a venue local to me, Club 85, have done. What it feels like - as I'm sure it is - is that the government's priorities are very much elsewhere, and they don't really give a toss what happens to the businesses that bring our British culture to life. Any pretence of this is smoke and mirrors.
And now, to add insult to injury, that ad.
The advert circulating today is attributed to CyberFirst and HM government. Cyberfirst is a programmed led by the National Cyber Security Centre, and HM government is, well, the government. Coming just days after Rishi Sunak's controversial statement that people in the arts sector should 'retrain', it has caused national backlash in the world of social media. Even Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden disowned this advert on Twitter, calling it 'crass'. Personally, I think crass is a bit of an understatement. Granted, this is an advert targeted towards getting young people into cyber, but anything the government put their crest on is theirs, and it reeks of hypocrisy. The irony of this advert is not lost on me, nor will it be lost on the hundreds of thousands of art sector workers / trainees / aspiring artists who will have seen it this morning. I myself, already uncertain about the sustainability of my future ambitions, was crushed to see the explicitness of this attitude from the government. And yet the making of this advert alone requires: a photographer; a model / dancer; a casting director; an agent; a set designer; a costume designer; a hair and makeup artist; an editor; a graphic designer; a marketing team, and probably more that I couldn't name that work behind the scenes. This entire creative team, put to work on an advert undermining their own industry. Now imagine that creative team but multiplied tenfold for something like a single full-length feature film. Get it now, Boris? This advert, and any advert condemning the arts sector and asking people to retrain, is tactless, hypocritical, and dream-crushing. We as a country would be nowhere without the arts; we'd be stripped of our culture. To encourage that is to strip children of their creativity, and condemn every student doing a BA or MA as useless and unvalued. Not to mention, justify the already criminal under-paying of freelance workers in the artistic industries.
So congrats Sunak, Johnson, and the rest of the government. This advert and your prior statements are representative of the Conservatives' attitude towards the arts, and you've shown yourselves up. You've successfully alienated anyone working or hoping to work in a sector you're condemning, and the biggest names and influencers are speaking out about it. Because granted, Fatima's next job could be in cyber security, but Fatima's next vote could be for Labour.