'Government's Rethink, Reskill, Reboot campaign is an insult to artists and musicians'

‘A week is a long time in politics,’ ex-prime minister Harold Wilson once famously said, and never more so in the age of coronavirus and for the many folk who work in arts, culture and entertainment.

It was welcome news this week to learn that Arts Council England has awarded at least £900,000 to Northamptonshire in its latest round of grants to support arts organisations as part of the government’s £1.57 billion rescue package for the arts, culture and heritage sector.

Successful local applicants include NN Contemporary Art, the New Roadmender, The Lab, Threshold Studios, Warts and All Theatre and Oundle Music Trust. There will be further announcements and to date 1,385 theatres, arts venues, museums and cultural organisations across England have received funds.

Whilst this cash from the Culture Recovery Fund is more than welcome and a lifeline especially to arts and music venues, the government’s recent strategy towards the jobs and livelihoods of artists and musicians leaves a lot to be desired.

A frankly insulting advertisement under the banner ‘Rethink. Reskill. Reboot’ has been doing the rounds on social media which shows a young ballet dancer being told to dispense with her dreams and consider a career in cyber security instead: ‘Fatima’s next job could be in cyber (she just doesn’t know it yet).’

As local Northamptonshire singer-songwriter and musician Gregory Coulson said: “I think it’s disgusting how an advert such as this has been published during these times. It’s in bad taste and I’m sick to death of how our government refuse to acknowledge the importance of the arts.”

The public response to the crass messaging has meant that the advert is to be withdrawn; as one canny individual has been quick to point out, the actual photograph will have taken several artists for the advertising campaign to happen including a photographer, copywriter, make-up artist, hairstylist, fashion designer and graphic designer. It turns out that the photograph was taken from a website for freely usable images and so the photographer wasn’t paid for their work at all.

It also beggars belief to be told to dispense with your artistic aspirations or livelihood and go into cyber security when the government has apparently financed a so-called ‘world beating’ track and trace system that has been capturing personal data on Excel spreadsheets and which recently resulted in the loss of 16,000 Covid-19 lab result cases. Do they even know what cyber security is?

And further to that, do the government ever get round to reading their own reports? Findings published earlier this year on the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) website evidenced that the creative industries contributed £111 billion to the UK economy in 2018; that’s around £13 million per hour. In fact, up until Covid-19, the creative industries sector was growing five times faster than the national economy.

However, it is a misnomer to just focus on the economic worth, as compelling as it is; there are some experiences that you cannot put a price on.

It is arts, creativity and culture which has helped pull us all through this pandemic and been a lifeline to many; from TV, music, film, books and radio to crafts, dancing, drawing, design and photography. There is a huge correlation between positive emotional and mental wellbeing and the arts. Indeed the arts and culture are a hugely important aspect of making meaning and creating value in our lives: they encompass many people’s key treasured memories.

There have been a lot of three-word slogans that have been dispensed to the public in recent times by the current government.

We need one that knows the true value of #Save

TheArts and acts on it.