Cultural Democracy

The General Election of June 2017, and the massive Labour surge under Jeremy Corbyn's socialist leadership, has provided a new sense of optimism for those hoping for an end to utilitarian approaches to culture and swingeing cuts to arts funding. This month, Juliet talks to Loraine Leeson, Hassan Mahamdallie and Hilary Wainwright about the concept of cultural democracy, the recent The World Transformed conference and the Arts for Labour initiative. What are Jeremy Corbyn's arts policies, and how are they informed by the anti-austerity movement? What has been learned from the Greater London Council's arts programmes of the 1980s, or the Attlee government's cultural policies? How did writers and thinkers such as William Morris, E.P. Thompson and Raymond Williams establish a long British tradition of 'cultural democracy', and what can we take from them in the 21st century? WORKS REFERENCED: Campaign to save The Cinema Museum: www.cinemamuseum.org.uk 'A Creative Future for All' - https://www.policyforum.labour.org.uk/news/a-creative-future-for-all The Great Exhibition of the North - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-43324069 The Gay Sweatshop Theatre Company - http://www.unfinishedhistories.com/history/companies/gay-sweatshop/ LORAINE LEESON, Art : Process : Change (2017) - https://www.routledge.com/Art--Process--Change-Inside-a-Socially-Situated-Practice/Leeson/p/book/9781138670631 KEN LOACH, The Spirit of '45 (2017) - http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/reviews-recommendations/film-week-spirit-45 HASSAN MAHAMDALLIE on William Morris - https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isj2/1996/isj2-071/mahamdallie.htm WILLIAM MORRIS, News from Nowhere (1890) - https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/from-the-archive-blog/2011/may/17/guardian190-william-morris-news-from-nowhere HILARY WAINWRIGHT, A New Politics from the Left (2017) - https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/persuasive-points-on-new-politics-from-the-left