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Articles
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Articles |
The General ElectionThe Parties' Stance on the ArtsDateline: 20th May, 2001 The main areas of argument in the run-up to the General Election on 7th June will inevitably be tax, health, education, law and order, and Europe. Each party has its own agenda and priorities, and it is safe to say that, with the exception of the minor parties, the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the NI parties (Ulster Unionists, Democratic Unionists, SDLP and Sinn Fein), each will choose one or more of these areas as their main platform. It is safe to say, too, that for all parties the Arts will have a low priority: some, in fact, will not mention them in their manifesto at all. However, as theatre-lovers we will want, at least, to take some account of Arts policies when deciding how to vote, so here are extracts from various manifestos in which an Arts policy or an attitude to the Arts is expressed. Most of the minor parties are one-issue parties - the UK Independence Party, for instance, or the British National Party - and they have nothing to say about the Arts. The Natural Law Party is not fielding any candidates in this election, so they, too, are omitted. I have also omitted Plaid Cymru, the Scottish National Party (SNP) and the Ulster-centred parties because they are concerned purely with one part of the UK, and others like the Scottish Conservative Party because they are just off-shoots of the bigger national organisations and take their general policies from those organisations. Others such as the Communist Party, the Socialist Labour Party and the Socialist Workers' Party simply make no mention of the Arts. What we have on the following pages are the manifesto commitments to the Arts made by those parties which actually do make any mention of the Arts. The Conservative Party Articles Indices: |
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