Over the long tenure of the recently departed Conservative government, there was always an impression that when appointing somebody to become Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, two questions would be asked:
- Who do we need in the Cabinet but hasn’t been given a job?
- What’s left?
Once the cupboard was almost bare, the candidate with fewest qualifications would lose out and get a role for which they had zero experience and little or no interest.
The “Digital” element was hived off last year, making the job even less attractive and, quite frankly, the dozen incumbents lasting on average a year each might as well have been in charge of distributing bags to collect dog mess for the good they have done the arts. Indeed, some would have done less damage given that role.
The advent of the Starmer years offered hope to the cultural sector, particularly since the shadow minister, Thangam Debbonaire, was a professional cellist before entering Parliament. Regrettably, she was beaten into second place by the co-leader of the Green Party, so was not immediately eligible for a ministerial role. Given that Sir Keir Starmer brought in a couple of big hitters from industry plus a pair of former ministers into his cabinet, by hastily expanding the seating capacity of the House of Lords, there was an obvious route out of his dilemma.
Instead, the new incumbent is to be Lisa Nandy. Nobody would argue that the MP from Wigan is a political lightweight, though her views haven’t always been quite in line with those of the new regime. The worry is that her political record demonstrates no obvious affinity with the arts, or for that matter, any other part of her brief. She doesn’t appear to have made significant speeches on subjects that should now be dear to her heart and, unlike Angela Rayner, hasn’t been photographed at Glyndebourne or any other cultural events.
Encouragingly, the new incumbent was quick to make an initial statement of intent, which may not provide much comfort to those who were looking for someone with in-depth knowledge and experience, although she did recall “how a group of women from one of the council estates in Wigan, where she is the MP, hired a coach to see a play in Manchester about the role of women of the 1980s miners’ strike.
“It was a story that had been told about their lives so many times without them in it,” she said. “And it was magical to see their response to being put at the centre of their own story again.”
Beyond that, her speech was largely political but did herald an end to governmental culture wars: “governments don’t make this country what we are—people do. And whether it’s through investing in grassroots sport, a visible symbol of what our young people mean to us in every community or enabling brilliant working-class kids to succeed in drama, dance or journalism—their raw talent so obvious, but for too many of whom geography is destiny—we will be a government that walks alongside them as they create that country I’ve believed in all of my life, but never quite yet seen.”
A close look at her CV, accompanied by a wee bit of Internet surfing, suggests that the only tenuous connections with her new brief comprise a short spell in a role the existence of which most of us would have been blissfully unaware as shadow minister for the Olympics and a mother who worked for a while in broadcasting.
Helpfully, given that he lives not too far from her constituency, our editor David Chadderton has a particular interest and discovered that “actors Samuel West and Julie Hesmondhalgh on Ex-Twitter reposted a message from Lisa Nandy from January 2013 in which she said, 'theatres like the Oldham Coliseum are part of our civic inheritance. This one in particular means so much to me and my family. Slogans like Levelling Up mean nothing when a theatre that allowed a Lancashire town to shape our national story is going dark.'” Coincidentally, a few days after the election, news emerged that the Coliseum has been saved.
This is better than nothing, but more strongly demonstrates an interest in levelling up rather than theatres per se. Further, Huff Post noted that she has been “a director of a local theatre” but was silent as to which theatre, when or for how long. Most recently, she has given an interview to the Manchester Evening News, although this suggests greater interest in football with mild but encouraging enthusiasm for the arts.
At the moment, this appears to be a case of what Scottish law describes as “case not proven”. Time will tell, and we have to hope that Lisa Nandy commits fully to the role, working tirelessly to promote the cultural sector (as well as media and sports) and stays in the job for several years.
Otherwise, we could be back to the sad situation where our beloved arts are ignored by this new Labour government to the same extent as they were by the Conservatives, which would be very sad.