A cry of despair from our Folk & Traditional Music Editor.
All the initial headlines on the SNP cabinet reshuffle focus on Fiona Hyslop’s failure at Education and Mike Russell’s promotion to Education.
- ‘Plot that brought down Hyslop, the minister who had lost the plot’
- ‘Policy failures sealed Hyslop’s fate’
Other than the fact that Hyslop was very unpopular with certain Councils and seen as the weak link’in the Cabinet by the opposition, I know little about her effectiveness in the role of Education Secretary.
What I do know is the message this sends everyone in the Culture sector: she could not deliver in Education, was sacked, and put in the ‘lowly role’ of Culture and External Affairs, not even up to taking on the whole of Mike Russell’s previous job, as Alex Salmond has retained the constitutional change element for himself.
As one nasty blogger put it: ‘Hyslop! Yer sacked! Naw, haud oan. Sackin’s too guid fur ye! Culture. That’s aw yer guid fur.’
If Culture is perceived to have this level of importance to the Government, will a bruised Fiona Hyslop be able to stand up to the Cabinet when ‘easy’ cuts are being looked for? (Editor: Equally importantly, will she be able to manage the ferrets-fighting-in-a-sack that is the arts sector?)
The next series of attacks shifted the focus away from the SNP’s apparent side-lining of Culture to the fringes of Cabinet responsibility and on to Labour’s response to the re -shuffle.
Scottish Labour ‘leader’, Iain Grey, described Hyslop’s role as Culture Minister as a ‘non-job’. Well, that’s pretty revelatory.
Grey’s inept and ill-considered comment caused an outpouring of sound bites from those involved in the Arts, including Sean Connery, painter John Bellamy and many others – all condemning the comments as ‘idiotic’, ‘old-fashioned’, ‘depressing’ – under the banner headline of : ‘Arts world’s anger at philistine politicians.’
Grey’s comments are a sad reminder that if Labour were to gain more power in Scotland after the next election, the party that only recently had the vision of everyone in Scotland having a ‘cultural entitlement’ has put culture and the arts way down on its list of priorities for the future.
The Arts in Scotland are certainly in turmoil and the situation is not going to be helped by the fact that Hyslop is the tenth minister for Culture in ten years, the highest turnover in government.
If the Culture portfolio is seen as either a training ground for promotion, or the dumping ground for failures elsewhere, the chances of any long term commitment to the Arts at government level becomes a remote utopian dream.
But where should ‘culture’ be as a priority? Predictably those in the arts support its elevation. Stuart Cosgrove, a Channel 4 Director said: ‘ I would always argue that culture is in the very core of Government, as opposed to the peripheral..’ Crime novelist Denise Mina commented: ‘We bring in so much money to the country, we represent Scotland all over the world, yet we have to justify culture as something that needs representation.’
It comes down to that issue of money. The Arts industry needs to talk the right language to persuade Government and local authorities that it is a good investment.
According to the Government’s own figures, the Scottish creative industries employ over 60,000 in Scotland and are worth £5.7 billion to Scotland’s economy.
As far as tourism is concerned, there is no other sector that is as important to the economy.
Curiously, at the same time as appearing to sideline culture in the results of a Cabinet re shuffle, the Government will soon be trumpeting the success of Homecoming as a magnet for tourists.
Whatever the pros and cons of Homecoming have been, any successes it has had are surely down to the cultural sector. Culture has been advanced as the core of our nationhood. People come to Scotland because of the culture. This was summarised best by one piece of feedback at a local concert: ‘The mountains, glens and lochs are the body of Scotland. Music and Arts are its soul’.
Mark Morpurgo, Folk & Traditional Music Editor