Culture Matters: Cuts and Resistance

Abstract

The chapter focuses on the cuts administered since 2010 in the fields of literature, music, visual arts, film and performing arts, and their teaching to the young. Budget constraints have led to the closure of numerous essential institutions, such as theatres, libraries and youth centres, museums and art galleries. The chapter looks at significant sectors and examines the social consequences of their financial losses, starting with the relatively modest cuts for prestigious national institutions and the ‘creative industries’ and moving on to the disastrously major ones for the local councils and the Arts Council England. Forms of resistance are analysed as a means to reclaim cultural agency, ranging from grass-root activities to Labour Party opposition. In several cases volunteers and philanthropists have stepped in to keep institutions running, while individual celebrities and political groups have publicly voiced protest, sometimes with spectacular actions.