Here I am paraphrasing Michael Billington’s comments in “Acceptable in the 80s,” The Guardian, April 11, 2009. See →.
See Peter Hewitt, “Beyond Boundaries: the arts after the events of 9/11” (speech, National Portrait Gallery, London, March 12, 2002). Hewitt was speaking as Chief Executive of Arts Council England, the government funding agency for the arts.
The creative industries are those that “have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have a potential for wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property.” These include music, publishing, films, games, advertising, fashion, design, TV, and radio, all of which have obvious commercial potential. See DCMS, → Creative Industries Mapping Document 2001. 2nd ed. (London: Department of Culture, Media and Sport, 2001) A follow-up document was published in 2003.
DCMS and DfES, All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education (London: DfES, 1999).
DCMS, Culture and Creativity: The Next Ten Years (London: Department of Culture, Media and Sport, 2001). A Green Paper is a government report that forms the first stage in changing a law in the UK.
Angela McRobbie, “‘Everyone is Creative’. Artists as Pioneers of the New Economy?” See →.
In the All Our Futures policy document, the DCMS and the Department for Education and Skills noted that “adult learning will in future take place in a world where flexibility and adaptability are required in the face of new, strange, complex, risky and changing situations; where there are diminishing numbers of precedents and models to follow; where we have to work on the possibilities as we go along...”
McRobbie, ‘“Everyone is Creative.”’
Faisal Abdu'Allah et al, “Tory plans for a culture of cuts,” The Guardian, October 1, 2010. See →.
Alan Davey, cited in Jackie Warren, “One Hundred Arts Organizations Face Destruction From UK Budget Cuts,” World Socialist Web Site, November 29, 2010. See →.
Lyn Gardner, “This Arts Council cut will devastate theatre,” The Guardian, March 30, 2007. →.
DCMS, reported in Dea Birkett, “Museum moments are worth preserving,” The Guardian, November 18, 2010. See →.
For a discussion of the disastrous consequences of reliance on short-term corporate funding, see JJ Charlesworth’s excellent analysis of the Institute of Contemporary Arts. JJ Charlesworth, “Crisis at the ICA: Ekow Eshun’s Experiment in Deinstitutionalisation,” Mute, February 10, 2010. See →.
“Giving to the Arts,” Financial Times, December 12, 2010.
David Cameron, “Big Society Speech” (speech, Liverpool, July 19, 2010). See →.
Cameron, “Big Society Speech.”
The Olympics are absorbing £2.2 billion in National Lottery money over the 2005—2012 period, leaving £322.4 million less for arts and heritage. Farah Nayeri, “Tate, British Museum Plead Against Arts Funding Cuts,” Bloomberg, March 25, 2010. See →. Jeremy Hunt reminds us that “three fifths of Britain’s biggest donors—those giving more than £100 a month—have incomes of less than £26,000 per year.” Jeremy Hunt, “Philanthropy keynote speech” (speech, European Association for Philanthropy & Giving conference, London, December 8, 2010). See →.
From the perspective of recent contemporary art, these imposed social orientations might seem reasonable enough, but for those who work in medieval literature—or indeed, any period for which these themes are not transhistorical absolutes—the opportunities for having your research funded become very bleak.
The idea is that this will recoup money for the government, but numerous reports have pointed out the deficiencies of this model. Current figures are based on equal numbers of male and female graduates earning steady wages that increase by 4.47 percent each year, but there are more female graduates than male, and on average they earn less than men and take time off to have children. The figures also do not take into account those who do not graduate, either by dropping out or failing exams. See John Thompson and Bahram Bekhradnia, “The government’s proposals for higher education funding and student finance—an analysis,” at →. The authors conclude that the new system is as likely to cost public money as it is to save it.
The Institute of Fiscal Studies argues that if the numbers are calculated via graduate earnings, the highest earning graduates would pay more on average than both the current system and that proposed by the coalition, while lower earning graduates would pay back less. But if one takes parental income as the key figure, graduates from the poorest 30 percent of households would pay back less than under the proposed system, but more than under the current system. Haroon Chowdry, Lorraine Dearden, and Gill Wyness, Higher Education Reforms: Progressive but Complicated with an Unwelcome Incentive (London: Institute for Fiscal Studies, 2010), 1. See →.
As the IFS also point out, the National Scholarship Fund also provides a perverse incentive for universities to turn away student applicants from the poorest backgrounds. Chowdry et al, Higher Education Reforms, 1.
Michael Gove, “If I'm paying for your education, so can you,” The Times, January 21, 2003. See →.
University and College Union, Universities at Risk, December 2010.
Stanley Fish, “The Value of Higher Education Made Literal,” New York Times, December 13, 2010. See →.
Martin McQuillan, “The English Intifada and the Humanities Last Stand,” The LGSthoughtpiece, December 11, 2010. See →.
Humanities Defence Petition, at →.
Mark Fisher, “Winter of Discontent 2.0,” k-punk, December 13, 2010. See →.
Alex García-Düttmann, “The Life and Death of the University,” Goldsmiths Fights Back, December 8, 2010. →.
Terry Eagleton, “The Death of Universities,” The Guardian, December 17, 2010. →. For another forceful critique of the cuts, and police behavior at student demos, see the article by Peter Hallward (Professor of Philosophy, Kingston University), “A new strategy is needed for a brutal era,” Times Higher Education, December 13, 2010. →.
Bill Readings, The University in Ruins (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), 3.
Sheila Slaughter and Larry L. Leslie, Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies and the Entrepreneurial University (Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press, 1997).
Alex García-Düttmann, “The Life and Death of the University.”
David Cameron, “PM’s speech on education” (speech, CentreForum think tank, London, December 8, 2010). See →.
Stanley Fish, “The Value of Higher Education Made Literal.”
Nick Clegg, cited in “Tuition fees: Nick Clegg says opponents of rise are ‘dreamers’”, The Daily Telegraph, December 9, 2010. See →. This is a grim riff on the 1960s version: “Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.” This line has been attributed to Bobby Kennedy, paraphrasing George Bernard Shaw.
In October 2010, Vodafone were reportedly let off £4.8 billion of tax by HM Revenues and Customs. Businessman Philip Green put the ownership of his UK-based Arcadia empire (which includes Top Shop) into his wife’s name in Monaco and paid her £1.2 billion, tax-free. These are not isolated examples, but the norm. Only 33 of the FTSE 100 companies published a list of where their subsidiary companies are located, even though it is a legal requirement for them to do so. In addition, these companies tax rate will fall from 28 percent to 24 percent in the next four years (while VAT on all products will rise from 17.5 percent to 20 percent). There is a clear discrepancy between the government’s message that we all have to contribute to the austerity measures, and the reality of corporate business. The Vodafone incident triggered a wave of activism by UK Uncut that led to 30 stores being closed nationwide in October 2010, while Top Shop and 22 of Green’s other stores were occupied and temporarily closed down in December 2010.
Many thanks to Laura Barlow and Mariana Silva for their invaluable research assistance on this article.