Although I would not consider myself to be overtly political, I have been really impressed with Jeremy Corbyn's performance this week. There were instances where his performance ass Labour leader such as the Brexit campaign where they were perhaps found wanting. However, I think that he could be easily forgiven because of the lack of support that the Parliamentary Labour party have given him. Despite a shaky start where he was regularly out-performed in PMQ's by David Cameron, I feel that this week he is really starting to come in to his own with some sensible and pragmatic policies which do not necessarily pander to popular opinion yet which show that there is a via alternative to the kind of politics espoused during the last forty years. So much of what has been promised this week will take a long time to absorb and digest but the return to form of the Labour party now seems palpable and I think the fall-out from Brexit will ultimately prove the downfall of the current government within the next 12 months. Corbyn is now beginning to seem not only credible and almost visionary - nothing probably not thought possible throughout the summer.
One subject which caught my eye was his comments regarding ear-marking an eye-watering £160 million to educate kids with the arts. For a long, long while, this has been seen as money being unnecessarily squandered but it is interesting that Labour now seem to be taking a different tack. I am interested in this because I feel that art is important but, to paraphrase George Orwell, some art is more important than others. I experienced the woeful results of Thatcher's interference and meddling with school funding in the 1980s when I was at school but I think she also allowed a culture to germinate where the arts became increasingly institutionalised. It will be interesting to see if all this money will be spent on arts education in a coordinated and structured maner and how music and especially jazz might fair in this divvying up on revenue. I think that it is great that music education should receive more funding and think that this can only be recommended however I am dead against the institutionalisation of jazz. Given Corbyn's love of Elvis, I think jazz might be pretty far off his radar but the sums of money being promised might be well spent in giving kids a broader and more practical musical education denied by cuts which would allow the music to flourish. I would hate to see official jazz courses and the music become formalised but I think more should be done at "street level" to help the music at grass roots so that the education establishments do not see all of whatever money would be promised.
Does jazz education really need funding or is it better to let the music evolve organically? Will it suffer by potentially being given a crutch to lean on as has been the case in Holland (not sure if it is still the case but I recall reading an article on a website about Dutch government funding actually subsidising a lot of musicians deemed by the American commentator to be mediocre.) Would a socialist government have an agenda as to how the money is spent on arts education and is it likely that jazz will continue to be something or a poor relation in the arts world and how will external sponsorship of the arts fit in to a potential Labour government's manifesto? I don't ever recall any other political party bringing arts funding or at least financing arts education in to part of it's agenda to seem a credible party of government. In this respect, Corbyn is truly offering a "new politics" but I wonder if arts funding is likely to register with joe public when it comes to putting a tick in the box. Surely anyone with an interest in the arts and wants to see the arts taken more seriously must now be able to put faith in the fact that a government might at last took beyond funding the opera!!
One subject which caught my eye was his comments regarding ear-marking an eye-watering £160 million to educate kids with the arts. For a long, long while, this has been seen as money being unnecessarily squandered but it is interesting that Labour now seem to be taking a different tack. I am interested in this because I feel that art is important but, to paraphrase George Orwell, some art is more important than others. I experienced the woeful results of Thatcher's interference and meddling with school funding in the 1980s when I was at school but I think she also allowed a culture to germinate where the arts became increasingly institutionalised. It will be interesting to see if all this money will be spent on arts education in a coordinated and structured maner and how music and especially jazz might fair in this divvying up on revenue. I think that it is great that music education should receive more funding and think that this can only be recommended however I am dead against the institutionalisation of jazz. Given Corbyn's love of Elvis, I think jazz might be pretty far off his radar but the sums of money being promised might be well spent in giving kids a broader and more practical musical education denied by cuts which would allow the music to flourish. I would hate to see official jazz courses and the music become formalised but I think more should be done at "street level" to help the music at grass roots so that the education establishments do not see all of whatever money would be promised.
Does jazz education really need funding or is it better to let the music evolve organically? Will it suffer by potentially being given a crutch to lean on as has been the case in Holland (not sure if it is still the case but I recall reading an article on a website about Dutch government funding actually subsidising a lot of musicians deemed by the American commentator to be mediocre.) Would a socialist government have an agenda as to how the money is spent on arts education and is it likely that jazz will continue to be something or a poor relation in the arts world and how will external sponsorship of the arts fit in to a potential Labour government's manifesto? I don't ever recall any other political party bringing arts funding or at least financing arts education in to part of it's agenda to seem a credible party of government. In this respect, Corbyn is truly offering a "new politics" but I wonder if arts funding is likely to register with joe public when it comes to putting a tick in the box. Surely anyone with an interest in the arts and wants to see the arts taken more seriously must now be able to put faith in the fact that a government might at last took beyond funding the opera!!
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