Legacy is an interesting word. It suggests something at least halfway coherent: objects and real estate carefully safeguarded and willed on to the next generation. “Careful”, “safeguarded” and “coherent”, though, are not words to be associated with Boris Johnson. Even so, those who depart the stage of life or politics chaotically still leave their traces. What will Johnson’s tenure as PM have left the worlds of arts and culture in England and the wider UK?
The best, perhaps, that can be said for Johnson is that arts infrastructure in Britain did not entirely collapse during the closures of the Covid-19 pandemic – though it seems clear that the cultural recovery fund, support for the self-employed and furlough schemes were much more the terrain of the ex-chancellor, Rishi Sunak, than of the PM. So ends the faint praise.
In policy terms, Johnson’s government appeared to be reaching for two broad goals, albeit sporadically and inconsistently. These were “levelling up”, and even more inchoately, loosening the influence of a perceived “wokeness” on British cultural institutions.
Weaponising debates over public memorials and contested heritage, especially during the Black Lives Matter protests of the summer of 2020, is one way in which perceived “wokeness” was tackled. In attempting this, Johnson and his ministers pushed very close to breaking the arm’s-length principle. This is the idea, established after the second world war for very good historical reasons, that British governments should not make direct decisions about the arts and cultural institutions.
Johnson’s ex-culture secretary Oliver Dowden issued veiled threats to heritage bodies that their funding could be dependent on precisely toeing the government’s line on contested heritage – a move that risked endangering their independence and freedom to pursue intellectual goals as they saw fit. Was this kind of rupturing of the old-established boundaries of decency a legacy or a blip? Was Johnson an aberration or an exemplar when he stated that removing statues from public places “would be to lie about our history”? Clearly, it depends on what flavour of Conservatism comes next.
Another means of tackling perceived “wokeness” was with appointments to non-executive positions for cultural bodies, from the BBC to national museums. Before the resignation of Munira Mirza as head of the No 10 policy unit earlier this year, there was clearly a concerted effort to purge boards of those deemed ideologically unsuitable, and to fill posts with those regarded as friendly to the government. This is, in a sense, normal – despite such posts being officially neutral and independent, there has always been a certain political tilt to these appointments (and under the last Labour government, plenty of “friendlies” were given jobs).
The difference under Johnson has been one of degree. Well-qualified trustees have been booted out for fairly mild views on the nature of British imperialism, as in the case of Aminul Hoque at the Royal Museums Greenwich, a move that led to the resignation of the museums’ chair. The independence of appointment committees has been called into question. Concerted, repeated efforts have been made to lever in candidates palpably unqualified for jobs, such as the happily unsuccessful drive to make Paul Dacre the chair of Ofcom. Clearly, in certain roles – Tory donor Richard Sharp at the BBC, notably – Johnson’s government has inserted its favoured people into key institutions.
Overall, though, its success has been limited. This government’s legacy will not in fact be a wholesale change in the character of those ultimately responsible for large cultural organisations. What may linger for the moment is a caution and self-censorship among some arts institutions, especially in England, who seem wary of openly tackling matters such as decolonisation in politically unfriendly weather.
“Levelling up” has been a phrase much used and its aspirations are, in their essentials, perfectly reasonable: to focus attention and resources on areas of the country (not coincidentally often “red wall” constituencies), that have been hit by deindustrialisation and austerity. Culture is part of this agenda. But nothing that has been done under its banner has amounted to very much. This is no New Deal. Rather, according to the public accounts committee, it’s “gambling taxpayers’ money on policies and programmes that are little more than a slogan”.
In practical terms, levelling up has meant pressure to move public funding at speed out of London – a reasonable aim in its way, but one that overlooks the nuanced picture in the English southeast, including pockets of real deprivation. This move risks conflict, too, with the Arts Council’s own stated strategy – another threat to the arm’s-length principle.
There has also been an ambition to privatise Channel 4, which was established under Thatcher as a publicly owned, but privately funded, body. The BBC has also been a target of malign attention. Nadine Dorries, the blunder-making culture secretary appointed (as if in a cosmic joke) by Johnson for her unswerving loyalty rather than for any suggestion of suitability for the role, has said that the BBC licence fee, frozen until 2024, will be abolished in 2027. Johnson’s possible legacy is of a serious weakening of Britain’s public broadcasting system, which would have devastating consequences for the wider arts infrastructure, given that the broadcasters commission, employ and nurture so much British talent. There again, perhaps not: everything depends on the next flavour of Tory leader, and the next government.
What can be said in the end? Johnson has been a prime minister who advanced a set of incoherent, muddled, frequently cynical aims with the potential to be greatly detrimental to the UK’s (and especially England’s) arts and cultural landscape. Such as they were, though, they have been ineptly fulfilled. His departure may be a cause of relief. Be wary, though: the barrel we seem to be scraping, politically, may be deeper than we think.
