Poet laureate Simon Armitage read out his latest work, Fugitives, on Saturday on a hill above Morecambe Bay. Commissioned by the National Association for Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the National Parks Act, it is Armitage’s third poem since becoming laureate in May. It follows Finishing It, a poem about cancer research, and Conquistadors, about the 1969 moon landing.
Armitage has taken to the post with far greater gusto than his predecessor, Carol Ann Duffy, who, while a fine poet, gave the impression that she hated penning odes in her official capacity. She had to be dragged kicking and screaming to write a few short and not very good lines for the wedding last year of Harry and Meghan.
Armitage has also become the go-to person to spell out the importance of his art form in the way that the master of the Queen’s music, Judith Weir, is not. Appointed five years ago, Weir has hardly uttered a public peep. Her predecessor, Peter Maxwell Davies, was not only a terrific composer but made huge efforts to talk about music, in particular within education. When the teaching of music and the provision of instruments is really suffering in schools, Weir must be more vocal. While she blogs occasionally and has her own website where she writes about music, she needs to sing far more from the proverbial rooftops to justify her royal position.
It might have passed you by, but a few days ago Helen Whately (below) became the latest arts minister – the fourth since the start of January 2018. There have been just as many secretaries of state at the department for culture, media and sport over the same period. The DCMS has always been small, but it used to punch well above its weight with the likes Tessa Jowell and Ed Vaizey. Now it seems a shadow of its former self – a place where its latest boss, Nicky Morgan, one-time education secretary, has been exiled. Whately’s “previous”, meanwhile, includes enthusiastically tweeting about Donald Trump and taking several thousand pounds worth of hospitality from the Saudi government.
In David Cameron’s new memoir there is an interesting, if very short, paragraph about the BBC, and how he despaired in the lead-up to the EU referendum over how the corporation did not understand the difference between balance and impartiality. He is spot on. The BBC felt it always had to search for a Brexit-supporting economist (there are not many) for their opinion, even though the vast majority argue that leaving the EU will harm the UK. This so-called balance also led to regular spouting from the Brexit-backing Tim Martin of Wetherspoons and a record 33 appearances in a decade by Nigel Farage on Question Time.
While agreeing with Cameron on this BBC point, I should remind him of his own career as director of communications for Carlton, the London ITV company, from 1994 to 2001, where he was notably uncommunicative to most journalists. I know from bitter experience as media editor of this paper during that period.
