A recent report from the left-wing think tank, the Fabian Society, offers Keir Starmer some 'sane and imaginative' actions to help fill Labour's arts policy vacuum, writes Richard Morrison.
A distinguished academic once told me how she was wooed by her future husband. “He dazzled me with his knowledge of Dostoevsky,” she said. “It was only after we married that I realised Crime and Punishment was the only book he had read in 30 years.”
I was reminded of her when Keir Starmer made what The Times described as an “unexpectedly highbrow joke” about Beethoven, Brahms and Shostakovich during his conference speech this week. Why? Because back in March, when I interviewed him about his musical tastes, he reeled off the same three names.
I could be cynical about that, or I could rejoice that a prime minister - indeed, any British politician - risked making an “unexpectedly highbrow” reference to classical music in a big speech. Call me soft-headed, but I choose the latter. After all, Starmer went on to say something even more “highbrow”: that “every child deserves the chance to study the creative subjects”... Keep reading on The Times.
A distinguished academic once told me how she was wooed by her future husband. “He dazzled me with his knowledge of Dostoevsky,” she said. “It was only after we married that I realised Crime and Punishment was the only book he had read in 30 years.”
I was reminded of her when Keir Starmer made what The Times described as an “unexpectedly highbrow joke” about Beethoven, Brahms and Shostakovich during his conference speech this week. Why? Because back in March, when I interviewed him about his musical tastes, he reeled off the same three names.
I could be cynical about that, or I could rejoice that a prime minister - indeed, any British politician - risked making an “unexpectedly highbrow” reference to classical music in a big speech. Call me soft-headed, but I choose the latter. After all, Starmer went on to say something even more “highbrow”: that “every child deserves the chance to study the creative subjects”... Keep reading on The Times.