SIMON PARSONS is discomfited by an unflichingly negative portrait of motherhood and its trials
Egalitarian, radical, realistic
Labour’s manifesto proposals for broadening access to culture are initiatives which will enhance the lives of millions, says MIKE QUILLE
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THE 2017 Labour manifesto was a step change in Labour’s approach to culture, breaking free from dominant neoliberal assumptions that state support for culture is just about attracting investment and increasing tourism.
Those assumptions, typical of New Labour’s retreat from socialist values, still underpin the manifestos of the Conservatives and the Lib Dems.
In marked contrast, Labour’s genuinely new approach recognises the collective, creative and transformative power of culture, its potential to enhance and enrich our lives and how it can help to build a more humane, equal and harmonious society.
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MIKE QUILL reports on a lively conference in Barnsley that took stock of working-class access to culture and proposed strategies to embed culture within the trade union movement
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MIKE QUILLE relishes political theatre at its most entertaining, engaging and effective
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MIKE QUILLE is impressed by the rigorous Marxist approach to be found in a new book on the dialectics of art
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ADAM THERON-LEE RENSCH talks to Mike Quille about what it is to be a working-class writer in the US and patronising perceptions of class that abound left, right and centre
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MIKE QUILL reports on a lively conference in Barnsley that took stock of working-class access to culture and proposed strategies to embed culture within the trade union movement
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Artists are frequently first in line when it comes to cuts, but society as a whole is left all the poorer – it’s time they were properly valued, says ZITA HOLBOURNE of Artists Union England
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PATRYCJA ROZBICKA surveys the manifestos and is frustrated by the lack of discussion of our music and night-time industries
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The remarkable, campaigning and politically potent drama Mr Bates v the Post Office was a rare glimpse of what we could have if the working class punches its weight in cultural production, argue RON BROWN and MIKE QUILLE