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'A cultural policy for the whole nation' : Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard
RICHARD LEONARD has pledged to “make arts and culture” the “visible flagship” of his radical manifesto.
Speaking at the Glasgow May Day cabaret night yesterday evening, the Scottish Labour leader said the left must defend bookshops and record shops from closure as much as post offices.
He asked: “If our movement does not develop our own cultural policy based on our own values, how on earth can we develop a cultural policy for the whole nation, let alone mount a direct challenge to the concentration of ownership, and so power, across the whole field of culture and communications, which frames the terms of our public debate and the choices we can exercise as citizens?”
ROGER McKENZIE draws attention to the much-neglected oral traditions of the global South that define the identity – and therefore the liberation – of its custodians
MAT COWARD tells the story of the eccentric founder of a short-lived but striking experiment in ‘vital democracy,’ who became best known for giving away his estate to the nation
RUTH AYLETT reviews two collections of outright political poetry