If you are a musician, particularly one lower down the food chain who makes a living from playing, struggles to make a living from playing or one who aspires to make a success of your chosen career, please bear in mind the words of the chancellor Rishi Sunak. Musicians, actors and artists should “adapt to the new reality” by getting jobs outside of the creative industries. Because the government has, understandably, outlawed all live musical and artistic performances because of the coronavirus, you should get adapt by doing something else. Of course, you should. Shouldn’t you?
It’s a brutally stark message from Sunak because what he is literally saying is this: “I don’t give a fuck about the arts. If you don’t like the fact I am stopping you earning a living – and you must surely have taken the hint when I left you out of the assistance packages I handed out to both employees and the self-employed, as well as the billions I lavished on my business pals – then you need to wise up and get a job wiping people’s arses in care homes or help my multibillionaire pal Mr Bezos by driving his fucking vans around, all for the minimum wage. You’ve never had it so good.”
Of course, Dishy Rishi, as the Sun calls him, said no such thing. Yet, contrary to his carefully crafted decent, honest former hedge fund manager image, it turns out Sunak is little different to any other politician and certainly no different to anyone else in this loathsome government.
I’m not just writing about rock bands and stage actors. I’m writing about orchestras too, who will be, if Sunak gets his way, allowed to wither on the vine and then die. In fact, it’s much worse than that. The entire performing arts sector is being left to die.
Unlike anything about this government, our creative industries really are world-beating. But the only things that this government refers to as world-beating are things that aren’t, like having the world’s worst reaction to the very thing that is dragging the country to its knees: COVID-19.
The wealthy heritage acts will still be here on the other side, able to enjoy the wealth they have earned over many years. Doubtless, they will continue to be honoured by the same government that hangs the rest of the sector to dry. Brilliant performers from the arts, with talents that mere mortals such as us can only dream about possessing, being told to do something else for a living. Imagine if we lived in a world where we could say to these politicians that they should “adapt to a new reality” and seek new avenues of employment like working people are being forced to do. It’s hard to imagine it because politicians, especially Tory ones, can always acquire second, third and even fourth jobs on vast salaries, despite their obvious inability to carry out even the most basic functions in parliament, because it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.
I know of few politicians who have transferable skills and in some ways it’s better, and safer for the rest of us, that they stay in parliament for fear of inflicting still greater damage on the country. Those in the creative industries make our lives better by way of their gifts, that great song, the world class ballet, the stunning stage play, not to mention the legion of workers whose lives depend on enabling the artists to perform at all.
It’s time people woke up and realised that Sunak, for all his alleged good looks and charm, is just another ambitious and cynical politician, working as Dominic Cummings’ man in the Treasury. His words sound soft but in truth they just deflect from a harsh reality.
No good man or woman would allow the creative industries to fade and die but under this government there are few, if any, good men or women. They just don’t care about the creative industries, but you should or else there won’t be any left once this crisis is over.
