Seen Report Keir Starmer special: fair-weather friend of the arts or the right man for the job?

After 14 years, the Labour Party are in power and the Tories are down and out. Keir Starmer is Prime Minister and Rishi Sunak has resigned as leader of the Conservative Party. It’s been 27 years, nearly a generation, since the UK last saw a landslide of this magnitude. So, what happens now, and what does it mean for the arts?

In short: fuck knows. In long: the few general statements about the importance of culture haven’t translated into actual policies or firm commitments. The closest Labour came to a plan was in March when Keir Starmer gave a speech at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where he talked vaguely about supporting the arts “because we know they’re essential to our economic growth and our national identity,” and said Labour will “reform the school accountability framework, to make sure arts count”. Inspiring stuff.

When it came to the election manifesto, culture didn’t even merit a headline. Instead, “Access to arts, music and sport” was placed under the heading “Break down barriers to opportunity.” In this section, football gets a whole two paragraphs while the arts get two mentions: first, under the ​​“Industrial Strategy” to create “good jobs and accelerat[e] growth in film, music, gaming, and other creative sectors,” second, a line about encouraging museums to loan “cultural assets” to other museums outside of London. And… that’s it.

So what about the Prime Minister himself? Perhaps his personality will move things? If only. In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Keir Starmer delivered the unforgettable line, “people need hope, but it needs to be realistic hope.” The next day, in an interview with Charlotte Edwardes in the Guardian, he revealed that he doesn’t have a favourite novel, or a favourite poem, and he doesn’t dream. Literally. At 11pm, his head hits the pillow and everything goes black. This isn’t the sensible, stable, moderate image he wants to put forward, it’s the image of a person lacking imagination, experience, or curiosity. Add to this the fact that Starmer has repeatedly said that he won’t “turn the taps” of public funding on, and the outlook is very poor.

This is all very strange, because the campaign occasionally leaned on its artistic credentials. Last week, The Art Newspaper reported that Antony Gormley had donated £500,000 worth of art to the Labour Party. The statement from the party confirming this went on to name yet more British artists who’d donated to the cause: Ryan Gander, Maggi Hambling, Lubaina Himid, Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor, Grayson Perry, Brian Clarke and Rachel Whiteread. Not insignificant names. And at 5 am on the morning of the 5th of July, Starmer held his victory speech in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern. Was this simple practicality? Where else in central London are you going to gather several hundred members of the party and press when it’s pouring with rain? Or was it a conscious call back to 1997 and the last Labour landslide. Then, a young Tony Blair gave his famous victory speech (“A new dawn has broken, has it not?”) barely a kilometre away on the South Bank. Under Blair, (new) Labour projected an image of modern, metropolitan, cultured political party. And it was under Blair that the Tate Modern was founded.

Labour now has an outsized hold on the government. Just 34% of the vote, on 59.4% turnout, lead to 64% of the seats in parliament. In theory, they can do what they want. The only question is if they’re truly committed to culture, or just a fair weather friend of the arts.