Update: Gordon Brown seriously pissed off with Hodge
Wealthy heiress Margaret Hodge proclaimed yesterday that Proms not inclusive saying
Tthe Proms was one of several major cultural events many people did not feel comfortable attending
Fantastic, I thought, at last someone is taking seriously the fact that the Albert Hall 'air-conditioning' is entirely unfit for purpose once the daytime temperature exceeds 25 degrees.
Oh, that's not what she meant.
The audiences for some of many of our greatest cultural events - I'm thinking particularly of the Proms - is still a long way from demonstrating that people from different backgrounds feel at ease in being part of this," she added
Implied is that because clearly 'ordinary people' can't cope with the Blue Peter Prom. Or maybe she hasn't heard of the Venezuelan Youth Orchestra, whose Proms last year under Gustavo Dudamel created such a buzz that Ed Balls has proposed introducing a similar 'sistema' into England - capturing children from deprived areas and training them as musicians to rival the best in the world, with the non-musical benefits being startling - amazing. To the extent that not adopting similar practices indicates a lack of commitment to the Social Exclusion/Anti-Drugs/Community Cohesion/Crime Reduction agendas and is tantamount to neglect.
What she actually means is that one half of one concert of over 80 that gets shown on BBC1 on a Saturday night at the end of a two month season is full of crap music catering to the lowest common denominator without any substance or value.
Old Etonian Cameron, married to a wealthy heiress, decides to run with this one. It's all about British values, he says. See above remark about the Venezuelan Youth Orchestra. Or maybe peruse the programme and consider whether the Concertgebouw, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Buskaid Soweto String Ensemble, Yo Yo Mar's Silk Road or Ravi Shankar are most representative of British values. Or perhaps that honour would go to the European Union Youth Orchestra.
Or perhaps they worry about the prohibitive cost of tickets - five or six pounds to stand, nearly forty pounds for the most expensive seats.
Lots of people feel uncomfortable going to football matches or night clubs. So what, are elitist fools Hodge and Cameron saying that they should change their essence to cater for people who aren't interested or can't be bothered. Or should they accept that in a heterogeneous society like Britain, different people have different tastes. What they're actually saying is
We're rich and well-educated and still incredibly thick, so we can't begin to understand how you little people without our obvious advantages need anything more challenging than Coronation Street. Just crawl back to your hovels please.
Rather at odds with Gordon Brown's belief that in cultural matters we should be striving for excellence.
The Virtual Stoa has pointed out two other statements by Hodge in the same speech, one just incorrect one horrendously idiotic.
The fact that Dumbed-Down Cameron didn't bother to comment on the howler that 'Henry VIII separated state and religion' means either it went straight over hi s head, or else he felt that the British public, especially potential Tory voters, are too thick to understand why that is so so wrong. And too brain-dead to contemplate why it might matter.
Update: More discussion at the Guardian. They interpret it as being Hodge saying Black People don't go to classical concerts. Well, a few weeks ago on a sunny Saturday, Jimmy and I went to Brockwell Park, in Brixton ie the capital of Black Britain. Hundreds of people had the same idea. Mainly white British. Quite a lot of Polish and French (white) people, a good number of Chinese, a few Asians. One family (Mum, Dad and two children) were black. Again and again we see this in parks and other attractions close to areas where large numbers of black people live, and in attractions where admission is free. I can barely guess the reasons why, but to change The Proms because not many black people go would be as stupid as proposing to build over Brockwell Park because black people don't go.
Oh, and the recent Brixton and Streatham Hill Branch Labour Party meeting I attended, I was surprised at how high a proportion of Black and Minority Ethnic people were there, in comparison to when I used to regularly attend, up until about four years ago, when it was overwhelmingly White.
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