Mike Newton: Ignore the self-righteous assumptions of the left – art is a Conservative issue
People are fed up—do they even notice?
Mike Newton was Conservative parliamentary candidate for Wolverhampton West, and worked for the Bank of England during his career in the financial markets.
They say by-elections have consequences, and you are reading this article because helping in the recent Willaston and Thornton contest (we won comfortably), in deepest Wirral, persuaded me to visit the nearby Lady Lever Gallery at Port Sunlight, and then cross the Mersey to visit the Turner exhibition at the Walker. These trips re-fired my interest in art, and made me think about its relationship with conservatism, which is often complex.
I am not a high culture person, generally preferring football, railway engineering or mountaineering, but I have always been interested in painting and the decorative arts. Perhaps some of it is due to the heritage of glaze and enamel manufacture for the pottery industry in Staffordshire on my mother’s side, and it may also have been my father taking me as a kid to a Royal Academy exhibition on the Post-Impressionists.
Meeting recently with the Shadow DCMS Secretary, Nigel Huddleston MP, it was very clear that the Party has made a commitment to the arts, from a perspective of it being not only in the national interest, but with potential political benefits.
The ‘Creative Industries’ (as defined by DCMS) contribute about 5 per cent of national output, according to research from the House of Commons Library. These things are not just ‘nice to have’: they are critical economic drivers. And within the arts, despite its public image of a bastion of the left, there are solid pockets of cultural and political conservatism.
As Conservatives, we believe in our national story without apology. We cannot sort it into ‘good or bad’ bits. It is a narrative not a buffet. The transition from a feudal agrarian society to a modern, high-tech democracy has not always been smooth, but it is our story, and we are proud of it, right or wrong.
Our history must be viewed cohesively, or not at all.
Our artists have chronicled that story. Which patriot could not be moved by the spell of the pre-Raphaelite romanticism of John Brett’s The Stonebreaker or Albert Richards’s depiction of gliders at Pegasus Bridge on D-Day?
The faces of the British speak out to us from our galleries. John Russell’s Porter of the Royal Academy or Augustus John’s portrait of Lord Leverhulme (initially banned by him) remind us of where we are from and where we are going. They may be dressed and coiffured differently from us now, but they are still us. We have a commonality with them that is deep and lasting.
I always like to think high performers in any field are naturally Conservative, given that to get there you must have several of our trademark values: aspiration, hard work, resilience, …
People are fed up—do they even notice?
Mike Newton was Conservative parliamentary candidate for Wolverhampton West, and worked for the Bank of England during his career in the financial markets.
They say by-elections have consequences, and you are reading this article because helping in the recent Willaston and Thornton contest (we won comfortably), in deepest Wirral, persuaded me to visit the nearby Lady Lever Gallery at Port Sunlight, and then cross the Mersey to visit the Turner exhibition at the Walker. These trips re-fired my interest in art, and made me think about its relationship with conservatism, which is often complex.
I am not a high culture person, generally preferring football, railway engineering or mountaineering, but I have always been interested in painting and the decorative arts. Perhaps some of it is due to the heritage of glaze and enamel manufacture for the pottery industry in Staffordshire on my mother’s side, and it may also have been my father taking me as a kid to a Royal Academy exhibition on the Post-Impressionists.
Meeting recently with the Shadow DCMS Secretary, Nigel Huddleston MP, it was very clear that the Party has made a commitment to the arts, from a perspective of it being not only in the national interest, but with potential political benefits.
The ‘Creative Industries’ (as defined by DCMS) contribute about 5 per cent of national output, according to research from the House of Commons Library. These things are not just ‘nice to have’: they are critical economic drivers. And within the arts, despite its public image of a bastion of the left, there are solid pockets of cultural and political conservatism.
As Conservatives, we believe in our national story without apology. We cannot sort it into ‘good or bad’ bits. It is a narrative not a buffet. The transition from a feudal agrarian society to a modern, high-tech democracy has not always been smooth, but it is our story, and we are proud of it, right or wrong.
Our history must be viewed cohesively, or not at all.
Our artists have chronicled that story. Which patriot could not be moved by the spell of the pre-Raphaelite romanticism of John Brett’s The Stonebreaker or Albert Richards’s depiction of gliders at Pegasus Bridge on D-Day?
The faces of the British speak out to us from our galleries. John Russell’s Porter of the Royal Academy or Augustus John’s portrait of Lord Leverhulme (initially banned by him) remind us of where we are from and where we are going. They may be dressed and coiffured differently from us now, but they are still us. We have a commonality with them that is deep and lasting.
I always like to think high performers in any field are naturally Conservative, given that to get there you must have several of our trademark values: aspiration, hard work, resilience, …
Mike Newton: Ignore the self-righteous assumptions of the left – art is a Conservative issue
People are fed up—do they even notice?
Mike Newton was Conservative parliamentary candidate for Wolverhampton West, and worked for the Bank of England during his career in the financial markets.
They say by-elections have consequences, and you are reading this article because helping in the recent Willaston and Thornton contest (we won comfortably), in deepest Wirral, persuaded me to visit the nearby Lady Lever Gallery at Port Sunlight, and then cross the Mersey to visit the Turner exhibition at the Walker. These trips re-fired my interest in art, and made me think about its relationship with conservatism, which is often complex.
I am not a high culture person, generally preferring football, railway engineering or mountaineering, but I have always been interested in painting and the decorative arts. Perhaps some of it is due to the heritage of glaze and enamel manufacture for the pottery industry in Staffordshire on my mother’s side, and it may also have been my father taking me as a kid to a Royal Academy exhibition on the Post-Impressionists.
Meeting recently with the Shadow DCMS Secretary, Nigel Huddleston MP, it was very clear that the Party has made a commitment to the arts, from a perspective of it being not only in the national interest, but with potential political benefits.
The ‘Creative Industries’ (as defined by DCMS) contribute about 5 per cent of national output, according to research from the House of Commons Library. These things are not just ‘nice to have’: they are critical economic drivers. And within the arts, despite its public image of a bastion of the left, there are solid pockets of cultural and political conservatism.
As Conservatives, we believe in our national story without apology. We cannot sort it into ‘good or bad’ bits. It is a narrative not a buffet. The transition from a feudal agrarian society to a modern, high-tech democracy has not always been smooth, but it is our story, and we are proud of it, right or wrong.
Our history must be viewed cohesively, or not at all.
Our artists have chronicled that story. Which patriot could not be moved by the spell of the pre-Raphaelite romanticism of John Brett’s The Stonebreaker or Albert Richards’s depiction of gliders at Pegasus Bridge on D-Day?
The faces of the British speak out to us from our galleries. John Russell’s Porter of the Royal Academy or Augustus John’s portrait of Lord Leverhulme (initially banned by him) remind us of where we are from and where we are going. They may be dressed and coiffured differently from us now, but they are still us. We have a commonality with them that is deep and lasting.
I always like to think high performers in any field are naturally Conservative, given that to get there you must have several of our trademark values: aspiration, hard work, resilience, …
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