I would never consider myself a political person before Covid, frankly I always felt like I knew too little to have much of an opinion, but lately I have felt a need to share my thoughts. Why? Well I guess I'm angry, like a lot of people, and sadly I suppose that's where it starts.

I don't want to rabbit on and on but I do want to document my opinion of how the Government is treating the Arts. I can assure you I've worked in other sectors and I'm not oblivious to the hierarchal needs of society - obviously certain industries have to come first in order for our nation to survive - but I am frustrated with this Government's complete lack of respect for certain sectors.

For me their behaviour mirrors a bully in a school playground making you do something humiliating just so you can have your belongings back. That is exactly how I felt when I saw that Live Venues have to praise the Government on all of their social media platforms in order to receive funding. There are several hashtags I've seen but definitely #hereforculture is one they are using more and more. So if you see any typically anti-establishment folk suddenly being in praise of the Government you now know why! 

I have also seen a great disparity in venues who receive funding. Those in the most need - larger, been shut for months, in my opinion serve the community the most - seem to have received a great deal less in grants than their peers which I find rather suspicious.

Finally I shall briefly talk about that insulting advert featuring Fatima the ballerina. I will say that the prime ministers official spokes person did say the ad was 'inappropriate' however if you felt that way when you saw it why on earth would you ever let it see the light of day? Why is it all over the internet? Surely in that conference where ministers and graphic designers sat down and discussed possible images and designs for the retrain campaign the PM or his representative would have raised their hand to say, "we can't use that, it's inappropriate." The slogan is good, I'm with them there but how dare they? What do they think we've all been doing for the last 7 months? I can tell you now I have attended webinars to train up on social media, I have expanded into online tutoring, I have expanded heavily into youtube... I have not been stagnant, I have not been on JSA and I have stayed afloat. I am incredibly lucky, not everyone was able to but I worked incredibly hard and made myself ill with anxiety and sciatica because of it.

These are unprecedented times but a little respect goes a long way.

I'll stop there - I can already hear your sigh of relief haha! If you got this far thank you and also my apologies, I needed to vent on a platform that didn't have a word limit! 

Thank you for hearing me, thank you immensely for your support and thank you for everything you do.

 

Take extra special care of yourselves

 

Rose x