DIARY
CHRIS SMITH One of the great dangers of ministerial life is that you can become far too London- centric, and it's essential to try to get out around the rest of the country on a regular basis. But it can be exhausting when you do. Tuesday was such a day: up at the crack of dawn to catch a train to Leeds (with the wonderful compensation of one of the great luxuries of life, breakfast on the train), followed by a whirlwind of a day. A speech to the Advertising Association about the future of television advertising in a digital age; then on to York to visit three museums in succession and present a cer- tificate of designation recognising the national quality of the museums there; on to Bradford to learn from the university how computerised organ sounds can not only imitate but surpass the real thing; a visit to the building site of the soon-to-be revamped National Museum of Photogra- phy, Film and Television; and finally a won- derful performance of Swan Lake by the Northern Ballet Theatre at the Alhambra in Bradford. Anyone who thinks that the only fine artistic performances come out of London should think again. This was excel- lent, in all respects.
You can at least work on the train (I find it hugely difficult in a car). But on Wednesday, once I was back in London mid-morning, I had to go straight to chair the monthly meeting of the Millennium Commission. Now that almost all the major capital allocations for projects around the Country have been made, we've been able to turn our attention more to the Millenni- um Awards: grants to people with bright ideas that help them to develop their own Potential, but also serve their community. helped thousand individuals have been Helped so far, and there are many more to come. I often find myself wishing that the national press would lift their eyes from the Dome and look at the rest of what's hap- pening for the millennium. Eighty per cent of all the work and funds is going to pro- jects and awards around the rest of the country. In the evening, I gave a speech to the Reform Club's Economic and Current Affairs Group, but was mightily embar- rassed to realise at the last minute that I was supposed to be in a dinner jacket and wasn't. I simply hadn't had a chance to change. I found myself fervently apologis- ing to my hosts and assuring them that this was not intended in any way to be a politi- cally correct gesture to proletarianism!
Thursday saw the start of a major cross- European conference on culture and employment, held at the Royal National Theatre on the South Bank — and it gave me the chance to speak about some of the major changes that have been happening in Britain's economy: the creative industries — those such as music, fashion, architec- ture, film, publishing, the performing arts, that depend for their value on individual creative talent — are growing at twice the rate of the economy as a whole. They amount to well over £50 billion of econom- ic activity a year. And British talent is con- quering the world in these fields at present. These are the areas where the jobs and wealth creation of the future are going to come from.
This is a point I make very strongly in my book Creative Britain, which has just been published by Faber and Faber, and involved many sleepless nights in putting together! It sets out to do two principal things. It seeks to put in place the intellec- tual underpinning of creative and cultural policy for the government: something that simply cannot be done in a four-minute dis- cussion on the Today programme. And it seeks to highlight the scale and success of these creative parts of the economy: to say that, yes, the arts are good and wonderful in themselves, but they are also an increasing- ly important economic force, and no gov- ernment should ignore that. This economic value is far more important than any over- hyped talk of 'Cool Britannia'.
Thursday, Friday and Saturday saw a whole series of interviews in preparation for the book's publication: its official launch date was Wednesday, 20 May. As `Social climber.' far as I am aware, this is the first time in 30 years that a serving Cabinet minister has written a book in his own policy field. One of the other great dangers of ministerial life is that your schedule becomes such a back- to-back accumulation of meetings that you never have time to stop and think properly. Making yourself write a book is, I suppose, a good way of doing so.
On Friday I headed to Wales to speak to the Welsh Labour party conference, to talk about the creative industries and also the reforms we're introducing to the National Lottery. In particular, I wanted to draw attention to the small grants scheme, with a user-friendly one-stop service now being developed for small grants to local community organisations. We want to elim- inate much of the enormous burden of paperwork imposed on volunteers at pre- sent, completely inappropriate to the size of grants being requested.
Saturday was Cup Final day, and even if Arsenal — my own home team — hadn't been playing, I'd have been looking for- ward to going. But with the Gunners there, playing well, and winning the double, I was shamelessly partisan in my support and my delight. Back home that evening, Islington was awash with red and white and celebrat- ing supporters. And who can blame them?
No one believes you when you say that going off to the Cannes film festival is hard work. But it is. When I set off on Sunday for a two-day visit there, I knew I was in for an intensive round of meetings, discussions, breakfasts and negotiations with Holly- wood moguls. That indeed is what it turned out to be. I did get to see two movies, but most of the time I was flying the flag for the increasingly important British film industry, and emphasising the point that we need to invest support and effort not just in the production of movies but in the script-writ- ing stage and the marketing and distribu- tion stages too. There's no point in helping films to get made that never get seen.
ter two days of sun, seemingly end- less meetings and the occasional glimpse of the Croisette, it was back on the plane to come home and time to prepare for a ses- sion with the governors of the BBC, for an appearance in front of the departmental select committee, and for the formal launch party for Creative Britain on Wednesday evening at the Tate Gallery. I wonder sometimes: will life ever stop moving at this impossibly whirlwind pace?
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