UK Non-Specific Area of Culture

Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw got over excited earlier and practically entered a city into a national competition by mistake.

Bradshaw was announcing the ‘cities’ that had put themselves forward as potential candidates to become “UK City of Culture”.

The title will go to the winner of a competition, in which bidding cities must put together a programme of cultural events that will bring about a “step change”, whatever that means.

Anyway, Bradshaw suggested that Derby had put itself forward – but that wasn’t quite what the city council said.

The council has expressed an interest, and assures LD it has a "strong will and desire" to be a part of the competition, but isn't yet sure if it's worth the cost.

Sounds to me like the local authority doesn’t want to pour cash away on the whole thing during the recession.

If you’re beginning to suspect that “UK City of Culture” might be a bit airy, then let me put your mind at rest by bringing to your attention the words of Phil Redmond who is chairing the judging panel.

He said it was all about, “defining how each individual ‘city’ can define culture as a collective endeavour to bring about real step change.”

The word city is in inverted commas because actually you don’t need to be a city to do it – bids are being put in by ‘Urban South Hampshire’ as well as, and this really takes the biscuit, ‘the countryside’.

Yes, all of the countryside in the UK is putting in a joint bid.

It’s actually no wonder if Derby is worried about financing a bid because the winner will receive the grand total of £0 from the Government to support their events.

A not very effective publicity stunt for everyone involved, and hence a bit of a waste of time, says LD.