Culture, Olympics, media and sport
The Government believes that a vibrant cultural, media and sporting sector is crucial for our well-being and quality of life. We need to promote excellence in these fields, with government funding used where appropriate to encourage philanthropic and corporate investment.
- We will maintain the independence of the BBC, and give the National Audit Office full access to the BBC’s accounts to ensure transparency.
- We will enable partnerships between local newspapers, radio and television stations to promote a strong and diverse local media industry.
- We will maintain free entry to national museums and galleries, and give national museums greater freedoms.
- We will work with the Scottish Government to deliver a successful Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014, and ensure that the 2013 Rugby League and the 2015 Rugby Union World Cups are successful. We will strongly support the England 2018 World Cup bid.
- We will work with the Mayor of London to ensure a safe and successful Olympic and Paralympic Games in London in 2012, and urgently form plans to deliver a genuine and lasting legacy.
- We will examine the case for moving to a ‘gross profits tax’ system for the National Lottery, and reform the National Lottery so that more money goes into sport, the arts and heritage.
- We will stop wasteful spending by National Lottery distributors by banning lobbying activities and restricting administration costs to 5% of total income.
- We will use cash in dormant betting accounts to improve local sports facilities and support sports clubs.
- We will encourage the reform of football governance rules to support the co-operative ownership of football clubs by supporters.
- We will support the creation of an annual Olympic-style schools sport event to encourage competitive sport in schools, and we will seek to protect school playing fields.
- We will cut red tape to encourage the performance of more live music.
- We will introduce measures to ensure the rapid roll-out of superfast broadband across the country. We will ensure that BT and other infrastructure providers allow the use of their assets to deliver such broadband, and we will seek to introduce superfast broadband in remote areas at the same time as in more populated areas. If necessary, we will consider using the part of the TV licence fee that is supporting the digital switchover to fund broadband in areas that the market alone will not reach.
We need to take more care on copyright. It’s the one thing we CAN sell to the Chinese in terms of art, music, films, software, etc. When we’ve nailed it down tight then we can say to the Chinese – “Listen guys, we’re not gonna buy any more of your t-shirts until you respect our copyrights”. Not easy but essential. Digital sales are GREEN, too…
Abandon plans for the Olympics and Football World Cup – why should the public fund these when the main beneficiares are the overpaid professional athletes and footballers. The evidence to date from counties hosting these events is that any economic benefit is very short lived.
We thoroughly support the development of broadband in rural areas at the same time as urban. Whilst our cities move to second or third generation, we have exchanges that cannot get onto dial up!
This means lack of full educational opportunities for rural children – poor health and advice links for older people and it thwarts businesses developing in our rural areas.
I appreciate it is too late to cancel the Olympics, but any further funding and any funding outside the original figure quoted in the bid should come from the private not the public purse. It is a total waste of money as far as the majority of British people are concerned. Equally cancel the bid for World Cup 2018 unless it is 100% funded by the private sector.
The Arts have drastically suffered from money poured into the Olympics and more money should be spent supporting local community arts projects
Cancel the Olympics, Commonwealth Games and any other high cost low return sporting event our verging on bankrupt nation is currently or aiming to be part of. It is simply not justifiable when there are such deep cuts being made to public services that matter.
Repeal the travesty that is the Digital Economy Act and give the country a chance to have a real and sustainable digital future.
Make public broadcasting entirely secular, If people want religion they should not look to broadcast media to provide. Redeploy funds accordingly.
I would like to request the transfer of certain Broadcasting functions to the Welsh Assembly – particularly the funding of S4C, which the Assembly could play a great role in promoting. S4C has a major role in the cultural life of Wales and devolution of it can only benefit the organisation and the nation.
A review of TV licencing may also benefit many low wage families as it is very expensive. Perhaps the BBC could use additional funding options like programme sponsorship to fund some of its ventures such as ‘Cash in the Attic’ which are of no benefit to the country or the organisation and are nothing more than cheap, poor quality programmes.
With thanks and appreciation for your interest in public opinion.
Dear Sir,
Lets cancel the olympics, who actually cares if someone can run faster than somebody else, then maybe we get rid of the stupid system where you win 3 races and get made a Dame.
Tessa Jowell should be reinstated as olympics minister. It’s her constituency and she has the right to lead the olympics there and to all the facists arguing against holding the olympics and the world cup in this country: we already now have the facilities and have already invested in both (the world cup stadiums are already in place) and hosting these events would only bolster Britain’s international standing and our economy.
Please ensure that standards are raised in british broadcasting, our children are bombarded with images of music videos and magazines which promote the image that women are second class citizens, with no will, intelligence or common sense. The Government have a duty to protect our children.
The lottery should provide funding for the arts, music, and events for the community, where sponsorship from private business has dried up due to the recession, communities are losing out to organisations with the knowledge of “how to work the system” to ensure they get lottery funding. The lottery should be a charity and not a business – give Richard Branson the chance to put knowledge and expertise to running the lottery.
we truly do need a worldwide, big-stick-weilding independent body to oversee all aspects of all sports that are run along commercial lines.
there’s now too much opportunity/temptation and far too little CORRECT and TRANSPARENT oversight from the many different governing bodies. Not just the anti-competitive nature of say, the way the Premiership works or the doping travesties of athletics, but also for things like protecting sportspeople from being threatened into match-fixing etc.
I hope to see the scrapping of form 696 and other such nonsense. I also wish to see the BBC forced to create a more diverse range of services, currently I see them wasting more airtime and money than not and as far as closing 6 music, I find the idea and the reasoning deplorable. We live in a country where many are dissatisfied with paying a licence fee for the quality of output, quality regulation should be put in place and it should be a post occupied by the people.
could we please do something to stop this horrible trend of government by tabloid please? I refer you to the furore over mephodrome and the recent interventions in drink-driving regulations.
it is not healthy when the media (owned by the banks and corporate interests) have such a disgustingly disproportionate influence on the running of society. And anyone who says they ‘reflect opinions’ then explain why the Sun pushes lower taxes for millionaires so loudly? Hmmm?
I think the proposed annual mini Olympics for all children in schools is a really brilliant idea.
I can speak from experience as a teenager in a secondary school that once we reach a certain age, the school puts no emphasis on sport and PE lessons instead become a “doss” lesson whereby it is almost a competition to see who can pull the wool over the PE teachers eyes this week with yet another forged doctors note. I enjoy sport and feel frustrated at the lack of others enthusiiasm- it is a great way to boost confidence and to meet new people through working together.
Big idea: we have no money for circuses – let’s cancel all costly fringe events (Olympics, Commonwealth Games etc) That will make a big dent in the deficit and leave some for bread
Firstly, I hope that you don’t get too swayed by some of the aggressively anti-BBC posts here – there is doubtless waste and heavy layers of middle management, but I think they are a national treasure and something we should be very proud of as a country.
However, they are sitting on highly valuable digital assets and brands that are barely being exploited in the web age, and cannot be fully thru their current approach.
The consumer digital economy, from Facebook to YouTube is built to a large part around the sharing, remixing and personalising of content. Few major content rights companies have officially legitimised the use of their content in this way because of fears over uncontrolled IP exploitation. But as something funded by the people of this country, BBC should not be held back by the same concerns. Indeed Greg Dyke made a commitment to open up the entire BBC archive to the public, before Mark Thomson scrapped the project.
I recommend that you restart Dyke’s project and set tough targets for the BBC to distribute their back catalogue online with free remix and sharing rights for non-profit purposes, and simple revenue sharing for commercial applications by British companies.
This may seem counter intuitive to the 20th century media business mindset. Online however, this would give the BBC global supremacy as a content producer, and it would give British creative businesses the chance to increase capacity without extra capital investment. Teachers could get children to learn video editing and biology while recutting David Attenborough’s wildlife films. Independent producers could launch their own new web series of popular axed TV programmes without getting held up for years in rights negotiations. VJs and directors will be able to cut music videos mashed-up from old episodes of Tomorrow’s World or early Doctor Who; DJs and musicians would have access to the incredible live music archives, from the Promos to TOTP2. Cartoons and other programmes could be translated and dubbed/subtitled into languages they currently are not in. Academics and historians could include archive materials in their presentations, while students would have world class video at their fingertips. The potential is limitless.
Of course it would be a large battle to clear the rights, and commercial footage libraries may be concerned. But ultimately, the British public have paid for this content and in a digital world there seems to be no reason why they shouldn’t have free unfettered access to it, and furthermore be able to use these incredible assets to build businesses and academic and artistic ventures around.
For those concerned about cannibalising BBC Worldwide income, looking at the Star Wars fan films found on the Internet, or the novels of Cory Dotorow and Paulo Coelho whose bookshop sales went up after being distributed free online for copy/remix/translation, such stimulation would increase brand awareness and potentially overall sales (not to mention new income from the revenue share in successful applications of the library). It would stimulate the British creative industry economically at a time when many are struggling to adjust to life online, struggling with the recession, while showing our country to be thought leaders. And it could all be done very cheaply if done in partnership with the Open Source communities and companies who make up an increasing proportion of the British digital economy.
Best of all, it would be fun! A low cost policy announcement that would be great news for anyone who loves TV.
As nice as it is for museums to be free to all, I truly believe that visitors from abroad should be asked to pay an entrance fee. When I go abroad, I wholly expect to pay to go into a museum or gallery.
Some may argue that it would be incredibly difficult to identify British Citizens from those from abroad and this is true(I don’t carry my passport on a regular basis and I’m sure others don’t either).
Perhaps a sensible approach would be to ask foreign nationals for a nominal, voluntary contribution on entry. If they chose not to pay then so be it but surely encouraging contributions will add to the coffers and help these wonderful instritutions carry on their nationally important work.
I don’t think anyone would argue that the lottery distributers have done a really good job over the last few years. I’m unsure if a cut to 5% admin will do more to reduce wastage, than it will reduce quality of service… Think back to the Daily Mail’s and other media’s awful criticism of the early distributors, whose administration was on paper thin budgets, they seem infinitely more capable now.
It’s a little late for the halting of the Olympics, but let’s be realistic about the world cup 2018 bid… It would certainly be nice and would bring wealth into the country – but we’re talking about reaping benefits three years after the coalition’s first term, whilst paying for it during the first term – a period of economic uncertainty. It wouldn’t make much sense unless we used existing stadiums and the cost is absolutely minimal. Campaining isn’t cheap though, as I’m sure the coalition is fully aware.
I’m much heartened by the news about live music, I grew up in a city of vibrant musical extremeties, which has slowly been whittled down to a handful of venues due to the red tape. I’m so glad the coalition will be addressing this. Any other red tape you want to be rid of, feel free!
encourage adults in life long education and sport instead of the disporportionate emphasis on children. make it a duty for access to people with disabilities into all leisure and cultural sites. LA should make enabler schemes and carer support services so theatres and schools with community facilities can be used (BSF Builds/
Please do something quickly about the inequitious situation on the charging of VAT on the supply of sporting leisure.Members Clubs are exempt but Limited Companies are not. This has lead to a totally unfair and anticompetitive environment in membership subscriptions. The Government (under Blair and Brown) have known about this and failed to act in the way our European partners have. Make it a level playing field and allow sport in this country to survive in the commercial sector
If the churches want religious broadcasting, they should contribute towards it. There are at most 9% of people who are genuine Christians and they already have plenty of programming on Sundays and on holidays such as Christmas. They are already over-represented.
Repeal the Digital Economy Act. The music industry needs to be more creative in the way it sells music.
I think sports in this country generally caters for men. Women are an afterthought and this is unfair.
I would like to see the repealing of the Digital Economy Bill. It serves largely to pander to the large media distributors, and infringe upon the rights of the individual. Simply put it is not fair, why should we be punished because they are failing to provide a sustainable model?
More to the point, why will public resources (on which we must all save money) be used for what are effectively civil cases?
Either repeal the act (although that might be difficult, but would inevitably be yet more of a PR boost for the new coalition government) OR a fairer option, would be that the recording industry/media generator and distributor bares any and all costs related to this act. (i.e administration of everything)
I hope I have made myself understood. If you require further clarification, feel free to contact me at the above e-mail address.
Thank you for your time.
Alex Robinson
Why is Welsh taxpayers money going towards the Olympics in London when Wales as a nation is not even recognised by the Olympics?
Let me clear any confusion. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is not a nation. It’s a nation state. It’s an union of many nations.
There is no reason for the nations of the UK not to be recognised in all sports. It works in soccer and snooker! I’m sure that Mr. Cameron must be happy to see England in the 2010 World Cup!
Olympic Games
How are you going to explain to Mothers Against Guns that the earliest events of the games are always the shooting events? And with hand guns that are illegal in the UK at that!
Superfast Broadband
Feel free to pay for it by using part of the TV licence fee because I got rid of my TV 3 years ago. My mother who has no computer and isn’t interested in paying for others to have a fast internet connection wouldn’t be impressed by it though. Many of us would like superfast broadband but we are too mean to pay for it. There is no money in it for the ISPs so why bother? If you can make a business case for it it becomes part of the infrastructure of our nation. So it comes out of general taxation.
Olympic Games
How are you going to explain to Mothers Against Guns that the earliest events of the games are always the shooting events? And with hand guns that are illegal in the UK at that!
Superfast Broadband
Feel free to pay for it by using part of the TV licence fee because I got rid of my TV 3 years ago. My mother who has no computer and isn’t interested in paying for others to have a fast internet connection wouldn’t be impressed by it though. Many of us would like superfast broadband but we are too mean to pay for it. There is no money in it for the ISPs so why bother? If you can make a business case for it it becomes part of the infrastructure of our nation. So it comes out of general taxation.
Repeal the Digital Economy Act, which was strongarmed through at the end of the last parliament and which promises to punish any household by exclusion from the digital economy if *one* household member is *alleged* to have committed a *civil* offence.
Please reform the press complaints comission, they are completely useless, I have written to them numerous times, and have received less than satisfactory responses. Possibly they have no power to enforce any action or punishment. I also understand that they are headed and made up of people from press/ tabloids. How can I expect them to impartially and fairly judge my complaints. I have received very inadequate responses from them on issues that I have raised.
Secondly the government needs to act in the public interest when certain tabloid papers target a minority by publishing stories to grab headlines, by bending the truth ( stories such as “Xmas banned as muslims offended” etc etc) as these stories may sell papers but whip up a mass public hysteria and hatred towards a minority. The very fact that they are allowed to publish lies for profit. They splash their sensationalist articles across the front page – , and then 4 weeks later when found to be grossly inaccurate they publish a tiny apology 1 cm long – is plain wrong. These articles lead to people being victimised in the street and killed, There is a rising tide of islamaphobia linked to these articles. The press complaints comission is impotent to act.
Nationalise the Lottery, cut Olympic expenditure – it would look obscene if we are over-flamboyant with the Games at a time when we are so deeply in debt. However, I am concerned that a lot of art subsidy will be slashed, especially in less populist arts such as opera.
The government needs to get out of funding these areas except for exceptional reasons. The people of the country pay the government for essential services not for them to spend money on our behalf. If we want to support sports teams or arts, we can do so ourseleves; the government needs to get back to focusing on what they should be doing.
Firstly, I have to give praise randall bevan for his comments it is well received.
Single Sports Body
It seems the first steps from Hugh Robertson to amalgamate Sport England, UK Sport and the Youth Sports Trust is a good idea although as far as I am aware they will still be in their own entities which I feel is a mistake. Why not have a single body who deal with the entire UK/England/Scotland/Wales/Northern Ireland (if you are being technical) system. Why not bring together all the major sporting bodies, Disability (efds and ndso) (wsff), Women, Black and Ethnic Minorities, Older People,CCPR and any other important sporting body. So then they are all singing from the same hymn sheet as the one thing I hate about sport is the internal fighting over money, positioning and having influence/power over decisions which most likely returns back to money. The single system for sport in my opinion is great but isn’t being as effective as possible simply due to the duplication from other org’s and charities. why not emerge all bodies within the single system so that everybody knows where we sit.
Local Authority
A vital area is with Local Authorities as what ever you do from a central government point of view if the people in the local authority don’t care about sport then there won’t be any sport in that locality. I am from Barnsley which is very much a deprived area and I have been heavily involved in the sport and leisure department (if you want to call it that) as a volunteer. The council simply does not care about sport they have one full-time post with another as a part-time marketing officer compare this with Sheffield which I must admit it is a far economically and geographically advanced council but they still have a far greater staff number which is simply put down to the commitment of the council. So we either work around the local authorities or work within the local authorities which will mean a degree of bureaucracy even at local council levels which MUST BE CUT.
Mass Participation Funding
The funding has to be sent directly to grass-roots rather than send it to your uncle who then sends it to his cousin who has a friend from Devon who knows your next door neighbour who then drops it through your door. Funding must be sent down to grass-roots as quickly and easily as possible there should no red tape the applications should focus mainly on the long term sustainability of the project rather than give them the money and run and there should be a support officer who will help the project start off and will be there for additional support throughout the projects entirety. From my experiences the current funding programme that Sport England has in place is ok however as always it can be more effective.
Scrap the Digital Economy Act, you need a policy which is formulated by people who understand how the internet actually works and doesn’t pander to the needs of the media industry.
It concerns me that the word ‘arts’ is not mentioned at all, yet is at the root of our cultural industries.
I’m delighted by the commitment to keep free entry into galleries and museums.
Sport might be better encouraged as a way of being healthy and fit, as opposed to competitive. It’s a more inclusive approach to life, as opposed to survival of the fittest.
The advertising-free broadcasting of the BBC is unique and that must be preserved. I would like to see the BBC commissioning more contemporary, risk-taking, quality drama, which is sadly lacking on TV these days. More quality, less channels, and less lifestyle programmes please – let the corporate sponsors pay for those on commercial channels. Quality of life comes from intelligent stimulation of grey matter, not from the colour of your wallpaper.
I’m a little baffled by the calls to Christianity in the comments. Surely we either fairly represent all religions, or none. I for one do not wish my license fee to broadcast any material that is biased towards any particular religious belief. Isn’t that what places of worship are for?