Wigan MP and minister for culture Lisa Nandy defended Northern culture, and more broadly culture outside of monied pockets of the South East and London, in a combative interview with the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg yesterday.
Challenged by Kuenssberg on whether a planned Birmingham pop-up exhibition on Midlands heavy metal legend Ozzy Osbourne is “the kind of policies and plans that [people] voted for when they gave you such an enormous majority,” Nandy was quick to push back: “I’m quite horrified by what you’ve just said, because actually, I think that arts and culture belongs to all of us, and the chance to live a richer, larger life and for young people to have opportunities. And over the last 15 years, the opportunity to do that belonged only to young people whose parents could afford to pay depending on where they lived in the country,” she countered.
“I think that’s an absolute disgrace. I come from a town [Wigan] that gave the world Ian McKellen and The Verve. I can’t think of where the route would be for that now, and we make no apology for saying that not only are we trying to cut the cost of living, make life easier for people, raise the minimum wage, cut money off people’s energy bills, but we’re also restoring the opportunities for people that they deserve that have been denied for them for too long.”
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On a day when much of the news agenda was predictably dominated by US President Donald Trump’s latest threats regarding Greenland, Nandy also managed to address accusations that the government’s so-called “Hillsborough Law,” which will require greater honesty from police and security services could be “watered down” and not applied to certain sections of the security services: “To be really clear, the security services won’t be exempt. But there is a challenge that we’ve got collectively, and the challenge is to make sure that this applies to the security services without fear or favor, that they can continue to do their jobs,” Nandy said.
“They’re often the recipients of confidential information, but that we never, ever end up in a situation like we did with the Manchester arena inquiry. And I have constituents who are affected by that as well, where the security services are able to withhold information and present an inaccurate picture to families and to a public inquiry for a very long time.”
She added: “We’re resetting the relationship between people and the state and putting people back in the driving seat. Now we’ve been attacked and undermined at every stage, but the people that we’ve never been attacked and undermined by are the families who’ve been fighting for justice. We work with them as partners, because this bill is for them, and we’re going to make sure that we deliver.”
Kuenssberg also quizzed Nandy on whether the government planned to follow in Australia’s footsteps and introduce a social media ban for minors – a tactic for which Nandy’s cabinet colleague Wes Streeting has expressed support, however one which Nandy suggested may be overreach at the end of a week that saw her government emerge victorious over Elon Musk and misuse of his Grok tool to sexualise images of women and children on Twitter (X): “There are strong arguments for banning from the under 16s from social media, but there are also real concerns raised by the NSPCC and others about whether it pushes children to darker, less regulated places on the Internet, whether that has to be married with proper education for young people,” the minister said.
“We’re looking at all of that at the moment. The other area, though, where we really do have to do more in this country, and [Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology] Liz Kendall and I are absolutely crystal clear that we will is that we already have laws in this country. We passed some of them in the last 18 months.
“Under 13 year olds, for example, are supposed to go through age verifications and not be able to access most of these sites, and yet, not enough enforcement action is taken, so Ofcom needs to take care of it. So we’re working with Ofcom, but we really welcome what they did on Grok this week. We moved very swiftly. They moved very swiftly. We want to see more of that.”
