The Government’s latest communications snafu is appalling because it is revealing

Hot on the heels of the Chancellor patronisingly asking artists across the country to retrain in order to survive Covid – not taking the time to think that many struggling actors already hold part-time jobs.

Just last week Fatima, the ballerina (actually a stock photo from the internet of a dancer from Atlanta) is told that she has to give up on her dreams and get to work on excel. 

Regardless of the fact that this advertisement came out several years ago, and that it refers to a scheme originally aimed at young people looking to retrain careers, it fits so snugly into what we believe of this government that we feel that this could easily be them.

We know this government looks down on the arts. It took 100 days for Dowden’s pledge to save the arts to begin trickling pennies into coffers. 

In today’s world, being plausible is the same as being true.

That sounds terrible but it isn’t. 

All their communications team had to do was to avoid giving the impression that the government would be this high-handed and cruel. 

It shouldn’t be too difficult – but a quick glance at the internet will tell you that they have failed.