Soft Power And The UK's Creative Industries | Is It Time To Change School Curriculums?

Is it time for a new curriculum? Do the UK's creative industries receive enough funding in relation to the soft power they exude? Who is 'El Loco' in the election in Panama?

Listen to Rory and Alastair answer all these questions and more in today's Question Time.

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00:00 Intro
00:21 Is the TRIP Tour still going ahead?
02:52 Can the UK creative industry still be considered a soft power?
07:19 Latest on the Panama Election
11:40 Time for a new national curriculum
14:01 Should there be a shift in our history curriculum?
16:09 Latest on the COVID-19 enquiry
18:48 But what can I do (with Brexit)?
25:06 Rory is happy to admit he's wrong
27:35 Does the Prime Minister get a set of keys to Downing Street?
28:20 Bayern Munich
31:02 How will the podcast change if Labour wins?
35:50 Outro

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[sonicwingnut]

One thing the older generations in particular forget about in terms of UK creative industries is the gaming industry, which has a turnover of £11.4bn and is growing at nearly 12% per year, it's one of the largest game industries in the world.

[Melaisis]

Both Alistair and Rory overlooked videogame development in the discussion of the creative arts.

Despite recent studio closures we are still the home of many successful developers, including Rockstar Games - GTA V has made over six BILLION dollars in revenue, making it the single piece of media that has made the most money EVER.

Yet we will see more studio closures, production moved overseas, and a drain of talent unless the industry continues to get more investment. Neither of the 2 main parties have addressed this in their campaigning yet.

[requiem]

People see 81% of our economy in services and think of the City, but they forget our creative industries. Film, music, television, computing. We have a huge natural advantage in the arts afforded by our native language and culture, and should wake up to this - even a hard-headed miseryguts with a tin ear should acknowledge how much money it makes us.

[annishilcock]

It's not just films Rory, ..it's theatre, art, fashion, design, music and literature. Well said Kiera. we are world renowned for our creativity, it is our soft power and God forbid Sunak thinks any art and design or cultural courses are mickey mouse courses with no value!

[ChrisWhittenMusic]

The Tories don’t care about the creative industries. They cared more about fishing than the music industry during the Brexit negotiations, despite the music industry employing more people and bringing more income in than fishing. During the pandemic there were big holes in support, with buildings and flagship organisations like the Royal Ballet being supported while thousands of self employed actors, musicians and technical workers received no help.

[shaun]

i hope the lack of working classes in the arts is reversed under labour. most are from private schools these days!

[peoplevrobot]

FYI for Rory, the Cannes film festival is not the French state giving Lucas a lifetime achievement prize, rather it's a prize from the festival, its jury and organisers for his work. Given how important the UK industry is for World cinema, it should be an objective of the government and the UK industry to develop a very high profile Cinema festival in the UK.

[kingdomofaphalas.]

I am so glad to see the creative industry finally get a motion, not only am I a young author but I started a podcast to chat with other independant creators regardless of whatever medium and their perspectives on all of these things are really interesting to hear and i've got a bit of a backlog of guests now which I am really happy about. I am also a big believer in the potential of the gaming industry whilst my own focus remains my books, I have been thinking slightly about making a Mod - another great showing of the creative potential of people.

[stevenwilliamson]

I think Gove was consistently wrong about everything, including education. He said once that he wanted every school to be above average. The teaching unions asked if he was better at numeracy or literacy when he was at school.

[Rubes]

Rory, lovely to see you and hear you last night at the Palladium!

[richardoldfield]

Either we free state schools from the centralised prescriptions of the National Curriculum (just as academy schools, free schools and private schools are free from these), or else we radically reform it to create a curriculum that focuses much, much more on teaching a wide variety of age-appropriate, interpersonal and intrapersonal understandings and skills … including, for instance, those connected to emotional/psychological understanding (e.g. empathy and the capacity for self-reflection), social skills, relational skills, future parenting skills, and communication/listening skills (including the much-neglected arts of rhetoric).

It also needs to focus much more on expanding the powers of imagination via various types of art classes, especially drama.

[portreemathstutor]

My local high school is very understaffed. If the government has any spare money spend it on more teachers rather than grand strategy changes.

[simonfrost]

I love it when Rory refers to himself in the third person. It reminds me of the Seinfeld episode 'The Jimmy', which has a character who constantly does the same: 'Jimmy makes the sale!' 'Jimmy's going into shock!' 'Jimmy played well today'

[willrelf]

Alastair can’t think of any other issue that was so consequential and had such a huge impact? None at all? Maybe in ten years Gove and Johnson will have their own podcast in which they bemoan the very issues they helped create.

[Philc]

Rory: You stated "Nearly half the country voted Remain." What you perhaps meant was, "nearly half of those that voted" (not the same thing). The actual figures in the 2016 Referendum were 16 million Remain (48.9%), 17 million Leave (51.2%) out of a then UK population of 67 million. That means only 37% of the electorate actually voted Leave, or 27% of the population overall. It would therefore be more truthful to say "only just over one quarter of the country voted for Brexit" - a very definite minority! - Phil Copleston

[rogerhudson]

When I took O level history (1967) Oxford Exam Board offered different curricula, our history teacher chose 'Constitutional History ' which was British constitutional fron 1688 to 1890, very heavy.

[__aoc]

25:10 If anyone is interested in learning more about the predicability of social systems, how good (or bad) experts are at doing it, and how to get better, you should read Philip E. Tetlock's work. He would also be an extremely interesting guest, and I'd be interested to know if either Rory or Alister have read his work. Groundbreaking stuff.

[elizabethfitzgibbon]

It’s great that these two get on soooo well, when Rory is Conservative & Alistair is Labour! I am a great Rory fan!

[williamj]

Except that half of the film industry is currently out of work because of strikes. My wife hasn’t worked properly in the sector for a year now. It’s been worse for her than Covid.

Also, gaming outshines tv, music and film combined by market cap I believe.

[qeitkas]

Any slogan with the word "Change" in it, is losing weight. Too often used with too little result makes it carry ever less value.
Britain might have come to terms with the fact that Brexit was a failure but what they didn't come to terms with is the end of the British Empire and a new role as a "normal" member in another bloc called the EU. This is why politicians avoid this subject. The country is simply not ready for it and it will take 2 generations to root this out. Once I hear UK "expats" not calling themselves as such anymore but calling themselves immigrants like the rest of the world does, I believe the UK will have changed finally for the good.