Perhaps it's hardly surprising, but Gordon Brown's hour-long party conference speech – disregarding a glancing mention of the books on tape he'd listened to when his "good" eye had begun to fail him as a young man – contained nothing on the arts or culture, except for a reference to the creative industries being important to the economy in the coming years. Here's the full context of that passage:
"And just as families have to make economies to make ends meet, so this government must and will ensure that we get value for money out of every single pound of your money that is spent. But I say to you that we will invest it wisely, continuing our record investment in schools, Sure Start centres, transport and hospitals.
And if we make the right decisions to take people through the world downturn fairly we will find that, despite the current troubles, British firms and British workers can reap the rewards of a world economy set to double in size.
With Britain's great assets - our stability, our openness, our scientific genius, our creative industries, and yes our English language - I know that this can be a British century and I'm determined it will be."
I'm no expert political commentator, but it didn't strike me as a speech likely to be regarded as a classic of the genre. As a dramatic soliloquy, I reckon it would have had theatregoers drifting off a bit.
The full text will no doubt pop up here in due course.
