Liverpool council today announced that 1,500 jobs will be cut to close a £93m budget gap – and council leader Joe Anderson warned libraries will inevitably be among services slashed.
Teenagers from Barnet, the north London local authority which is threatening to cut its arts spending completely, are emailing me in passionate support of Rithmik, their threatened local music centre for 13 to 19-year-olds.
Jahana Khan writes:
"Rithmik means so much to me, without it, I don't know where I'll be right now. I love music, with all my heart and Rithmik has bought me closer to it, in ways that Music GCSE couldn't.
"To everyone else, Rithmik is just Arts project but its not, its means incredibly more. The authorities mean well, but they need to understand is that Arts is just as important as Maths and Science. You cannot express yourself through Maths or Sceince but you can through art, music is a art, and its not just like any other art, its maths its science its English all combine together."
See also Zainthepoet's comment about this on our open thread this week.
On the cheering side – and heaven knows we need some good news – the Society of London Theatres reports near-record attendances for plays, musicals and opera – fractionally down on 2009, but in cash terms an absolute record of more than £512m. There was also a record number of performances across the capital, 18,615 – that's not counting the myriad fringe venues – and a 2% increase in box office for plays.
