The New Bohemia
Rebecca Gordon Nesbitt
“The referendum on Scottish devolution on September 11th 1997 was a historic moment for our country. But the ‘Yes Yes’ result was not a mandate for politicians, civil servants, local government officers or any other public sector officials to take on extra powers ‘on behalf of the people’.”
Bridget McConnell, 19971
In summer 2007, Variant reported on the unprecedented move of Glasgow City Council (GCC) devolving its Cultural and Leisure Services department to a private charitable trust.2 The
main challenges outlined at the time came from Unison – representing the majority of public sector workers affected – which objected that workers would suffer, that previous fundraising attempts offered a spurious precedent for guaranteeing future funding (which might contribute further pressure to seek private investment), that democratic accountability beyond the ‘lucky six’ councillors appointed to the board would be lost in relation to a number of key services (leading to an ‘arms-length’ private
company), that the scheme represented a tax dodge (explicitly prohibited within
Labour Party policy)3 and that this move would compromise the credibility
and fundraising potential of legitimate charities. Unison mounted a legal challenge,
applying for an interim interdict against the Council’s proposals in March
2007 and seeking a judicial review of the process, both of which were unsuccessful.
In January 2007, as a result of similar concerns, Culture Minister, Patricia Ferguson, had sought reassurance about the legality of the move.4 Another
objection was made by Scots Tory MEP, Struan Stevenson – responding to the claims of a whistleblower presumed to be a high-level GCC official – on
the grounds that the creation of a new company to oversee culture and leisure
should have been put out to tender and that the state cannot directly or indirectly
subsidise a company.5 Competition commissioner Neelie Kroes passed the matter over to European Commissioner, Charlie McCreevy, who is widely acknowledged to be in favour of free markets.6 McCreevy
contacted the Scottish Executive on 10 April 2007 which, just days before Bridget
McConnell’s husband lost his job as First Minister, penned a joint response
with GCC, refuting any claims of illegality, which was accepted by the Commission.7
Within its first year of trading, Culture and Sport Glasgow (CSG) has given some
indication of its future trajectory. Controversial proposals to allow private
companies to develop businesses in two of its parks have been strongly resisted
and so far resulted in plans for a nightclub in the botanical gardens being scrapped.
Initial fears about job security – especially for casual workers – appear to have been founded, with staff at Tramway being offered contracts that discriminate against artists who rely on flexibility in their paid work, thereby undermining the indirect subsidy that reaches the city’s
creative practitioners through invigilation work. A year ago, Variant asserted
that “one of Glasgow’s proud boasts is that of the free access to museums. How long will that last if the Trust gets into financial difficulties?” Somewhat
predictably, it has just been announced that the feted Kelvingrove Museum will
be introducing admission charges. It would seem to be an appropriate moment to
take a closer look at the formation of Culture and Sport Glasgow, the overlapping
networks and interests of its key personnel and the early implications of this
transfer for culture within the broader strategies being devised for Glasgow,
which are paralleled in other cities around the world.
With reference to city council reports and minutes, it is clear that the genesis
of CSG suffered from a lack of transparency from the outset. In November 2005,
in the wake of the Cultural Commission making its final report to the Scottish
Executive and responsibility for cultural provision having largely been delegated
to local authorities Glasgow’s Cultural Strategy was approved by the council.
In her introduction to this document, Bridget McConnell (then Executive Director
of Cultural and Leisure Services), affirmed the link between cultural participation
and economic regeneration, highlighted the continued need for private investment
in Glasgow and noted that cultural tourism accounted for 37% of all tourism to
the city.8 Indeed, the potential of culture to increase tourism has become widely asserted as a phenomenon, with precedents ranging from Bankside (Tate Modern) to Bilbao (Guggenheim Museum), and McConnell has invoked Bilbao when discussing the new Zaha Hadid-designed Riverside Museum, due to open on the banks of the Clyde in 2010.9
It was McConnell’s proposal to create a new company to manage the city’s cultural provision, which was swiftly taken up by Councillor John Lynch (then Executive Member for Culture and Sport), abetted by Councillors Steven Purcell and Aileen Colleran, who would go on to occupy key roles in Culture and Sport Glasgow. This ultimately led to the formation of two companies – one limited by guarantee with charitable status (with an estimated turnover of £19
million p.a.), and an additional trading arm, or Community Interest Company (CIC),
to carry out those functions not deemed charitable by HM Revenue and Customs
while gifting all income to the charity. While this proposal has the veneer of
passing through the appropriate consultancy phase and council committees before
finally being approved at a meeting of the GCC Executive Committee on 2 February
2007, it is interesting to note that Culture and Sport Glasgow and its trading
arm had already been incorporated as private limited companies six weeks earlier,
on 22 December 2006, with an application for charitable status having been made
the day before.10
The intrusion of capital into the cultural arena is a familiar story throughout the modern period. In his landmark examination of how ruling class cohesiveness is achieved through cultural participation, G. William Domhoff describes how the Bohemian Club was founded in San Francisco in 1872 by artists, writers and musicians who subscribed to the myth of Bohemia, whereby creativity springs from poverty. This privileging of creative talent over financial means was soon displaced by more pragmatic concerns about the daily running of the club and, in the late nineteenth century, wealthy, untalented men were voted into the club, thus securing the future of its activities.11 This paves the way for a detailed consideration of the financial motives informing cultural provision in Glasgow.
The diagram [click for PDF] that begins this text details the interactions between
the invited board members of Culture and Sport Glasgow and some of their external
connections, which are elaborated here:
Bridget McConnell - Executive Director of Culture and Sport Glasgow, and Culture and Sport Glasgow (Trading) CIC
As the manoeuvres outlined above demonstrate, Bridget McConnell was the driving
force behind the creation of Culture and Sport Glasgow. Appointed as Director
of Cultural and Leisure services in 1998, her tenure was blighted by union wrangles
over jobs and by run-ins with the city’s artistic communities about departmental
policies or lack thereof. Promoted to Executive Director with negligible discussion
in August 2005, reports of top council jobs being axed were appearing on the
front page of the Herald by the following November.
As Cultural and Leisure Services complained that an extra £3.5m p.a. was needed to run its museums properly, figures produced by McConnell for the period 1 April 2006 and 26 January 2007 showed her department having a net overspend of £981,000. Yet, while the devolution to CSG was justified to the GCC Executive Committee and the media on financial grounds, McConnell’s
perspective has always been broader, extending to discussions around culture
at a national level.12 In 2000, she served as a member of the focus group set up to implement the National Cultural Strategy13 and – through
CoSLA14 and VOCAL15 – ensured that the work of local
authorities in delivering cultural provision was fully recognised.16 On
the occasion of Culture Minister, Patricia Ferguson, making her recommendations
on the future of the arts in Scotland in January 2006, in response to the findings
of the Cultural Commission, it was said that “arts figures across Scotland are unanimous in one thing: the conclusions of Ferguson’s blueprint, which controversially propose to hand more influence over Scotland’s arts scene to local and central government, were wrought in [Bridget McConnell’s]
image.”17 In order to make her plans a reality, McConnell has secured the help of some of the most influential pro-business minds in Glasgow City Council and beyond.
Controlling the majority of cultural provision in Glasgow, Bridget McConnell
would be expected to have an interest in culture. Some insight into her taste
in art comes from the Christmas present she commissioned for husband Jack in
2004 – an oil painting by Hamish MacDonald of the farmhouse on Arran where Jack grew up. Writing in 1997 – the year Glasgow-based artist Christine Borland was nominated for the Turner Prize, with her contemporary, Douglas Gordon, having won the prestigious prize the previous year – McConnell
confined her appraisal of visual art successes in Scotland to an earlier generation
of painters, mis-spelling John Bellany’s name and merging Peter Howson’s with that of Ken Currie to commend “the
internationally successful Belamey, Campbell and Howie.”18 To
compensate for the gaps in her arts knowledge, McConnell has seconded Dr. Vartan
Gregorian, President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York as an advisor, although
his role seems largely confined to making links with wealthy Scottish émigrés
as part of the CSG development strategy.
One final point of interest before considering the dealings of other CSG representatives
is that McConnell’s brother, Robert McLuckie, is the millionaire owner of property company, Camvo 37. In 2007, retired detective sergeant Alistair Watson – the officer behind the ‘cash for honours’ inquiry that dogged Tony Blair – sparked an investigation into McLuckie’s dealings with the Scottish Executive by writing to the Metropolitan Police. Apparently, five houses and a plot of prime building land, sold to Camvo 37 by the Executive for just two pounds in 2004 on the site of the former Ladysbridge Hospital in Aberdeenshire, had been valued at upwards of £1million. A condition of the sale had been that McLuckie should pay for any subsequent renovation, yet he applied for £120,000 from an Executive quango, Communities Scotland, to help build new homes on the land and another £230,000 of NHS and council cash was allegedly spent renovating the existing houses, despite interventions from Inland Revenue. It was reported that, six months before negotiations began, another McLuckie company, Choices Community Care, had donated more than £2,000 to Jack McConnell’s
election funds.19
Bailie Liz Cameron - Chair of Culture and Sport Glasgow
Passionate about promoting Glasgow abroad, former Lord Provost, Liz Cameron,
travels the world at the city’s expense. This has seen her taking trips to New York, Sri Lanka and Melbourne, the latter of which was undertaken as part of the delegation to secure the 2014 Commonwealth Games for Glasgow. Aside from her work for Glasgow City Council, Cameron works as Vice Chair of Glasgow Cultural Enterprises (the company set up by the council in 1988 to manage various cultural venues, which acts as something of a precedent for CSG) and Glasgow City Marketing Bureau (to be discussed in more detail later). Her connections extend into virtually every aspect of cultural life in Glasgow, while her presence on the planning applications committee ensures that development projects are tailored to fit the city’s
priorities.
Councillor Steven Purcell, - Board Member of Culture and Sport Glasgow
Leader of Glasgow City Council, Purcell has been accused by Christopher Mason
(leader of the council’s LibDems) of being on a crusade to ‘Blairise’ the
council by presiding over changes which saw the traditional committee system
replaced with a policy-making cabinet, or executive, of fifteen councillors in
summer 2006.20 He is avowedly pro-business, and the devolution of cultural and leisure provision follows the creation of several other limited liability partnerships by the council in recent years. In November 2007, Purcell consolidated his approach by offering rent-free premises to new business start-ups in the city. He is a central figure in the 2014 Commonwealth Games, opening the process up to tendering and making Scottish businesses aware of procurement opportunities. Working alongside Liz Cameron, Purcell acts as Chair of Glasgow City Marketing Bureau; he is also a Non-Executive Director of the Scottish Exhibitions and Conference Centre (SECC) and has a non-financial interest in Scottish Enterprise Glasgow.
In response to fears about the vulnerability of charitable companies like
Culture and Sport Glasgow to the 2002 Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act,
Purcell reassured citizens that “a commitment to meeting all the Freedom
of Information requests currently met by Cultural and Leisure Services is guaranteed
as Culture and Sport Glasgow is a publicly owned company and is therefore obliged
to comply with the legislation.”21 And, while the CSG Board congratulated
itself on the Scottish Information Commissioner’s praise for its publication scheme as “one
of best he had ever seen for a publicly-owned company,”22 successive requests for information about various aspects of its operation, have thus far yielded nothing.
Councillor Stephen Curran - Board Member of Culture and Sport Glasgow, and Culture and Sport Glasgow (Trading) CIC
As City Treasurer, Scottish Labour Councillor Stephen Curran has the unenviable
task of running a council with a £1.3 billion debt which pays £90 million in interest every year. Combined with the almost £1m
overspend shown by Cultural and Leisure Services in the 2006-07 financial year,
fiscal prudence invoked in the creation of Culture and Sport Glasgow and its
trading arm will continue to be integral to both new companies.
Councillor Aileen Colleran - Board Member of Culture and Sport Glasgow, and Culture and Sport Glasgow (Trading) CIC
In May 2007, the Council Business Manager became Chief Whip and took up a place
on the board of both CSG companies. She also undertakes remunerated work as Director/Board
Member for two other independent companies set up by the council – Glasgow
Cultural Enterprises and City Building LLP.
Councillor James Dornan - Board Member of Culture and Sport Glasgow
Dornan’s appointment to the Board represents the healing of a rift between
the SNP and CSG. Having initially opposed the devolution of cultural and leisure
provision to the charitable company, SNP leader within Glasgow City Council,
John Mason, announced in May 2007 that the SNP would be represented on the board.
Lord Norman Somerville Macfarlane of Bearsden - Independent Director of Culture and Sport Glasgow
A prominent Scottish industrialist, the octogenarian Conservative peer is Honorary
Life President of both his own packaging company, Macfarlane Group plc, and of
drinks giant, Diageo, one of the biggest alcohol companies in the world. Macfarlane
has held Directorships at Glasgow Chamber of Commerce and Clydesdale Bank and
his cultural links extend to Scottish Ballet, the Scottish National Orchestra,
Third Eye Centre (now the Centre for Contemporary Arts), National Art Collection
Fund and National Galleries of Scotland. As Chair of the Kelvingrove Renovation
Appeal Trust, he was publicly credited with overseeing a massive fundraising
effort to enable Glasgow City Council’s flagship venue to re-open, while
the work of professional fundraiser, Alan Horn, is rarely acknowledged.
In March 2008, in recognition of the synergy he brings to business and the arts, Lord Macfarlane was honoured with a Goodman Award (along with the founders of frieze magazine)
by Arts and Business, the organisation set up during the Thatcher era to promote
partnerships between the two realms. However, all is not rosy in the world of
art and business, with Macfarlane Group suffering from a lower demand in packaging,
at a time of enhanced ecological awareness, to record losses in the four years
up to 2005. When a country’s monetary systems flounder, works of art are known to provide an alternative means of preserving economic capital. Since the American Depression of the 1930s, it has been understood that “exhibiting one’s own art works alongside prestigious international art works, and hence adding to the symbolic value of all the works and to their consequent monetary value, preserved overall capital for the owner by increasing an art work’s present cultural capital for later transformation into economic capital – a
good investment of both time and money.”23 Macfarlane is currently
Chair of the committee to organise the ‘Glasgow Boys’ exhibition due to take place at Kelvingrove in 2010, with a tour to London’s Royal Academy, a foray into programming which will boost the value of his well-publicised private collection of Glasgow Boys’ paintings.
The Rt Hon George Reid - Independent Director of Culture and Sport Glasgow
As Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament under Jack McConnell, from
2003 until May 2007, George Reid oversaw many corporate interventions into the
Scottish Parliament. He was Honorary President of the Scottish Parliament Business
Exchange, which was set up to ‘educate’ parliamentarians about business; while participants are asked to sign a no-lobbying guarantee, dues of £7,500 have tended to confine membership to representatives of trans-national corporations and professional lobbyists. One of its members is Holyrood Communications, a political communications company owned by public consultations advisory firm, Holyrood Consultations, which changed its name to 2Collaborate in 2006. On behalf of its clients the Scottish Executive, 2Collaborate launched a campaign – sponsored
by Microsoft, CapGemini and the Herald newspaper – to advocate
private interventions into public services.
As of May 2008, Reid remains a board member of the Futures Forum24,
a think tank set up by the Scottish Parliament to extend its outreach work into
fields such as the arts and entrepreneurship. Its foundation was, in turn, informed
by the Global Business Network which involves creative futurologists such as
Douglas Coupland, Brian Eno, Bruce Sterling and Francis Fukuyama and “works with Fortune 500 companies from virtually every industry and continent, as well as with many national governments, nonprofits, and foundations” to
help iron out the uncertainties of global business futures.25
Sir Angus Grossart - Independent Director of Culture and Sport Glasgow
Sir Angus Grossart is Chairman and Chief Executive of Noble Grossart, the merchant bank he founded in 1969. Vice Chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland until 2005, Grossart has been linked with fifty business ventures, via Directorships ranging from British Petroleum to Scottish and Newcastle. His links with culture include, amongst others, trusteeships at the National Galleries of Scotland and the National Heritage Memorial Fund, vice-presidency of Scottish Opera, chairmanship of the Fine Art Society (of which Noble Grossart owns 29%) and directorship of the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Lord Dennis Stevenson of Coddenham - Independent Director of Culture and Sport Glasgow
Like his fellow Independent Directors, Stevenson has multifarious business and
governmental links, engendered through his work for think tanks – including Demos, the Social Market Foundation, SRU, Lexington Communications and Huntsworth PR group – which
lead right to the heart of the New Labour government. His cultural involvement
extends into work for the British Council, a high-profile Directorship of the
Tate Gallery and an appointment as Chancellor of the University of the Arts (the
powerful merger of six art and design schools in London).
Dr. Kenneth Chrystie - Chair of Culture and Sport Glasgow (Trading) CIC
A trained lawyer, Chrystie was Partner of Glasgow-based firm, McClure Naismith, from 1972 to 2007 where he became a specialist in intellectual property law,26 which
is crucial to the much-vaunted creative industries. Retained as a consultant
to McClure’s, he also offers his services to Murgitroyd and Co, Scotland’s
only listed firm of patent attorneys. In July 2007, Chrystie was appointed as
a Member of Strathclyde University Incubator (chaired by Ian Murgitroyd),27 which nurtures nascent companies until they can thrive on their own and raises questions about conflict of interest.
Flora Martin - Board Member of Culture and Sport Glasgow (Trading) CIC
With a background in the military side of the civil service – working at the Fleet Air Arm base near Perth and the Faslane MoD base at Helensburgh – Martin is widely considered to be one of Scotland’s PR gurus. She started her own company, Flora Martin PR, in 1989, with clients largely centred on the alcohol and hotel trades. In 1996, she sold her company to Citigate Communications for in excess of £1 million, staying on to build the turnover up to £5 million, with clients from Asda to Bank of Scotland. Stepping down to become independent in 2004, three years later she became Chair of Platform PR, which works in government relations (i.e. lobbying) and communications strategies, helping their clients to “weather
controversies and cope with crises.”28 Martin will head Platform’s
new Glasgow office.
Edward Crozier - Board Member of Culture and Sport Glasgow (Trading) CIC
Managing Director of Whisky Galore Films Limited, Director of Promenade Productions,
Britannia Productions and several other media-related companies, Crozier has
produced a handful of West End productions. He holds a Directorship at Scottish
Opera and, in-keeping with the sporting element of Culture and Sport Glasgow,
is a member of the Scottish Rugby Union Council, a Grade ‘A’ rugby
referee and past Chairman of the Scottish Rugby Referees Association. He also
currently sits on the judging panel for the Scottish Entrepreneur of the year
awards.
Seamus MacInnes - Board Member of Culture and Sport Glasgow (Trading) CIC
Seumas MacInnes is the entrepreneurial restaurateur behind the expanding Allied Irish Bank-funded chain of Gandolfi restaurants based in the Merchant City area of Glasgow, the hitherto ignored yet historical eastern edge of Glasgow city centre, which has been earmarked for development by GCC. Gandolfi is a member of the Glasgow Restaurateurs Association29 which
represents the main restaurants in the city and forms part of Glasgow’s branding and tourism strategies. MacInnes – who is from Barra in the Western Isles – is
a darling of the Herald newspaper, having served as a food columnist there in 2000-1.
The Bigger Picture
In March 2004,30 Glasgow City Marketing Bureau
(which, it will be remembered, has CSG’s Steven Purcell and Liz Cameron
as its Chair and Vice Chair respectively)31 branded the city with
the slogan ‘Glasgow: Scotland with style’. In his introduction to the brand guide, the Bureau’s Chief Executive, Scott Taylor, writes “Since the launch of the brand, in excess of 535,000 additional tourists have visited the city generating £62 million in local economic benefit and delivering a 2% year-on-year increase in hotel occupancy,” thus consolidating the link between the brand and the city’s
tourism strategy.
Glasgow City Marketing Bureau is part of a consortium – together with Glasgow City Council, Visit Scotland, Scottish Enterprise Glasgow and Glasgow Chamber of Commerce – set up to develop Glasgow’s
tourism strategy.32 As a leading representative of three of the five
partner organisations, Steven Purcell embraces tourism as a key industry within
Glasgow’s economic development strategy and sets the target of attracting one million visitors by 2016 to take the sector into the £1 billion p.a. bracket. The route for achieving this 80% growth in tourism encompasses a major events strategy centred on the 2014 Commonwealth Games, the afore-mentioned Riverside Museum and the Arena at the SECC. Capitalising on the markets for leisure and ‘discretionary business tourism’,
the strategy makes explicit reference to the role of Culture and Sport Glasgow,
the renovated Kelvingrove Museum and the regeneration of Merchant City.
As we have seen, Bridget McConnell is fully conversant with the potential of
culture and sport to increase the revenue of a city through tourism, and her
ambitions for Glasgow, as expressed in CSG’s priorities, closely overlap with those of Glasgow City Marketing Bureau. Emphasis on cultural tourism has led to a ‘festival mentality’, whereby the city’s support is concentrated on attracting temporary tourists rather than supporting Glasgow’s
creative practitioners directly.33 March 2008 saw the Magners Glasgow
International Comedy Festival, Aye Write! – The Bank of Scotland Book Festival – and the 16th French Film Festival. This was followed, in April 2008, by the Glasgow Art Fair and the two-week visual arts fest, Glasgow International. An annual exhibition that quickly became biennial, Glasgow International effectively brands the exhibitions already taking place in the city’s
main institutions and grassroots organisations in a bid to attract visitors en
masse. On 13 May, 2008, Katrina Brown was announced as the new Director
of Glasgow International. Undertaking this role on behalf of the Common Guild – the ‘public’ arm of Glasgow’s predominant commercial gallery, the Modern Institute – this
appointment perfectly consolidates the creeping commercialisation of the art
world in Glasgow.
The second exercise in branding extant visual arts activity within the city is
Trongate 103, which is due to open in 2009. Led by Glasgow City Council’s Department of Development and Regeneration, this will see the redevelopment of a block at the corner of Trongate and King Street – which has long housed eight arts organisations – to
form a unified arts complex.34 Tapping into a familiar, and often disastrous,35 strategy
of culture-led regeneration, this dovetails neatly with the Five Year Action
Plan devised for the regeneration of the Merchant City area at the east of the
city centre. This badly-punctuated document is explicit about the Council’s
intentions to capitalise on the potential of this area, ensuring that derelict
properties are renovated and inhabited. At the time of writing, the cultural
tenants of Trongate 103 have been offered five year leases based on existing
rents, after which time their future is uncertain.
Also consistent with the events-based strategy being perpetuated in the city
is Culture and Sport Glasgow’s involvement in the bid for the 2014 Commonwealth
Games. When McConnell was promoted to Executive Director of Cultural and Leisure
Services, her role grew to encompass sport. Together with husband, Jack, and
GCC/CSG representatives Liz Cameron and Steven Purcell, McConnell has travelled
the world as an ambassador of Glasgow to ensure that the Games come to the city.
Recent reports that she may have been sidelined to protect SNP sensitivities
would seem to be contradicted by the relocation of the sports development team
of CSG to the Commonwealth site.
Critic of neoliberalism, David Harvey, discusses the organisation of urban spectacles,
like shopping centres and the Olympic Games, to “create a positive and high quality image of place…” Serial repetition of successful models, he says, “is
understandable, given the grim history of deindustrialization and restructuring
that left most major cities in the advanced capitalist world with few options
except to compete with each other, mainly as financial, consumption, and entertainment
centres. Imaging a city through the organisation of spectacular urban spaces
became a means to attract capital and people (of the right sort) in a period
(since 1973) of intensified inter-urban competition and urban entrepreneurialism.”36 Indeed, the Commonwealth Games is viewed by the CSG team as a major opportunity for Scottish business. While accounts of Culture and Sport Glasgow have largely ignored its trading arm, the entrepreneurial muscle of Ed Crozier combined with the business-nurturing approach of Kenneth Chrystie will no doubt ensure that the maximum amount of capital is extracted from this event. In parallel with this, the hospitality-based PR work of Flora Martin and the role of influential Merchant City-based restaurateur, Seamus MacInnes, will no doubt contribute to the profitable tourist-led regeneration.
More than the sum of its parts, the creation of Culture and Sport Glasgow represents
the wholesale takeover of culture by business interests. It posits a strategy
for economic regeneration that depends on the whims of elite tourism and its
pace of consumption in a period of economic crisis. It demonstrates an ethos
that is smothering this city and others like it, regarding culture solely in
terms of its use value, stripped of any emancipatory potential. Far from being
considered in terms of the universal creativity to which every citizen has a
right, culture in Glasgow is framed in terms of passive participation and money-making
potential, with the city’s burghers fast accumulating cultural capital in the process. It remains to be seen how this approach will affect the creativity of future generations as Glasgow’s
cultural communities are rendered impoverished and complicit in the new Bohemia.
This research was undertaken as part of an MRes in Social Research in the Department of Geography and Sociology at the University of Strathclyde.
Notes
1. Bridget McConnell, ‘Culture and the New Politics: Reflections from a Small Country.’ In
M. Jacobs (ed.) Creative Futures. Fabian Society, London, pp. 16-22.
2. Anon. ‘O Rose, thou art sick! Outsourcing Glasgow’s
Cultural and Leisure Services.’ Variant, 29, pp. 30-1.
3. This point refers to Labour’s policy document Scotland’s Future:
Report of the Scottish Policy Forum which opposes the creation of charities
for outsourcing services, a policy inserted at the insistence of Unison states: ‘We will look at ways to ensure the legitimate incentives that apply to charities are not used as vehicles for outsourcing by local authorities.’ See Gerry Braiden, ‘Council’s proposal to hand over museums ‘against party policy’.’ The
Herald. 2 March, 2007, p.2.
4. Paul Hutcheon, ‘Executive queries legality of new culture trust: Glasgow council’s
bid to hand over libraries and museums hits legal snag.’ The
Sunday Herald. 4 February, 2007, p. 28.
5. John McCann, ‘Glasgow museums trust faces Euro probe: Investigation
over claims charity is operating illegally.’ Evening
Times. 3 May, 2007, p. 2.
6. Honor Mahony, ‘Free marketers in top commission posts.’ EU
Observer,
13 August 2004.
7. Gerry Braiden, ‘Commissioner clears city over culture and sport trust
claims.’ The
Herald. 30 August, 2007, p. 6. http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/news/display.var.1651843.0.0.php
8. Bridget McConnell in C. Landry (ed) Glasgow: The People,
The Place, The Potential. Glasgow’s Cultural Strategy., 2006. http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/en/YourCouncil/PolicyPlanning_Strategy/ServiceDepartments/CultureandSportGlasgow/
9. M. McLaughlin, ‘Museum faces delays as costs spiral to £74m.’ The
Scotsman. 13 June, 2007, p. 21.
10. Culture and Sport Glasgow Articles of Association and Certificate of Incorporation of a Private Limited Company (Company No. 313851) 22 December 2006 and letter from Burness to OSCR 21 December 2006.
11. G.William Domhoff, The Bohemian Gove and Other Retreats:
A Study in Ruling-Class Cohesiveness. Harper & Row, New York, 1974.
pp. 52-54.
12. It will be remembered that her husband, Jack McConnell, First Minister of
Scotland November 2001-May 2007, had made the development of devolved powers
for culture a priority. This was reflected in his 2003 St Andrew’s Day speech in which he said, ‘I believe we can now make the development of our creative drive, our imagination, the next major enterprise for our society. Arts for all can be a reality, a democratic right, and an achievement of the early 21st Century.’ See http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/News-Extras/176
13. On 18 December 2002, in her capacity as Chair of VOCAL, Bridget McConnell
wrote to the group charged with implementation of the Scottish Executive’s
National Cultural Strategy to propose a national review of local government cultural
and leisure services. See minutes of Joint Implementation Group meeting 14 January
2003, item 4.6. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/About/FOI/19260/jointgroup.
This intervention led to her being copied into documents collected by the subsequent
Cultural Commission (a visit to the Cultural Commission archive held in Stirling
revealed that the marginalia of documents included the note ‘Copies to Frank
[McAveety], James [Boyle], Bridget).
14. Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. McConnell served as Link Arts Adviser (1997-2001) and Joint Chair of the CoSLA/VOCAL Culture Strategy Task Group (2005).
15. The Voice of Chief Officers of Culture, Leisure and Community Services in Scotland.
16. See Scottish Executive/COSLA Implementation of the
National Cultural Strategy: Guidance for Local Authorities, March 2003.
17. See Eddie Barnes and William Lyons, ‘Are our artists being strung along?’ Scotland
on Sunday. 22 January, 2006. p. 13. In the same article, it was claimed
that McConnell had always viewed the Scottish Arts Council as an impediment to
her plans of offering ‘access to excellence’, which may have led to its demise as a result of the Cultural Commission process. Elsewhere, it was reported that a memo was sent from civil servants to the Executive in advance of the Cultural Commission, seriously undermining the efficacy of the Scottish Arts Council, and reported a feud between Bridget McConnell and James Boyle. See Paul Hutcheon, ‘Revealed: civil servants’ attack
on arts council: Memo sparks fears of secret agenda.’ The
Sunday Herald. 10 April, 2005. p. 10.
18. Bridget McConnell, ‘Culture and the New Politics: Reflections from a Small Country.’ op.
cit. p. 17.
19. Paul Gilbride, ‘McConnell’s relative faces probe into £2
property deal’ The
Express, 26 March 2007, p.15.
20. Stephen Stewart, ‘Chaos as council stopped by sit-in protest: Anger
over cabinet system.’ The
Herald. 30 June, 2006. p. 9.
21. Brian Currie, ‘No hiding place for secrets in our new city leisure
trusts: Freedom of Information pledge by Purcell.’ Evening
Times. 8 March, 2007, p. 7.
22. Culture and Sport Glasgow. Minutes of Meeting of Board of Directors, 27 June, 2007. Note 7(4). See http://www.csglasgow.org/aboutus/meetings_minutes/
23. Michael Grenfell and Cheryl Hardy, Art Rules: Pierre
Bourdieu and the Visual Arts. Berg, Oxford, 2007. p. 97.
24. http://www.scotlandfutureforum.org/sff/people.asp
25. http://www.gbn.com/
26. Kenneth Chrystie is a founder member of The Intellectual Property Lawyers Organisation (TIPLO) based in London.
27. http://www.ukbi.co.uk/index.asp?PID=542
28. Platform PR website http://www.platformpr.co.uk/TrackRecord.aspx
29. http://www.bestglasgowrestaurants.com/index.php?page=restaurants&id=86&start=0
30. There seems to be some confusion about dates in the literature. The brand
guide claims that GCMB launched the brand in March 2004 while its Chief Executive,
Scott Taylor, dates the inception of the bureau to April 2005. See Glasgow
City Marketing Bureau, Glasgow: Scotland with style: The City Brand. September, 2007. http://www.seeglasgow.com/glasgow-the-brand
31. According to Steven Purcell’s introduction to the brand guide, ‘The
Bureau has a team of 43 people engaged in branding and public relations; conference,
meetings and incentive sales; event creation, management and marketing; conference
and event accommodation bookings; ICT and finance and administration.’
32. Glasgow City Marketing Bureau, Glasgow’s Tourism Strategy to 2016,
2007. This strategy is predicated on the understanding that ‘tourism is the fastest-growing global economic sector in terms of foreign exchange earnings and job creation’ (p. 7). In considering the policy context for the strategy, it is noted that it ‘takes advantage of the favourable national policy environment’ (p.
4).
33. One of the few roles of the former CLS relinquished by CSG was that of direct grant-giving powers.
34. See http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/en/Residents/ArtsDevelopment/Newsletter/visualart.htm
35. In Dublin, regeneration of the Temple Bar area led to hiked rents which
precluded its former cultural tenants; the same pattern has been seen in the
Shoreditch area of London, notably through the spectacular demise of the Lux
Centre. Benedict Seymour, ‘The Last Picture Show’, Mute, 22,
December 2001 documents the rent support originally offered to the Lux by the
British Film Institute (themselves renting the building from Glasshouse developers)
which was reneged upon when the BFI underwent a funding squeeze, and concludes: ‘With the forced exodus from New Labour’s bathetic grands projets already begun, the challenge now is to discover a ‘third way’ between the unaccountable bureaucracy that consumed the Lux and the culture pimping that sustains the ICA. If anything good comes out of the eclipse of the Lux it will involve creating a better, viable and contemporary form of the autonomy sought by the original cooperatives a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.’ See http://www.metamute.org/en/The-Last-Picture-Show
36. David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry
into the Origins of Cultural Change. Blackwell, Oxford, 1980, p. 92.
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