Beyond belief?
From the current Private Eye:
The other week (Tessa) Jowell (British Culture Secretary) accompanied Condoleezza Rice (US Secretary of State, and an accomplished pianist) to a concert by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, after which there was a dinner…
..Ms Jowell asked one of the Philharmonic’s principal players: “Are you paid for playing in the orchestra?”
Is this beyond belief, this statement that roughly equates to the Health Secretary walking into a hospital and asking “Are you paid for making all these ill people better”? Actually, not really. I have long been aware that there exists, among many in this country, the misconception that orchestral musicians are not, in fact, trying to pay mortgages or support families or pay tax bills, but merely indulging in a hobby or leisure activity. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn there is nobody in Ms Jowell’s retinue who can put her right on this minor detail of her ministerial brief.
Nor is it surprising, given the antics of other Cabinet members in recent weeks, that this little gaffe has gone largely unreported. Not when there are newspapers to be sold with alarmist headlines of hundreds of dangerous Johnny Foreigners running around the country raping and pillaging everything in sight. The story of a senior figure in the Blair government, with a relatively hassle-free portfolio, who clearly does not fully grasp the workings of an industry for which she is responsible, ought not to be of too much concern to the British electorate, really? I can almost imagine the blaze of indifference when someone pointed this out at the Daily Mail’s morning editorial meeting. Just wait till the next reshuffle, when she gets Defence.
In the meantime, I think I’ll be leaving the country, for somewhere where musicians are respected and their difficulties understood. Like Poland. I’m told the trains are reliable there too.
August 6th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
Wow, that really is unbelieveable! I can’t believe it went unreported. She’s my local mp too.