Speech to Parliament as Shadow Broadcast Minister:
A generation ago, in 1998, the Labour Government defined the creative industries as comprising any business with the potential to generate,
“wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property”.
It seems strange now that, in the fairly recent past, the Blair Government became the first in the world to recognise the creative industries as an industrial sector in their own right. The Creative Industries Mapping Document published by former Secretary of State, Chris Smith—now the noble Lord, Lord Smith—set out for the first time to measure and map the impact of the creative industries on the rest of the economy. He wrote in the foreword to the document:
Empowering women means giving them the practical tools to escape poverty and prejudice. Around the world, including here in Britain, a baby girl’s life chances are disadvantaged in comparison to her brother’s at almost every turn, and once she becomes a woman the disadvantage becomes entrenched.
Benedict Cumberbatch deserves thanks for dipping his toe into the troubled waters of broadcasting diversity. He raised the thorny issue of his black acting friends not getting the same opportunities as white actors, particularly here in the UK. His accidental use of the derogatory term "coloured" promptly flung him into the linguistic swamp that mires race. This swamp is conscientiously patrolled by the PC diversity brigade, and as a reward Benedict's had his head bitten off – a sort of linguistic version of sharia.
