“Creative Britain”: myth or monument?

This paper is based on a keynote address for the 2010 Cultural Trends Conference “A Golden Age?”. It explores the rhetoric of “creativity” that dominated the New Labour government's cultural policy discourse, and argues that while the promotion of the creative industries and of the economic contribution of culture strengthened the hand of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in attracting resources, there was a price to pay, in the form of auditing, that proved ultimately hostile to creativity. With its main focus on the English region, the paper reviews New Labour's institutional reforms and substantial investment in the cultural infrastructure, but argues that the competing claims of “access” and “excellence” remained unresolved, while policymakers failed to respond to the rapid technological developments in “unofficial” culture.