Defending statues, attacking ‘wokeness’, trying to destroy Channel 4 … the disgraced ex-PM’s impact on the arts has been disruptive, cynical and inept – but what comes next could be even worse
Legacy is an interesting word. It suggests something at least halfway coherent: objects and real estate carefully safeguarded and willed on to the next generation. “Careful”, “safeguarded” and “coherent”, though, are not words to be associated with Boris Johnson. Even so, those who depart the stage of life or politics chaotically still leave their traces. What will Johnson’s tenure as PM have left the worlds of arts and culture in England and the wider UK?
The best, perhaps, that can be said for Johnson is that arts infrastructure in Britain did not entirely collapse during the closures of the Covid-19 pandemic – though it seems clear that the cultural recovery fund, support for the self-employed and furlough schemes were much more the terrain of the ex-chancellor, Rishi Sunak, than of the PM. So ends the faint praise.
