Paul Kirkley: Here’s hoping for a change of culture at the top

From September 2021, she spent a year as financial secretary to the Treasury, before becoming minister of state for transport for a whopping 48 days during the Liz Truss (no, me neither) Interregnum. On taking office last October, Rishi Sunak appointed her minister of state for housing and, ironically, planning, a job she held down for 104 days before being promoted to head up Culture, Media and Sport.

To be fair to Ms Frazer, this crazy-paving career path is nothing to do with her own performance. On the contrary, four successive Prime Ministers have recognised enough competence/blind obedience (delete according to voting preference) to keep her on an upward, if winding, trajectory.

What it does reflect, though, is the years of chaos and turmoil that have unfolded while the nation has been a hostage to the ongoing Tory psychodrama. Is it any wonder the government can’t get anything done, when the moment a minister looks like they might be in danger of getting on top of their brief, they’re whisked off to a new department with a whole new set of crises? And it doesn’t help when the governing party insists on being so arrogantly dismissive of civil servants – presumably the only people who are privy to all the important departmental information (like where the toilets are).

Now that she has landed at Culture, I hope Ms Frazer will break with recent tradition and use her position to actually support the arts, instead of constantly trashing them, like her predecessors.

You’d think, given the parlous state of every other industry in Britain, that the government might actually want to champion our globally respected cultural sector – and the soft power it brings us around the world – instead of constantly picking fights with the BBC and Channel 4, inflaming arguments about statues and grumbling about how woke snowflakes are killing Peppa Pig (or whatevs).

So far, I’d say Ms Frazer has made a promising start, with interventions on English football, and visits to the BAFTAs, London Fashion Week and Coronation Street, where she pulled a pint in the Rover’s Return. Sure, it might just be a lot of photo-ops and schmoozing – but it’s better that than endlessly sticking the boot in. Plus, I note that (unlike her boss, the Prime Minister) she has so far resisted wading into the Roald Dahl rewrite row – which you just know Nadine Dorries would have been all over like a rash.

My take on the whole Roald Dahl hoo-ha, since you didn’t ask? I can see the point, in theory, of ‘sensitivity readers’ tasked with removing offensive material from books written in less… enlightened times. Especially books for children, where an explanatory footnote about historical context might not really cut the mustard.

But I do think we need to be wary of over-sensitivity readers, who end up infantilising us all. Racist and ableist slurs is one thing, but was it really necessary, for example, to change the description of Mrs Silver in Esio Trot from “an attractive middle-aged lady” to “a kind middle-aged lady”? Because it does rather smack of some 22-year-old sensitivity reader going, “attractive and middle-aged? AS IF!”

Also, if you’re going to do it, at least do it in a way that makes sense. How is changing “great flabby folds of fat bulged out from every part of his body” (when describing Augustus Gloop) to “great folds bulged out from every part of his body” helping anyone? What are we supposed to think they’re folds of – pasta? The original isn’t even using fat as an insult – it’s literally describing human adipose tissue.

Sorry. Having praised Lucy Frazer for staying out of the culture wars, I kind of ended up going there myself, didn’t it? It’s obviously not just Augustus Gloop who wants to have his cake and eat it.

In last month’s column I lavished praise on the phenomenal staff at Addenbrooke’s for the excellent care we’ve received from them lately. But last week they really excelled themselves.

It started at around 9.48am on Monday morning, when a very nice doctor in the eye clinic told me I had a small tear in my retina, which would require surgery. That was the bad news. The good news was he said they could fit me in the same day.

“Are you able to say how long it will take?” I asked. “It’s just my mum’s waiting to give me a lift back home.” (Because I’d had drops in my eyes, you understand. Not because I’m 14.)

“Hmmm,” said the doctor – clearly thinking that, if I’m 51, my mum can’t exactly be a spring chicken. “Wait here a sec,” he added, before bobbing out of the door and down the corridor.

A couple of minutes later, he came back and said: “Actually, the room’s free now.”

Which is how, readers, shortly after 10am I found myself walking out of the hospital, my laser eye surgery all done and dusted, less than TWENTY MINUTES after my initial diagnosis.

So now you know: if you want to avoid a long NHS waiting list, just tell them your mum’s waiting in Costa.

Sam Smith, formerly of this parish (specifically, the parish of Great Chishill, South Cambs), has been making a lot of headlines this month, having apparently scandalised All Right-Thinking People (trademark) by appearing in a succession of ridiculous and provocative outfits.

Personally, I don’t have a problem with that. It’s a pop star’s job to look ridiculous, so if Sam Smith wants to turn up at The Brits dressed as a car tyre inner-tube, fair play. Ridicule, as Adam Ant famously noted, is nothing to be scared of.

I can’t help wishing, though, that Smith would put as much effort into the songs as the outfits. I mean, what’s the point of being all outrageous and provocative, if you’re then going to release such dreary, middle-of-the-road music? At least Boy George wrote some banging tunes to sing while wearing a dress.

Paul Kirkley was named Columnist of the Year at the 2021 UK Regional Press Awards. Read more from Paul every month in the Cambridge Independent.