BUDGET? MORE A SADISTIC SLOW DRIP DEATH WARRANT FOR BRITAINS CULTURAL HEART
The Pigeon Detectives (Tom Jenkinson/Northern Exposure)
What a right fucking shambles this budget is, innit? But come on, it’s no bloody surprise from this useless shower of wankers in Parliament. I clocked it the second Starmer started spouting bollocks about backing the music scene, it was always gonna be hot air and fuck all else. You wouldn’t trust these clowns to run a bath, let alone a country. Our government’s too busy pissing billions away on blowing up innocents and kiddies overseas to give a toss about stopping their own folk from sinking right here at home. And there’s the Chancellor, swanning up to that dispatch box like he’s the hero of the hour, dishing out yet another savage boot in the balls. Meanwhile, we are supposed to grin and bear it while the very guts and glory of our culture gets drained like a bad pint. Business rates relief hacked to pieces, wages rocketing with sweet fuck all to cushion the blow, tax thresholds iced over like a forgotten chippy, is this meant to be a budget, or a sadistic slow-drip death warrant for Britain’s beating cultural heart?
Groups like Save Our Scene UK and the Music Venue Trust are rightly up in arms, condemning this 2025 Budget as the kiss of death that’ll push all these small venues over the edge. These people have been crying out for help for far too long, and now the government has simply turned a deaf ear and piled yet more costs onto an industry that’s already on its last legs. It’s a proper anger-inducing situation. How much louder do you have to shout before they bloody well listen? These aren’t upmarket venues in the likes of London, with fat bankrolls, they’re our rough-around-the-edges venues in our equivalent towns, fighting through their teeth to stay alive.
By the time April rolls around, the relief on business rates plummets from 75% all the way down to 40%. That isn’t some minor rate change, is it? That’s an utter piss-take. That’s like your landlords charging you an arm and a leg and then whistling the national anthem and bugger all else, Land of Hope and Glory and all that rot. When you’re running on shoestring budgets and selling nothing but discount beers and a faithful following, it’s like they want you to chip in the champagne when you’ve got nothing but tap water.
“Aye, fair play, the worker deserves a decent wage, including you,” and all that, so the minimum wage rises to £12.71-plus for anyone over 21, and £10.85 for the 18-20 crew. “Looks great on paper, doesn’t it?” because when you hit venues like this with an increased cost and don’t throw a single note their way, you’re essentially handing them a piano and then punching the big fat bastard in the face. “Supports the cause, supporting hardworking people”, and all that rot when the truth is they’re closing shops like there’s no tomorrow. Jobs, dreams, all up in the air, and what do they get in the end? A high-five from the sharks who don’t even know the difference between a mosh and a tea party.
Right, because grassroots venues are much, much more than just a group of boozers and a stage jammed in the corner. And, you know, they’re where the stars are born. That’s where Arctic Monkeys honed their act in the bars of Sheffield, where an up-and-coming Adele would sing her first notes in front of a few punters and perhaps a stray dog. That’s where the action goes down, where uncut talent fights its way in front of three drunk people and the barman. And you strangle the funding for grassroots venues, and you don’t just shut the doors, you kill the next crop of headliners. You might as well put up a sign on each shuttered club saying, “Down due to austerity. Enjoy your constant lineup of nepo babies and rich-girl pop stars in perpetuity.”
The whole thing smells like cynical political posturing, the sort that turns your stomach. Ministers hemming and hawing about “growth” and “levelling up” with these venues lined up, planning their own wakes. The reverse, in fact, of what art should be about, not culture inciting politics, but politics suffocating the arts. And then there’s the figures, where NTIA and CGA models tell us we could be facing up to 10,000 closures in the late-night sectors and the disappearance of 150,000 jobs into the great nothing. Oh, who needs all those things when you can have balanced ledgers, eh?
Up here in the North, we’ve always had a grassroots scene that has thrived on nothing but pure, unadulterated grit, chaos, perspiration, and the unbreakable bond between acts, fans, and crew. We’ve DIY’d our way through downturns, inclement weather, and everything else the world has hurled at us. But nothing, and I mean nothing, can match the power of a government that throws their culture on the compost heap like worthless trash in their constant search for an angle on where they can cut. The Chancellor isn’t balancing the books, he’s writing the epitaph on the live music scene in Britain, venue by venue. Better get their attention, Sheffield and beyond, while there’s still time.
RACHEL BROWN
