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A palpable sense of relief greeted Liverpool Culture Companys announcement of a major programme of events for the citys year as European Capital of Culture (p1). In the nick of time, or with a very finely judged sense of dramatic timing, the LCC appears to have brought Liverpool 08 back on track. A new sense of purpose, planning and flair now rules, where previously the impression however fair was of drift, crisis and impending doom. Some painful lessons to be learnt upon reflection no doubt, but for Liverpool 08 the talk, at last, is of the future. News warmly welcomed by more or less everyone in the arts and culture industry is often thin on the ground, never more so than now, but for the good of the sector, a cultural event of Liverpool 08s magnitude and visibility must succeed and be seen to do so.
Speaking of major cultural events, 2008 also sees the launch of the Cultural Olympiad, a four-year series of events representing, and hopefully comprising, the very best that art and culture in Britain has to offer. With appropriate irony, the sector has been challenged to represent the UK in early celebration of a sporting event, whose budgetary requirements have already triggered a calamitous 35% cut in UK arts funding, and much rests on the Creative Programmers charged with taking plans forward (p3). The prospect of four years spent in cultural celebration, as ordained by central government and in line with its targets, is an exhausting one a trace of Orwellian menace adding to the sense of a long haul ahead but again the sector needs to succeed in delivering a Cultural Olympiad that has flair and lasting resonance.

Fighting these and other battles will be the new Chief Executive of Arts Council England, Alan Davey (p3). ACE will surely hope that Davey, currently Director of Culture at the DCMS, will bring with him the relationships and insider grasp to get hold of, and then keep, the money. Despite assurances, there is no easy way to know when, or if, the Lottery funding raids will start again, and with the Comprehensive Spending Review set to deliver its bad news soon, the truth is that, however successful the Liverpool celebrations and the Cultural Olympiad, the next four years will prove an uncertain time for most in the arts sector.

Nick Jordan, Editor

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