When Liverpool was awarded the designation of European Capital of Culture 2008, the Government had already made it clear that the cost of staging the celebrations would be borne by local taxpayers and businesses. The logic was that since Liverpool would be getting the benefit, then Liverpudlians would need to stump up the cost. And, while some limited Government funds are likely to be made available (£5m was earmarked in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport?s (DCMS) spending allocation in December), essentially it is down to the people and businesses of Liverpool to shoulder the burden.
It?s easy then, to understand why Liverpool?s city fathers may have raised a collective eyebrow at the announcement that the Government?s backing for London?s bid to stage the 2012 Olympics came with a multi-million pound slug of cash. It is also easy to see why Mike Storey (news p3) can detect a north-south divide behind this. A couple of Olympic football games may be staged at Old Trafford and Hampden Park and some sailing might take place off the Dorset coast, but the truth is that the billions the Olympics will cost (p7) will be largely spent in and on London.
The backers of the bid argue the Olympics is a good thing for the whole nation, and politicians and funders deny a southern bias, citing big capital projects ? both in the arts and more generally ? which have been supported in the regions in recent years. Their protests have a hollow ring. By naming the roll-call of culture ministers over the years, Christopher Gordon (p16) puts forward a convincing case that the arts are run with a southern ? indeed a London bias. He neglects to mention the fact that London is of course home to the DCMS, the national office of Arts Council England and all our national newspapers. The orthodoxy of the chorus exhorting us to ?back the bid? might benefit from thinking of Liverpool 08 as having just as much potential to ignite the flame of national enthusiasm as the Olympics.