Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has backed plans to support our independent music venues, as well as giving children the opportunity to learn instruments.
The last decade has seen all number of UK venues shut down due to rising costs, licensing issues and other pressures.
Speaking to the Independent, Corbyn says: “What you have is a number of independent venues, sometimes pubs, cafes, so on, that have become almost informal live music venues, and the small cafe does well and ‘hey presto’ along comes Costa, Starbucks, Nero or something to take it over.”
“(It’s) the same with pubs, which are often very reluctant to have live music on. Those live venues are absolutely crucial to the future of the music scene. So the £1,000 pub-licensing rebate is a good thing – we want to extend that a lot further.”
“What I’m interested in is the sense of expression that music gives people, hence the points I’ve been making endlessly about musical instruments children for children. Any teacher will tell you that a child learning music at school is likely to do better at a lot of other things because there is a discipline in learning music, a sense of rhythm, a sense of timing involved…”
“Most children live in places where there isn’t space to put a piano if they’ve got one… our schools have often diminished the number of orchestras… cut all that back, so I am very keen to change that.”
In case there’s any doubt to the subtext of this story, let’s make it simple. Don’t vote Tory. And if you want a row about that, remember, pretty much all your favourite bands think the same. Hope this helps.