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Business News
Labour appoints new culture spokesman
By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 15 September 2015
The Labour Party appointed a new Shadow Culture Secretary yesterday following this weekend’s leadership election and the dawn of what political commentators are surely calling New Old New New Old Old Old New Labour.
Replacing James Blunt fan Chris Bryant, Michael Dugher will now lead on media, sport and culture issues for the opposition. An ex-Gordon Brown spokesman who campaigned for former Culture Minister Andy Burnham in the Labour leadership contest, Dugher brings few cultural credentials to the job.
Though he could nevertheless be an outspoken and forceful opponent for the current government’s Cultural Secretary Johnny Whittingdale on the big issues, most likely to include the future of the BBC and possibly press regulation, a passion of Dugher’s friend and new Labour Deputy Leader Tom Watson.
Music-wise, The Guardian notes that – like Whittingdale – Dugher is a big karaoke fan, so maybe UK Music should set its safe harbour reform objectives to the melody of ‘I Will Survive’ and have the two men sing them at their respective upcoming party conferences.
Dugher also calls himself a “Beatles obsessive” on his Twitter biog, so perhaps he will stay out of trouble in the short term at least by speculating what the stream this countdown on the fab four’s home page might be all about.
