An old photo of Sadiq Khan shows him, aged 11, as a pirate
in a school production of Peter Pan.
With an eye patch and a wooden sword in his belt, it is the
only record of the would-be Mayor of London treading the boards.
Unveiling his arts policy in an exclusive interview with the
Evening Standard, Mr Khan recalled his performance at Ernest Bevin
Comprehensive in Tooting and promised that if elected his goal would be to get
more youngsters involved in the arts.
“I would have liked to have played guitar or bass,” he said.
“Something at the front of the stage — my vanity wouldn’t allow me to be a
drummer.
Perhaps, Labour’s candidate mused, he could have been
“another Adele” if his school had encouraged more pupils to get into music. It
is something he wants to foster with one of his flagship policy ideas, an
annual London Borough of Culture competition.
He praised Newham for giving every child a chance of playing
an instrument or attending the theater and wants others to follow suit.
Think
of the potential Andrew Lloyd Webbers who have never seen a theater
performance, or someone who might have what it takes to the next Simon Rattle
or Darcey Bussell, he said.
Too many Londoners don’t get their chance,
whether it is in sports, the arts or business.
London’s cultural and arts industries are at the core of the
capital’s global prestige and success.
Today’s interview, setting out a wide
range of policies to promote success and spread the benefits of the city’s
artistic riches, is critical to assuring the sector that Mr Khan can be trusted
to run City Hall.
We’ve got the best arts and culture in the world, but it’s
out of reach for most Londoners,” he said.
He wants to see more dance and theatre companies taking West
End shows regularly to the outer boroughs and wants hit shows to be made more
affordable through a Love London discount card.
You think of the cost of
taking a family of four to the theatre, it’s not cheap,” he said. The quid pro
quo for the theatres would be more “bums on seats”. “The great news is that the
arts in Zone 1 are
hungry to do more for all the people of London,” he added.
“They see it as an investment.
Planning policies would be changed to help stop the loss of
small music venues. Culture Enterprise Zones, where arts spaces would be
favoured, would be created in a new London Plan.
He would also try to halt the loss of small music venues.
“We cannot carry on losing the sort of places Bowie or the Stones played their
first gigs,” he said, referring to Labour figures showing that a third have
gone since 2007.
A rule known as “agents of change” would be introduced to
protect current venues from being closed down when a neighbourhood changes
character towards more residential property.
He said developers often put up flats around a pub or hall
and then the new residents complain about the noise. The venue is ordered to
spend thousands of pounds on noise insulation, which it cannot afford, and so
closes.
Mr Khan would put the onus on developers to meet such costs
as a condition for permission to make changes. Without such rules, London will
lose three in 10 arts studios by 2020, he said.
He also pledged to ban sexist ads or images of unhealthily
thin models on the Tube and buses. The Tooting MP, 45, who has daughters aged
14 and 16, said: “This stuff matters,” he said.
Self-esteem, how you view yourself, role models.
Advertisers should know better. Growing up now with social media and images is
much tougher than when I was growing up.
Mr Khan said he would use the Mayor’s
powers over Transport for London to further discourage ads such as the “Are you
beach body ready? Protein World posters that infuriated many Londoners last
year.
Adverts that are clearly sexist, that are unhealthy, are not ones TfL
should be showing on public spaces,” he said.
He would also discourage London Fashion Week and top
designers from using so-called size zero models if they resulted in unhealthy
images, although he was careful to avoid talk of a ban.
“I would like to use the art of persuasion. London Fashion
Week is one of the great London successes. The reality is that models are role
models and young people, particularly girls, idolize them and want to be like
them.
London’s arts have suffered from elitism, he said, but
praised the city’s cultural icons for tackling it. “I never got to go to the
Royal Opera House it was seen as out of reach when I was growing up. But
nowadays they are trying incredibly hard not to be.
As a teenager, he was taken weekly to the great museums and
says free admission must stay. As Mayor, he would give grants to encourage
diversity in sport and the arts, saying there should be no “mono-ethnic cricket
teams”.
He has no sympathy for other regions that complain London
gets too much arts money.
There is one school of thought that says London gets
too big a slice of the UK cake.
My view is let’s make the cake bigger. If
London does better the whole country benefits.
He backs Sir Simon Rattle’s campaign for a world-quality new
concert hall. “The first question to ask is ‘does London need a concert hall of
the quality that has been talked about?’ My answer is yes. Let’s see the
business case.
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