Churning issue

Your article on New Deal for the Mind, ‘Turning the recession on its head’, AP195) points to an important shift in thinking. Any move away from the destructive cultural sector reliance on unpaid labour and internships is not only radical but long, long overdue. In focusing our efforts on the long-term unemployed, however, we risk losing forever the imagination and energy of some of the most talented and creative victims of the recession. These are the original arts sector workers who, cast out by cutbacks over several years, rather than remaining unemployed for long periods, churn through cycles of inappropriate, short-term jobs, expending their considerable skills in other sectors. A creative diaspora, if you like. It pays the rent but fails to harness the vast reserves of creativity and innovation that these individuals possess. In plucking the long-term unemployed from the dole queue and placing them in creative apprenticeships, one could be accused of addressing unemployment figures rather than the long-term health of the creative sector.