Why Art Matters

The arts don’t exist in isolation. The study of music can make you a better mathematician. Anyone performing on a stage will grow in confidence.

But for me, it is all about story. Human beings have always told stories, from the time when we lived in caves. Stories help us to understand who we are, why we are here. They help us address the big questions; they have power to heal.

Just look at some of the earliest stories that have been passed down: those in the Hebrew Bible, the stories of Homer, the Odyssey and Iliad. These are all written by people trying to make some sort of sense of it all.

Stories come in all shapes and sizes. They can be oral, face to face; they can be in a book, but also in theatre, in pantomime, in musical. They can be in film, on television, in video and computer games. They don’t need to be in words; stories are there in paintings and music.

People tell me that anyone can write a book and that is true; but can everyone write a book, a play, a film script that will engage and communicate?

Telling stories well is a gift, but also a craft, an art that the demands the long hours. The result is massively worthwhile. It matters.

Why the EU truly matters

The EU is the community of European nations that has prevented a war in Europe for 75 years. It is the community in which our children and grandchildren can thrive together and can together attempt to tackle the massive problems that now face us.

For those who have forgotten, the European Iron and Steel Community, as it was at the start,  combined the iron and steel industries of essentially France and Germany to prevent them making guns, tanks and battle ships to fight each other. Churchill was in favour but was too committed to his fading dream of Empire to join.

Over the years it grew into a broader economic community. It was Mrs Thatcher who pushed for free movement, of goods and people.

Huge issues face the world today and single nations are simply not equipped to tackle them. International cooperation is the only way, and it makes sense to base this on geographical groupings. In Europe we share a history, not always a happy one and that is a good thing. We understand what pressure can do to a nation.

Many of the issues are those which led to the Brexit vote and nationalism elsewhere. For many the world is a worse place, promises of growing affluence have prove hollow. We do not solve this by hiding in a bunker, but by working together.

For me, the purpose of the EU today is to be a large free trade/movement area, but, more so, the place where 28 nations with a common European heritage can together tackle the big issues and offer a better future to our children.