Arts in Sandwell - A Chink of Light?

Thick scumbag Darren Cooper hated "the arts" and was only too happy to work with Mahboob Hussain to destroy The Public. But when there was an outcry about closure the vicious thug went into his usual playground tit-for-tat mode and was happy to cut the arts in general whilst maintaining obscene levels of expenditure on what he did like, sport. Don't take my word for it - take a look at the Labour Council's "payments over £500 lists" for the last three years!

Congratulations are due to the small number of people left in the wilderness, like Black Country Touring, who have bravely struggled on trying to bring an arts offering to the benighted Borough.

But there appears to be a - so far tiny - turning of the tide. Word reaches be that despite financially-challenging times, the new regime at The Kremlin is going to allocate SOME funding to the arts.

Hitherto, the control freakery of the Cooper/Britton regime meant that such little money as was spent was kept under the dead hand of "socialist" control and with the likes of Garry Morris (son of former trade unionist Lord [sic] Morris) involved very little was ever likely to be achieved anyway (and so it came to pass).

The Council famously ripped off the Arts Council to promote a private statue project and, under Morris and Co, the Sandwell "Arts Festival" turned into a laughing stock. Morris was also connected with the so-called arts cafe in the ruins of The Public and anyone who has ever walked past will know what a total disaster that has been.

Of course, part of the bent deal to close The Public involved the College being given our money to provide some sort of arts offering but as we saw in my post:

http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/college-shafts-sandwell-arts-official.html

the College has deliberately screwed over the people of "Sadwell" in this regard. It should be remembered that, as part of Cooper and Hussain's bent deal, Sandwell's gormless "Chief Executive", Jan Britton, was also placed on the Board of Sandwell College so that you would imagine that, useless though he is, even he was fully aware that the College were, once again, f*cking local folk right up the arse?

And so what of the future - I am writing to Government ministers about the conduct of the College but, in the meantime, there are small green shoots emerging from the dog-sh*t ridden soil of Sadders.

As above, sources within the new regime tell me that SOME money is to be made available to the arts. Not a lot - but it is a step in the right direction. There was also good news recently with a couple of local arts organisations, including Black Country Touring, getting some extra development funding from the Arts Council (the Arts Council have been p*ssed on big-style under the Cooper/Britton regime and are very sensibly giving money direct to organisations rather than through the failing Labour Council).

There is a relatively new organisation called Creative Black Country up and running and, happily, this year's Arts Festival has been "outsourced" to them and, blimey, what a difference! The event is on this weekend and I urge you to check out the exciting programme via:

http://www.creativeblackcountry.co.uk/whats-on/events-listing/

There are even events on at the ruined Public!!!!

One hazards to say this in the UK but the weather is set fair for the weekend and so come on down and join in! You can even meet The Skidder who will be volunteering on a small show called Phonebox both days. Come and say hello (especially if you have any juicy gossip of the comrades!) - if you don't know me, or never saw the photos tosspot Cooper put up on social media to harass me, I am a fat, ugly man as pictured:

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PROUD TO HAVE BEEN TROLLED BY DICKHEAD DARREN COOPER DECEASED!