Maria Miller and Britain’s creative industries need to talk

Everyone seems to like talking about the ‘creative industries’ these days. For arts folk, it gives the impression that what they do is hard-edged and economically viable, it makes geeky people like programmers and software designers sound more interesting and it allows ministers to talk about rather slippery and intangible elements of the economy in the same way that they talk about manufacturing and financial services.

Ever since Labour culture secretary Chris Smith invented the ‘creative industries’ in 1998, this ingenious term has served both political and creative types well. Such has been the success of the UK’s creative industries that some more enlightened government circles began to understand that other sectors could learn from them. The high water mark came with the appointment of National Youth Theatre alumnus James Purnell as culture secretary. There was even some talk that we should be building a ‘creative economy’ to harness Britain’s talent for innovation.