About
New Deal of the Mind (NDotM) has a simple objective. We want to boost the UK economy by developing jobs in the creative industries. NDotM has the support of leading figures in the arts, entrepreneurs, politicians from across the political spectrum and policy makers. All of us recognise the urgency of protecting, nurturing and investing in the arts if we are to prevent a generation of creative talent being lost to the recession.
NDotM grew from an article written in the New Statesman in January by Martin Bright, the magazine’s former political editor. Martin suggested that cultural elements of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which was introduced by US President Franklin D Roosevelt’s during the 1930’s Depression, could be adapted for the UK today. Martin’s article struck a chord and he was inundated with offers of support from prominent people in the arts and politicians from all parties. Within weeks, NDotM was officially launched at Number 11 Downing St and Jude Kelly had offered us space at London’s Southbank Centre.
The WPA created 3,500 branch libraries, 4,400 musical performances every month, a national collection of oral histories which featured the stories of the last living slaves. Artists and writers who benefited from the WPA include Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning, Saul Bellow, John Cheever and Ralph Ellison.
Half a century later, a similar project called the Enterprise Allowance Scheme was introduced to the UK by Margaret Thatcher. The EAS gave creative and entrepreneurial people the chance to set up their own business with government help. The EAS famously helped figures including Creation Records founder Alan McGee, Superdry’s creator Julian Dunkerton and artists Tracey Emin and Jane and Louise Wilson.
NDotM borrows and adapts from both those initiatives and we’re pushing for government policy that encourages self-employment and freelance opportunities — the lifeblood of the creative industries
We’re working with the government’s Future Jobs Fund to help unemployed people into jobs in arts and culture and we’re finding spaces across the UK which will become “incubator centres” providing space, support and advice for people setting up on their own.
