Boris promised to unite the country. But the harmful war on woke is stoking division

Susannah Butter
Daniel Hambury
WEST END FINAL

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It must be convenient for Oliver Dowden. This week, in an interview with the Standard, the Culture Secretary gave us an insight into his binary view of the country. As he sees it, there is a clear-cut distinction between young Londoners and the rest of the UK. “I want to make sure that a granny in Middlesbrough or a middle-aged man in Wolverhampton feels as represented as an Islington millennial,” he said, defending what has been seen as an anti-woke purge of arts and museum board members who want to discuss decolonising their collections.

Dowden could have got into a constructive debate about heritage. But that would have been too complicated. Instead, he made the focus of the argument identity politics, deploying stereotypes of woke young urbanites versus the Red Wall’s old guard. Not only is this lazy and not grounded in reality but it fits neatly into the Government’s current populist politics of division. Rather than offering imaginative policies, the Government is trying to appeal to Red Wall voters by saying they are on their side against a common enemy — the woke metropolitan millennial.

How far we have come from Boris Johnson’s promise when he was elected in 2019 to unite the country after Brexit. If the Government really wants to level up, it could start by trying to understand different areas around the country, even if that means disagreeing. Before Johnson, there was huge growth in investment in the arts in the North and the Midlands. When vast cultural space The Factory opens in Manchester, it is expected to create 1,500 jobs and add up to £1.1 billion to the city’s economy over a decade. There’s also the V&A Dundee and The Hepworth Wakefield, to name a few.

But instead of acting as our culture secretary should and thinking about new projects, Dowden seems to find it far easier to generalise, dismissing those who he disagrees with as “woke”, a word that has been used since the Sixties to describe people who are alert to injustice in society.

This divisive rhetoric comes from the US, where there is a strong religious right and wildly varying views on marriage, sexuality, abortion and guns. It is a shame that our government cannot recognise how lucky we are not to be that tribal.

Given that I am both a millennial and from Islington, I decided to check my privilege and discuss the matter with friends and family in the North. Unsurprisingly, there was not one unified “Red Wall” take. This idea of a Red Wall of voters who all want the opposite of what those in the South do is contrived — not to mention that it is inaccurate and patronising to say that there are no metropolitan elites outside of London.

Happily, people may not yet care about these badges as much as Dowden does. A YouGov poll this month found that 59 per cent of Britons don’t know what the term “woke” means. Meanwhile, three in four think that it is important to teach schoolchildren about Britain’s colonial history.

Dowden could see this moment as an opportunity to think about our culture and how it can improve the country. But by dismissing those who disagree with him as too millennial or woke, he is stifling debate, using toppling statues as an excuse to damn change. This sets a dangerous precedent, regardless of whether your idea of North is Hartlepool or Highbury.

Will and Kate are trying too hard to be celebrities

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are trying too hard on social media. The occasional bicep shot is fine but we don’t need to see Kate DJing and looking awkward. Less is more, they don’t need to try and be like celebrities.

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