ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the development of cultural policy in the United Kingdom (UK) from the end of the Second World War to the 1997 election of the New Labour government. According to R. Hewison '1940 marks the beginning of the modern period in official cultural policy' as it was in this year that the wartime government decided to fund the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA). As Hewison notes, 'the Arts Council and its major clients formed part of the natural territory of the Great and the Good. In 1967 the Arts Council's Royal Charter was renewed. Henceforth the Council was to be committed: 'To develop and improve the knowledge, understanding and practice of the arts' and 'to increase the accessibility of the arts to the public throughout Great Britain'. Hewison notes the problems caused in the provision of culture by the abolition of the Greater London Council (GLC) and other metropolitan councils in 1986.
