It’s time we moved to Denmark

“Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone?” As I squeezed along the tiny roads of southern Italy in a criminally gargantuan hire car (not my choice) this summer, the words of Joni Mitchell rang out of the speakers.

You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone. This prompted a thought and, somewhat to their surprise, I turned to my family and blurted: “Have any of you seen a library since we got here?” I can’t claim to be a habitual library-spotter but for whatever reason, with Joni’s words ringing in my ears, I felt their absence.

I love a library. I love a library almost as much as I love the EU. If you cut me, do I not bleed Beethoven’s Ode to Joy and millions of Euros of cultural funding? I’m an old romantic when it comes to Europe so I was surprised to find that the local lending library is, well, not a thing in Italy – it just doesn’t exist. In that moment, my re-moaner bubble deflated a little. Maybe not everything’s better in Europe after all?

Comparing Denmark with the UK

And yet, let’s head north. How do you fancy staying in a cultural hotel? Alongside your bed for the night you can ‘experience delicious art, exciting architectural solutions, and communal dining’. No TVs in the communal areas. Arts activities. Organic, healthy food – and all for £65 a night. Sounds good? You need to head to Denmark and check in at the Herning Kulturhotel.

I am drawn to Denmark and visit as often as I can. Returning this spring gave me the opportunity to reflect on arts and culture across our two countries. Last year, the Danish state invested £1.84bn in culture, nationally and locally. That’s more than the UK government’s ‘world leading’ £1.57bn Culture Recovery Fund. This Danish investment is not just a one-off, but every year, in a country whose population is less than a fifth the size of the UK’s.

Recently I visited Denmark’s smallest and most northerly city Aalborg, numbering just 111,000 souls. By population, Aalborg is roughly equivalent to another northern city I happen to know well – Carlisle.

Aalborg is a city visibly bursting with pride about its symphony orchestra, opera festival, multiple art galleries, its thriving music centre with nine stages and six concert halls, its three-stage theatre, its 3,000-seat culture centre, and its fabulously… well… architectural… architecture museum. Oh, and the Centre for Danish Jazz History. And a cultural bridge.

Sitting in the Utzon museum bistro, I looked around. Everything was done so achingly, maddeningly, jealousy-inducingly well. Meanwhile, the people of Carlisle can celebrate their excellent Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery. But where are the theatres? The concert halls? The orchestra or modern music programmes? Is even making this comparison a reflection of an old-fashioned approach to cultural infrastructure – should we care? I think we should.

A taxing culture

For many years, Denmark was annually crowned the world’s happiest country in the UN World Happiness Report – a paradisiacal populace permeated by pickled fish. But visit a place often enough and you discover the nuances.

The English journalist Michael Booth wrote an excellent book on The Almost Nearly Perfect People that was initially subtitled ‘The Truth about the Nordic Miracle’. These days, you’ll pick it up with the subtitle ‘Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia.’

Denmark is of course no more the perfect country of universally flawless design and limitless rye bread than the UK is a land of fanatical monarchists and roast beef. But when it comes to investment in culture, why are things so different?

Part of the answer lies in a strong sense of a shared national culture in Denmark (which has upsides and downsides). Part of the answer lies in its longstandig high-tax regime. The average Dane pays income tax of around 45% before buying goods and services on which they’ll pay an additional 25% VAT. This fuels the government coffers in a way that feeds levels of arts subsidy staggering to Brits. And it’s not just how much tax is paid, but where it goes – proportionally, much more reaches local government than in the UK.

National culture

The Danish state is a tremendous driver of culture, but it’s not all. Take the Kulturhotel I mentioned earlier. An entirely private enterprise, which took over a closed college.

The country is currently governed by a coalition of centre-left and centre-right parties, together with the Moderates, a new party which broke away from the centre-right in 2022. The Moderates campaigned on culture. They wanted – and got – the culture ministry, together with an increase in the arts budget.

Culture Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt recently published the first cultural policy statement in 25 years saying: “Most people think that we are creative. We have a large pharmaceutical industry, we are good at sailing across the world's oceans and good at agriculture, but we are actually one of the leading cultural nations.” He added “I would like to look at how cultural life can also grow commercially. This does not mean that I want to commercialize the art. Art is beautiful and creative in itself.”

Engel-Schmidt was elected on a platform loudly championing the arts and is thoughtful about the balance between subsidised and commercial models. Imagine that.

Not-so-sclerotic Scandinavia

Danish Government research has identified that seven in 10 Danes have been to a library, museum, concert, cinema or otherwise experienced the performing arts in the past year. For some of the 30% who haven’t, a cultural passport is planned. This will be a joined-up, nationally funded effort to make culture more accessible, in particular to young people on low incomes or who are out of work.

Though the Danish culture sector undoubtedly faces its own pressures – a museum reform plan is coming which will force mergers and consolidation – British cultural policy, certainly in Westminster, feels sclerotic by comparison.

In England, metro mayors may have a greater role to play in strategic investment in the arts in future. Culture is an easy-to-devolve policy area which mayors are keen to take on and which Westminster doesn’t mind giving away. This could bring opportunities for new energy, but also a risk of fragmentation and inequity.

It is not, of course, all about money but the evidence suggests we would be so much happier as a nation if we could change the narrative on funding arts and culture. We have to step up – together. Greater urgency. Greater coordination. A much louder, united voice, before we wake up one day to find that a careless government has “paved paradise and put up a parking lot”.

Robin Cantrill-Fenwick is Chief Executive Officer at Baker Richards.
www.baker-richards.com
@BakerRichards | @RobinComms