Getting recreation and leisure up and running again.

Let's not pretend that the DCMS SoS has great power. For years there's been talk about closing the Department and amalgamating it with others - and the role itself is typically used as a trial run for a more senior position. It's telling that between 1997 and 2007 there were two 'Culture Secretaries' (Chris Smith and Tessa Jowell) since then there have been 12. These days much of the focus is on dismantling the BBC and putting in place a commercial digital infrastructure - there's no sense of understanding culture and creativity and the value of that. Make no mistake the power is with No 10 and No 11 - the SoS is merely the front man. Get rid of Dowden and there are dozens more faceless and spineless people waiting in line to be told what to do by their boss.

Although I don't agree with it we are leaving the EU down to a public vote and the huge majority this government got , largely on the back of their position on Brexit.
To say they don't care about what's good for the economy doesn't seem very credible when they have been spending huge amounts of our money to prop the economy up with the furlough and other loans and grants. Any government surely stands or falls on their success with the economy and employment etc.
Anyway I don't want to start a row! Everyone is entitled to their view.

It may not always seem like it, but things are getting back to normal. Grand Central Trains is to resume services from Sunday 26 July. As an open access operator, it has to fully cover all its costs from passenger revenue, so must be confident it can do that...maybe not immediately, but within a short timeframe.

If you build it, he will come, and all that!

There will be some leisure activities though with galleries and museums starting to open, plus many people consider going shopping a leisure activity (I personally call it hell on earth but others seem to enjoy it), some zoos are open again, cinemas starting to open up - people may well travel to meet friends once travel is a better, more viable option. Theatres being closed for a long time affects all of us on here badly and a huge industry of amazing people but they are not the only leisure activity out there, many people I know never go to a theatre but are missing other things. This thread is about getting recreation and leisure up and running not just theatres.

We have in Government the people who pushed for a no-deal Brexit - including by breaching electoral law, amongst other shenanigans - despite them knowing there would be damage to the economy.

If they were not ideologically rather than economically driven they wouldn’t have been committed to Leave in the first place.

Yes, lots of questions, which is good and I hope represents a long-term ongoing intention to lobby. Unfortunately Johnson is completely refusing to engage and brushing it all off - no tiny hint that something is in the pipeline, which is really depressing.

I think optimism definitely needed. We are at a very different stage to the USA where Broadway has been cancelled until next year.
I have faith in people like Lloyd Webber doing these trials at the Palladium. And you can bet any money that Sonia Friedman won't go down without a fight. 

Theatre needs charity to survive. Tactically it might be better not to continue to hurl abuse at the only people who can supply that ? Other sectors have engaged with the government far more constructively. 

Agree but have you seen the govt we have? Previous govts of all stripes would probably say you were right (Thatcher govt maybe excepted); this is not a govt that recognises concepts of honour, duty, public good, etc. That's what makes me worried. I don't think the Cameron, Brown, Blair or Major govts would have let the creative sector collapse into dust. I fear this one might.

If I was being cynical, I would say any announcement about a package will be on the day or week when Andrew Lloyd Webber does his tests at the London Palladium.

I would suggest that the timing of any announcement about a support package will have very little to do with anything within the theatre industry. Government announcements are arranged and agreed according to all sorts of of internal government politics and most importantly news cycles. For example Monday’s news was about investment in schools, Tuesday’s news was about investment in infra structure projects and I am sure the Government were aware that the law in Hong Kong would be implemented today and consequently today’s news would be about Hong Kong. To those of us who work in the theatre industry it is not dissimilar to the SOLT diary, that makes sure two major shows don’t open on the same day and the critics have to choose what to write about. 

As I have suggested before, the Government can’t announce a support package for theatre until as much of the rest of the hospitality industry and other parts of the economy are open, to stop their being a clamour of requests for support from other areas of the economy. So this would say to me it is unlikely to happen until after this weekends re-openings.

The Government has also said that “at the beginning of July” there will be meetings to discuss the future re-opening of the economy based on the scientific advice and what the reaction is to the rate of infection of opening other parts of the economy that have already happened. This would also suggest that after this meeting the Government should be able to give dates to the DCMS’s roadmap. Don’t forget Dowden has no input into the dates it will be decided by advise from SAGE. To be honest I am pretty sure that the release of the dateless roadmap was brought forward and it was published incomplete because Dowden was forced to by the Select Committee. They can make Dowden do something but that doesn’t mean he can force SAGE to make a decision to fit in with him being forced to publish.

Any support package announced will need to take into account how long the industry might remain closed and so I can’t see any substantial announcement happening until after the July meeting that will agree potential dates. After that as I said at the top of this comment it will need to fit in with the news cycle. If it’s a major support package it will get its own day, if it’s a minor one I suspect it will be rolled into the Chancellor’s budget on 8th July. We should all hope for a separate announcement as it implies a bigger deal.

Even if they don't give a toss about the arts, surely the govt's property developer friends will be screaming about this? Who will want to buy flats in those skyscrapers that are shooting up everywhere in a city centre with no nightlife?