Entertainment
Rishi Sunak’s £2,000,000 Beatles attraction savaged as ‘pointless nonsense’ by music charity boss
Rishi Sunak announced a new Beatles museum in Liverpool (Picture; PA)
A music charity boss has slammed Rishi Sunak’s planned £2million Beatles museum in Liverpool as ‘pointless nonsense that no-one needs or wants’.
In his Budget on Wednesday, Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced the multi-million pound funding for a new Beatles attraction on Liverpool’s Waterfront, with the aim that it would inspire the next generation of musical talent.
Mr Sunak’s announcement was met with a cheer from the House of Commons, but Music Venue Trust chief executive Mark Davyd called the plans ‘headline-grabbing, pointless nonsense’ that does ‘bugger all’ to actually help musicians or the industry.
The Beatles ‘weren’t inspired to be the Beatles because of a plectrum in a display case’, the executive raged in a scathing takedown of the Chancellor.
Mr Davyd said that what inspires people to make rock and pop music ‘isn’t a semi-detached day out, gawping at history in exhibitions’, and condemned the Government for allowing the music scene to be ‘crippled’ by the Covid-19 crisis.
Witheringly, he added: ‘Stormzy didn’t start rapping because he saw an animatronic figure clutching a Rickenbacker, bouncing up and down on two fake legs.’
Stormzy did not become inspired to make music by taking a day-trip to a museum (Picture: Reuters)
Liverpool ‘has a vibrant and thrilling culture of creativity’ with ‘new music beating out of an under-lit and wonky stage delivered by the next generation of great artists from the city’, he said.
‘Its infrastructure of grassroots music venues, the places that actually inspired and developed the Beatles, is massively under-invested in, crippled by the Covid crisis, and in desperate need of support,’ he added in further condemnation.
According to the Government, the funding will help the Liverpool City Region ‘develop a business case for a new Waterfront attraction celebrating the work and legacy of the Beatles, and consider future funding for this project subject to the business case’.
Mr Davyd said the funding ‘doesn’t buy a single brick’.
Instead, the charity chief described the £2 million funding as ‘headline-grabbing, pointless nonsense that no-one needs or wants and [which] does precisely less than the sum of bugger all to support genuine creativity, eating up real money that could make a real difference’.
Mr Sunak’s Beatles announcement was met with cheers from the House of Commons, but some in the music industry are less than impressed (Picture: Parliament)
Following the Budget announcement on Wednesday, Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said the story of The Beatles ‘personifies’ the Government’s levelling-up agenda.
‘They came from humble backgrounds in Liverpool and went on to be the most important band in history, she explained.
‘This funding will help unlock opportunities so that any child, no matter what corner of Liverpool they come from, or beyond, can become the next Lennon or McCartney.’
The Government hope the new attraction will help inspire the Beatles of the next generation (Picture: Bettmann Archive)
Mayor of Liverpool Joanne Anderson previously said the Beatles attraction will provide ‘a blueprint for the future of music education, but most importantly it will create opportunities and joy for the people of this city’.
Liverpool is already home to several Beatles attractions, including the Beatles museum which houses the largest singularly owned authentic Beatles collections in the world.
A £20 million boost of Levelling Up funding was also announced for Tate Liverpool and National Museums Liverpool.
Elsewhere in the Budget, Mr Sunak announced that key workers are set for a pay rise, ending the freeze on public sector pay and that the living wage will be increased to £9.50 per hour.
Meanwhile, rounds at the pub will be ever so slightly cheaper as Mr Sunak cuts some alcohol duties.
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