Abstract
This paper examines the role of regional cultural strategies in England as a signifier of Labour's emerging policy on central–regional political relations. While entreating the cultural consortiums responsible for the strategies to view regional development in an absolute sense—such that all regions can have equal and distinct aspirations—the strategies simultaneously perpetuate existing boundaries, inequalities and political formations. As a result, a socio-spatial distribution of strategy responses has emerged that owes considerably more to the current policy frame than it does to any new or absolutist aspirations on the part of individual regions.
Notes
1. The eight regional strategies have been prepared by the following consortia: Culture North East (CNE), Culture South West (CSW), East Midlands Cultural Consortium (EMCC), Living East (LE), North West Cultural Consortium (NWCC), South East England Cultural Consortium (now Culture South East) (SEECC), West Midlands LIFE Regional Cultural Consortium (WML) and the Yorkshire Cultural Consortium (YCC).