UK Film Council axed 'before costs known'

The National Audit Office reported this week that the decision to axe the UK Film Council was “based on insufficient financial information and analysis” and will most likely “lead to higher overall costs or the displacement of costs elsewhere”.

People used to criticise the Tories for knowing the price of everything, but the value of nothing. Well, they can’t do that anymore. The cuts implemented by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport have been criticised by the totally insane-sounding National Audit Office for being uncosted, expensive and incompetent. You know the Department for Culture, Media and Sport – it’s the one run by Jeremy Hunt, who also runs the website iwishrupertmurdochwasmydad.com. He’s shown the country that we cuts-supporters can have it all: we can undermine national institutions and make it cost more.

Winner was unimpressed by The King’s Speech

We all remember where we were when we saw on the news that the UKFC was going to be axed. I was watching the news. The move was violently opposed by a mass online petition and budding actors Clint Eastwood, James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Pete Postlethwaite, Damian Lewis, Timothy Spall, Daniel Barber and Ian Holm. But the pro-cut side soon got its knight in shining armour. Michael Winner. The guy off of that advert and some directing. Well, he got his way – Michael by name, Michael by nature.

And the fact of the matter is the UKFC doesn’t need all that money. They’re so wasteful. Apparently Colin Firth refused to imitate a stutter in The King’s Speech, so it had to be created through painstaking and expensive CGI. In In The Loop, Peter Capaldi reportedly insisted on having the production team pay for Michael Douglas to stand just out of shot during all of his scenes to “feed off his energy”. Unbelievable.

And sure, for every £1 the UKFC invests in films it generates £5 at the box office. But it could be making so much more. For example, they could easily merge Helena Bonham Carter with Leavesden Studios. They can use her for prestige films plus rent out her hair as a fully-operational studio backlot. BAM – you’ve doubled your revenue. And if Richard Curtis tries to make another film like Love, Actually, why not halve him?

The thing that really pisses on my goat is the idea that the UK film industry is worth investing in at all. It creates £4.5 billion per year for the UK economy, up 50% since 2000, when the UKFC was created. But that’s only two billion more than the banks will pay in this year’s bank levy – and they created that money just by fucking up massively. If the UK Film Council had half an enterprising brain it would contribute to a worldwide recession – then the government could go easy on it and the money would come rolling in.