This book focuses on cultural policy in the UK between 1997 and 2010 under the Labour party (or 'New Labour', as it was temporarily rebranded). It is based on interviews with major figures and examines a range of policy areas including the arts, creative industries, copyright, film policy, heritage, urban regeneration and regional policy.

1. Culture, Politics and Equality: the Challenge for Social Democracy 2. New Labour, Culture and Creativity 3. The Arts: Access, Excellence and Instrumentalism 4. What Was Creative Industries Policy? Film, Copyright, and the Shift to Creative Economy 5. Cultural Policy and the Regions 6. Policy Innovation: NESTA and Creative Partnerships 7. Heritage 8. How Did New Labour Do On Arts and Culture? And What Happened Next?

“This is a very valuable book, in part as it fills a huge gap in the research. … this book covers a huge territory as it is, and given its achievement in presenting a series of complex situations with admirable clarity, it should become a core text on any reading list relating to UK culture and politics since Thatcher.” (Jonathan Vickery, Democratic Audit UK, democraticaudit.com, January, 2017)

"As the first study to assess the influential cultural policies of New Labour in the round, this is an important, wide-ranging and very welcome contribution to the field." - Philip Schlesinger, University of Glasgow, UK"'It is hard to imagine a more empirically rich or more theoretically subtle account of the making, implementation and impact of cultural policy. Culture, Economy and Politics is true to its title; it weaves together the multiple interests and actors that shaped and delivered New Labour's agenda. The result is a revelation; it should change how we understand and study the politics of culture." - John Street, University of East Anglia, UK'This is a truly marvellous, important and timely book. It is rigorously researched, analytically sharp, and will be of interest to a wide readership in academia as well as in the cultural policy world. The authors have produced an invaluable volume, tracking the rise of the creative economy as a flagship of the New Labour years. This is a work that will have lasting influence and will give shape to debates in the field for many years to come.' - Angela McRobbie, Goldsmiths University of London, UK