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The successes and failures of past Labour Party policies for the arts in the UK, nationally and locally, are reviewed. In particular, attention is paid to the imaginative policies of the controversial GLC administration between 1981 and 1986, and the subsequent policies of the Greater London Enterprise Board with its remit to intervene in the commercial sector of the cultural economy. The book looks at: the continuing pre-occupation with the public subsidy of predominantly 19th century cultural forms; the challenge of commercial popular culture; the GLC community arts policy, and the limitations of funding by subsidy; intervention into the new multinational empires of the press, satellite television, and book, film and record production and distribution; and at a radical programme of intervention in the cultural industries for both local authorities and national government.