It was a source of sorry disappointment to Mark Fisher, the former Labour arts minister, who has died aged 81, that he held this government post for only a little over a year before being dropped from office. Yet such an outcome was predictable – and probably inevitable – given that he was an uncompromising lifelong idealist who never learned to deploy the sort of silky skills needed to guarantee a long and successful frontline political career.
When Tony Blair’s government took office in 1997, Mark Fisher was appointed on the day following the election. It was the job of his dreams. He had been the opposition spokesperson since 1987, appointed less than four years after becoming an MP, and he had been instrumental in helping develop a strategy for the arts as an important part of Labour’s new “Cool Britannia” agenda.
