The ‘Luvvies for Labour’ are back: are we time travelling to 1997?

Keir Starmer has won the backing of Britain’s most eminent artists and actors – but, rather than being a key ‘moment’ in a winning election campaign, the open-letter endorsement feels like a throwback to a distant political era, says John Rentoul

Labour leader Keir Starmer with actor Idris Elba (PA)

A group of “leaders, investors and practitioners” has written a joint letter under the banner of “Arts for Labour”, saying that the creative industries would “benefit from the ambition of a Labour government”.

It has been signed by the great and the good of the arts world: Bill Nighy, Emily Watson, Grayson Perry, Hugh Bonneville, Lesley Manville, Norman Cook, Imelda Staunton and Keeley Hawes.

How evocative it all seems of more innocent times, 27 years ago, when Tony Blair erected his “big tent” across not just the centre ground of British politics but over the country’s entire cultural hinterland, too.