RICHARD LEONARD has pledged to “make arts and culture” the “visible flagship” of his radical manifesto.

Speaking at the Glasgow May Day cabaret night yesterday evening, the Scottish Labour leader said the left must defend bookshops and record shops from closure as much as post offices.

He asked: “If our movement does not develop our own cultural policy based on our own values, how on earth can we develop a cultural policy for the whole nation, let alone mount a direct challenge to the concentration of ownership, and so power, across the whole field of culture and communications, which frames the terms of our public debate and the choices we can exercise as citizens?”

The annual event was dedicated this year to the memory of Morning Star arts critic and trade unionist Chris Bartter, who died last October.

Mr Bartter, a communications officer with public-sector union Unison, was crucial to reviving Glasgow’s May Day celebrations. He was also a lively presence at the Edinburgh fringe every year and wrote reviews of its events for the Star.

The cabaret night featured performances by poets and comedians as well as acclaimed musicians Rab Noakes and Maeve Mackinnon.

Appearing in the penultimate slot, Mr Leonard said the labour movement’s proud tradition was deeply rooted in arts and culture. But he warned that the left could often be “too earnest, too puritanical and all too often … profoundly masculine in our politics too.”

He vowed: “So we will campaign against bank closures and post office closures, and even police station closures.

“But let us start challenging the closure of bookshops, of music shops and of arts and community venues with as much determination.

“And I pledge tonight, on this night for Chris Bartter, that I will make arts and culture a central part, the visible flagship, of our radical political, industrial and economic policy.”

He said this would be “at the core of our commitment to equality, to diversity, to internationalism and to full employment as well.”