In a discovery that will no doubt delight the chattering classes at the Tate Modern, historians have confirmed that Cornish miners introduced football to Mexico in the 19th century. The news arrives as the government scrambles to justify its latest round of cultural spending, but let’s be honest: this is a one-off. A century and a half later, Britain’s cultural footprint abroad is more likely to be measured in reruns of Downton Abbey than in grassroots sporting revolutions.
The story goes that tin miners from Cornwall, decamping to work in Mexico’s mines, brought with them the beautiful game. They kicked about a ball in the dusty streets of Pachuca, and before long, the locals were hooked. It is a charming anecdote, and it underscores something important: British cultural exports can be powerful, but they are rarely planned. They emerge from the chaos of migration, commerce, and sheer bloody-mindedness. You cannot fund your way to soft power. The Foreign Office’s latest ‘Global Britain’ initiative, with its millions in grants for arts festivals in Tashkent, would do well to remember that.
Now, before we get too misty-eyed, let’s examine the state of play. The UK’s current account deficit in services – the very services that include ‘cultural exports’ – has been worsening. Our balance of trade in films, music, and television is still positive, but the margins are shrinking. Netflix and Spotify have commoditised content, and the world’s appetite for Harry Potter is finite. Meanwhile, the cost of the government’s cultural diplomacy budget has ballooned. In 2023, the UK spent £1.2 billion on ‘soft power’ initiatives. The return on that investment is opaque at best. Compare that to a Cornish miner who spent nothing but his free time and a scuffed leather ball. Now that is efficiency.
The market, as always, has a few lessons. First, cultural influence cannot be centrally planned. Try telling a Treasury mandarin that the path to global relevance is through a 19th-century migrant worker with a football. They would laugh you out of Whitehall. Yet the evidence is there. The most successful British cultural exports – the Beatles, James Bond, Harry Potter – were not the products of government committees. They were driven by individual entrepreneurs and a bit of luck. The state’s role should be to educate and to get out of the way. Instead, we see more quangos and more grants, creating a bloated sector that fetes mediocrity.
Second, we must consider the inflation of cultural value. The government’s ‘cultural’ spending is a form of fiscal stimulus with very poor multipliers. The British Film Institute gets £30 million a year. The National Lottery funds countless arts venues. Does any of this move the needle on the UK’s global standing? The evidence suggests not. A study by the Institute of Economic Affairs found no correlation between state arts funding and a country’s cultural exports. Meanwhile, the private sector – from the Premier League to the music industry – generates billions in overseas revenues with zero subsidy.
Let’s face it: the Cornish miners story is an outlier. It is a feel-good headline that distracts from the underlying rot. Britain’s cultural influence is not what it was. Our share of global box office receipts for UK-produced films has fallen from 12% to 8% over the last decade. The BBC, once the gold standard for broadcasting, is now a pale imitation of its former self, starved of funds and forced to compete with streaming giants. And what does the government do? It doubles down on funding for ‘community arts projects’ in Manchester. That might play well in the Guardian, but it will not win hearts and minds in Bogota.
The bottom line is this: cultural exports are a lagging indicator, not a leading one. They follow economic dynamism, not the other way around. The Cornish miners were not part of a cultural strategy. They were part of a global labour market. Today, the UK’s top exports are services: financial, legal, and consulting. Our cultural edge is blunted by high taxes, restrictive visa policies, and a creeping insularity. Instead of funding more museum exchanges, the government should focus on creating a tax and regulatory environment that lets creative entrepreneurs thrive. That would do more for British cultural exports than a thousand grants.
But do not hold your breath. The Treasury is too busy worrying about the OBR’s next forecast. And the cultural establishment is too busy patting itself on the back for a story about Cornish miners. A nice story, to be sure. But market realism demands we look at the hard data. And the data is not pretty.
