Kim Howells, the UK’s minister for tourism, film and broadcasting has been pronouncing on culture – that the Turner Prize winners are a disgrace, and that rap music incites violence. Does he “regret shooting his mouth off so regularly, or does he see it as his role to make challenging statements on cultural themes? “I haven’t really been shooting my mouth off. What I’m concerned about is a coarsening of sensibilities. People think that makes me a fuddy-duddy.”