A group of Labour MPs, among them Yvette Cooper, are bringing in the new year with a call to institute a UK “town of culture” award. The proposal is that it should sit alongside the existing city of culture title, which was held by Hull in 2017, and has been awarded to Coventry for 2021. Cooper and her colleagues argue that the success of the crown for Hull, where it brought in £220m of investment and an avalanche of arts, ought not to be confined to cities. Britain’s towns, it is true, are not prevented from applying, but they generally lack the resources to put together a bid to beat their bigger competitors. A town of culture award could, it is argued, become an annual event, attracting funding and creating jobs.

    Some might see the proposal as a booby prize for the fact that Britain is no longer able to apply for the much more prestigious title of European capital of culture, a sought-after award bagged by Glasgow in 1990 and Liverpool in 2008. A cynic might speculate that the UK is on the verge of disappearing into an endless fever of self-celebration in its desperation to reinvent itself for the post-Brexit world: after town of culture, who knows what will follow—village of culture? Suburb of culture? Hamlet of culture?

    It is also wise to recall that such titles are not a cure-all. A badly run “year of culture” washes in and washes out of a place like the tide, bringing prominence for a spell but leaving no lasting benefits to the community. The really successful holders of such titles are those that do a great deal more than fill hotel bedrooms and bring in high-profile arts events and good press for a year. They transform the aspirations of the people who live there; they nudge the self-image of the city into a bolder and more optimistic light.

    It is hard to get right, and requires a remarkable degree of vision, as well as cooperation between city authorities, the private sector, community groups and cultural organisations. But it can be done: Glasgow’s year as European capital of culture can certainly be seen as one of a complex series of factors that have turned the city into the powerhouse of art, music and theatre that it remains today.

    A “town of culture” could be not just about the arts but about honouring a town’s peculiarities—helping sustain its high street, supporting local facilities and above all celebrating its people. Jeremy Wright, the culture secretary, should welcome this positive, hope-filled proposal, and turn it into action.

答案精析：本题为例证题。根据题干中的Glasgow和Paragraph 4可定位至原文第四段第二句。第四段第一句提到，想要做到正确很难，这需要市政当局的远见卓识以及各个方面的协作。第二句明确指出，但这是可以做到的，接着提到Glasgow，说它当选为欧洲文化之都，把自身变成了文化、音乐、戏剧的实力强区，并且一直将这样的地位保持到今天。由此可见，第二句冒号后面的内容是对冒号前面观点的举例说明，所以说，Glasgow的例子是对第一句的例证，即虽然想要做到正确很难，但Glasgow做到了，这属于一个支持性的论据，因此B为正确答案。

错项排除：文章中Glasgow的出现是作为一个成功的例子，A项中“对比鲜明的反例”与原文内容相悖，故排除。Glasgow在文中并不是作为某件事的背景出现的，故C项排除。D项过于笼统，无法表明其真正作用，故排除。