Dance has never addressed whether making money is a good or bad thing. It’s time to do so

A couple of weeks ago some dance instructors went to Westminster to coach MPs to shake their tushes for the cameras, while they promised to support a ‘dance manifesto’ for Britain. Since then the image of MPs twerking has stuck to the inside of my head like snail slime on my hands. I’ve scrubbed away with the mental Swarfega but I can still sense those lovely, lively honourable members of a certain age who feel they can best drum up public support for British dance by going onto the floor themselves.

You might be surprised that there exists an All-Party Parliamentary Group for Dance in Westminster at all. The 20 members include those grand inquisitors John Whittingdale and Margaret Hodge, although you’re more likely to find the group’s founders Sir Gerald Kaufman and Frank Doran jiving in public.

I’m split about all of this. Half of me winces – do we think hard-pressed British opera should flatter for MPs’ support by coaching them to emit a line or two of ‘Gott! Welch dunkel hier’? The other half of me gives a high five to the Dance UK lobby for their PR chutzpah.