‘Time for the arts to stand on its own two feet and stop sponging off the taxpayer’
From the start, the combatively worded motion came under attack. Culture secretary Ed Vaizey called it ‘brutal, vulgar, left-wing, and hostile to excellence and quality.’ He urged us
not to think of the arts as a layabout teenager watching Neighbours and eating cold pizza all day. The arts doesn’t sponge off the taxpayer, he said, it’s the other way around. The
subsidy supports the burgeoning tourism market. He revealed that the independent arts sector welcomes stated-funded art and regards it as a research and development department. He defended free
entrance to museums with this economic parable. ‘Imagine a Peruvian visitor who comes to the British Museum to see some of his national treasures. He reaches the café, with an extra
£20 in his pocket because he got in for nothing, and he spends it on carrot cake and lapsan souchong. This is how it works. We fleece him at the café, not at the entrance.’
MEP Nigel Farage celebrated the wording of the motion. ‘Clear, robust and unequivocal, it looks like a UKIP amendment in the European parliament.’ He told us government rarely does
things better than people. And he diagnosed the Arts Council with a disease that afflicts all public bodies. ‘It does its best to grow.’ The only beneficiaries of subsidised art were
the administrators while the ‘poor ordinary taxpayers’ were forced to buy subsidised fun for the rich. Likening the Arts Council to British Leyland and the Common Agricultural Policy he
argued that a steady stream of government money ‘stops people thinking, stops them innovating.’ He ended by begging Mr Cameron to abolish Ed Vaizey’s department altogether.
Tiffany Jenkins, of the Institute of Ideas, declared herself a convert – ‘with a heavy heart but a growing conviction’ – to the abolitionist cause. Too little merit, too
little aesthetic judgement in subsidised arts projects dismayed her. She accused New Labour of ruthlessly politicising the arts and she produced as evidence the policy statement of a museum in Tyne
and Wear. ‘We act as an agent of economic and social regeneration.’ She concluded that state-funded art was being asked to find solutions where politics had failed. With
sensationally vicious rhetoric she attacked subsidised art as ‘a lazy, evasive and undiscerning sector,’ led by ‘a defensive, overpaid gaggle of administrators who waste our money
on their bad art.’
Tony Blair’s former chief policy adviser, and now head of the RSA, Matthew Taylor found himself in agreement with Jenkins. He told us his aesthetic interests were entirely philistine:
thrillers and football. But he saw that the arts had the potential to improve individuals and build a sense of identity in a community. A recent speech by the PM had convinced him that
‘citizenship is the key to the success of the UK.’ The arts can foster a sense of national pride. ‘We certainly won’t get it from our football team – good on paper,
crap on grass.’ He reminded us that the proportion of arts funding to GDP was pretty small if you compared it with the marketing budget of a multinational.
Marc Sidwell, business features editor of City AM, insisted that cutting funding didn’t mean cutting the arts altogether. He rattled off a list of artistic success stories that receive no
subsidy. Glyndebourne, Shakespeare’s Globe, London’s thriving indie music scene, the childrens films made by Pixar, ‘which make adults weep.’ He quoted Stalin.
‘Artists are the engineers of mens’ souls,’ and he asked if we really want the state to take on the delicate work of ‘defining ourselves.’ Government should
concentrate on protecting the liberties that are vital to a vibrant artistic culture. ‘Funding has failed. We know this because we’ve still got it.’
Former culture secretary, Ben Bradshaw, claimed to be offended by the motion’s ‘deeply pejorative’ wording. It neglected the truth that dependence on private sponsorship would
jeopardize the arts. He reminded us of the ‘great public good’ provided by free access to the national collecions of the British Museum or the Tate. The subsidy offers terrific value
for money, he said. State support represents just 0.3 percent of GDP and yet this modest allowance has made Britain’s arts sector, as a proportion of GDP, the largest in the world.
Before the debate, many in the room opposed the motion. Afterwards, plenty more had joined them. The motion was defeated.
Votes before the debate:
For: 23
Against: 56
Undecided: 42
After the debate:
For:
29
Against: 74
Undecided: 18
Comments