Ed Vaizey in The Times and Simon Heffer in the Telegraph both have strongly worded articles about the Government's Cultural Green Paper today. You know something is bad when the normally mildmannered Ed Vaizey calls it "Stalinist". And when Vaizey and Heffer get together they're a pretty powerful duo!
I find it typical of Labour's values that they are willing to spend £200 million on a new British Film Centre, and yet won't contribute to the upkeep of many of our deteriorating national treasures.
All this puts arts funding in the spotlight. Simon Heffer argues that "Leftists justify public funding of the arts as a means for it to shrug off "elitism"." But later in his piece he admits he does support some public funding of the arts - things like Radio 3. This illustrates the trouble people on the right have on this subject - many are happy for public money to go into the arts - as long as it's things that they approve of.
The arts and 'culture' mean many things to many different people. What is one person's art is another person's philistinism. Like Heffer, I am a traditionalist in this area and regard things like modern art as no such thing. Like him I would like to see this Green Paper consigned to a dustbin in Cockspur Street. We don't need to be told what is good for us by the government. If they left the private sector to get on with it and stopped interfering in this way, the arts would be so much better off.
Note: Tomorrow's HEFFER CONFRONTED is on this subject. As I agreed with Heffer's article I had to use a bit of ingenuity to conjure up a debate!
76 comments:
Anyone who think that 'leftists' can be trusted to fund public arts properly should take a look at http://www.for3.org/index.html. The Brown Broadcasting Corporation has been extraordinarily evasive in its supposed commitments to culture on radion, in the experience of Friends of Radio Three.
Anyone who think that 'leftists' can be trusted to fund public arts properly should take a look at http://www.for3.org/index.html. The Brown Broadcasting Corporation has been extraordinarily evasive in its supposed commitments to culture on radio, in the experience of Friends of Radio Three. (Corrected for embarrassing typing error)
I'm glad I'm not the only one who couldn't believe my ears when I heard about this on R4 this morning.
Of course this will come to nothing, it's just an attempt to be on the airwaves every morning. Has Brown got a "grid"?
I don't know, surely a boost to Britain's Film Industry is more democratic than propping up "Larry's Arts Club". Great year for British cinema, Paul Greengrass at the BAFTAs said it was mostly down to Gordon Brown.
The private sector doesn't always work though does it? We have lost The Jazz radio because of "commercial" interests. Is Radio 3 next? We do need state support in a genuine way and not tokenistic like previous Labour and Tory Governments have been.
Kulturstunden: kids in London will get an annual trip to the theatre, other kids will mess about in the library for 5 hours a week. Arts education is the easy bit, the government should put its resources into encouraging science.
WRONG WRONG WRONG !!!!!
This is populist philistinism and needs to be rejected.
Are you saying it is wrong to fund things like the National Orchestra for Wales ? For independent cinema to get much needed funding from the EU Media programme so that we aren't forced to exist on a diet of Hollywood blockbusters ?
For councils to help keep local theatre groups going ?
This is the ridiculous argument used in England where anything like the Barbican or Tate Modern is dismissed as 'elitist' because the policy makers haven't the wit or wisdom to realise that appreciating art is not something that is confined to the so-called 'middle classes'.
I suppose if you were in charge, Wales would never have projects like the Wales Millennium Centre, and you would be in favour of the Arts Council STARVING funding not just to that large list publicised a few weeks ago, but ALL of the organisations they support, including the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which has just been given a reprieve ???
Clearly, Iain, you are in favour of this because you think culture is something which lives in yoghurt, and your idea of a 'night at the opera with some classical music' is watching some Andrew Lloyd Webber $h!te, or popping in to town to see Mamma Mia !!
Stop trying to deprive the country of the things which make it worth living here !! Go and see the film 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly' and then tell me that we shouldn't be helping more people to enjoy foreign films, rather than exist on a monoculture of imported Yankee crap !!
To coin a phrase 'If you think spending money on the arts [which is a minuscule fraction of defence spending], then you should see how expensive ignorance can be'..
And I feel ignorance of the arts is something you have a great deal of experience in, judging by your R2, Middle-of-the-road taste in muzak!
Right, so Wilf Stevenson, Brown's best friend and confidante, and Director of the Smith Institute, and former Director of the British Film Institute, has managed to get Gordon to fork out £200 million on a new National Film Centre.
It's hardly patronage, when you look at the sums - £200m is just one 300th of a Northern Rock - it's petty cash.
I appreciate that British politics is pretty boring at present but your recent posts call to mind barrels and scraping. I guess it's not worth advising an ardent blogger to follow the age-old maxim "if you've nothing worth saying, say nothing" is it?
Speaking of advice, how's your campaign for the Old Bexley and Sidcup nomination going? You might do well to cultivate Ted Heath's shoulder-heaving laugh or to take up sailing. After the embarrassment that their family man has caused them, they would probably relish another jolly bachelor as their candidate...
If you want to be a 'grumpy old man' why not have a go at Dwain Chambers ?
Or better yet, check out the great post from Jeff Randall in Telegraph Digital.
It features our 'Sub-Prime Minister'..
is it not possible for the lib/dems and conservatives to form a bloc against new labour
why wait for an election when they can put a sitting government into opposition?
"regard things like modern art as no such thing"
eh?!
cringe...
Do you mean you are not a fan of 'modern art' - or 'contemporary art'? Which one?
That's quite a sweeping generalisation. Are you blushing?
You should be.
This is the government that's diverting lottery money from the Arts Council to pay for our Olympic Games.
Re schools going to Theatres and Museums: they do that already. When I was a teacher, I took my class on a trip at least once a term.
As the Paulo Freire said,
"Education is a Political act".
Have no doubt, this bit of "culture" will be aetheistic, nihilistic, relativisistic, left-leaning codswallop or if you like, political correctness at its shittiest. It will be "our kind of education" for "our kind of people"
Heffer's article is wonderfully spenetic, but also devastatingly apposite:
"The other day the Government told English Heritage that it could not have more than £2.1 million next year towards the upkeep of our cathedrals...
..Yet this Green Paper proposes a mere £200 million for something called a national film centre"
Young Weasel is a young film maker. He does not need this. All the culture and support he needs is already in place and he is not only using it, he is doing very well. Young Weasel went to a "good school" with an assisted place (abolished by Tony Blair) Young Weasel has been steeped in "culture" by me, all his life. He has been taken around Cathedrals and Museuams and gone to concerts and listen to Old Weasel's CDs and given improving books that he's probably never read. He is already a successful filmaker, and he will continue to do so on merit.
It is not the purpose of the state to inculcate "culture", because the very word is politically loaded. It is not motivated or mediated by intellecual rigour but by the glib doctrinaire imaginings of pen pushers at the Ministry of Truth.
(Also at Weasel's place)
I agree that the Arts should not be subsidised by government, but partly because government consists of a lot of people like you who have "limited" taste. Modern Art isn't? That's a whopping generalisation.
Of course, the Olympics would meet the same fate if I were in charge. Boring elitist drug-addled prats wasting their lives at our expense. Thank goodness for Dwain Chambers as the comic relief.
Public libraries are another example of the sequestering of collective funds by elites. I dare you to have a go at them.
Doesn't a lot of modern art make its own way in the world- I don't think Damien Hirst or Tracey Emin need much public subsidy or many others with the likes of the Saatchis about? Or am I wrong? Whereas opera is phenomenally expensive to put on and no one likes it....
“Go and see the film 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly' and then tell me that we shouldn't be helping more people to enjoy foreign films, rather than exist on a monoculture of imported Yankee crap !! “
This diving bell and butterfly thing sounds like a rattling yarn plunging us into the helter skelter world of a man who is unable to do anything being (yawn) immobile ..( sound familiar), and blinks out a book in painful hours while ( I expect ) a petit butterfly come to represent freedom and the possibility of spiritual transcendence in the usual god awful flabby maudlin dated sentimental way. In gods name show some humanity and give me waterboarding instead !
Helping people to enjoy foreign films may be ,in the face of stiff competition , the stupidest reason for taxing anyone I have yet heard. I suggest ,you pretentious twerp , you go and see some of the following and rather than sniffing your old ladies armpit Euro centric provincial snobbery worthy of Mappe and Lucia , marvel at the triumph of the 20th century’s crowning artistic achievement , the Hollywood Film.
Here is a selection .
Stage Coach
Shane
Ground-hog Day
Angles With Dirty Faces
Asphalt Jungle
Die hard
Godfather ( one and two...not three of course)
Terminator 1 ( and 2 actually )
Casablanca
White Heat
Airplane ( ...and don1t call me Shirley)
Apolcalypse Now
Good Fellas
Reservoir Dogs
One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest
Falling Down
Heat ( or LA take down)
Alien ( not Aliens although it’s a decent product)
Psycho
Vertigo
( almost any Hitchcock)
MGM Musical....most
The Graduate
The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance
A Fist full of Dollars
Dirty Harry
Some Like It Hot
That lot didn’t need a grant so why should anyone else.WE need more " The Unforgiven " and less twits hanging naked from scaffolding mangling Hamlet.
Why should art be funded? Who determines what 'art' actually is?
I've just read Ed Vaizey's article both on and off line - and I cannot see where he calls the Green Paper "Stalinist" - in fact he criticises it for having little substantive content (not a well know feature of Stalinist cultural policy) and also make the point that it isn't a Green Paper.
You then just compound the problem by using the Hitlerite "Kulturkampf" in the title. Don't you possibly think that what you are doing might just be slightly libellous
The fact that you can use such comparisions to Stalin and Hitler really just demonstrates your near to total ignorance of what those individuals were responsible for. Can I suggest you go on a sabbatical to read some modern history so you can begin to fathom your own terms of abuse and perhaps come up with some more sensible ones in the mean time.
As your comments on culture probably the less said the better.
Iain, Something funny has happened to your blog since you returned from the States.
Your posts seem 'older' and 'grumpier'. Why?
I remember when you recommended everyone go see 'Riverdance' on this blog. IS that your idea of 'culture'?
I think you need a chat with Sir John Tusa about art and culture asap - before you really become embarrassed by your unenlightened comments.
Sorry, but it's true.
10:52 - You are everything that is wrong about the self-serving "arts" sector.
You ask, "Are you saying it is wrong ... for independent cinema to get much needed funding from the EU Media programme so that we aren't forced to exist on a diet of Hollywood blockbusters ?" Who is "forcing" you to "exist" on a diet of Hollywood blockbusters? If you don't like them, don't go. Read a book.
"I suppose if you were in charge, Wales would never have projects like the Wales Millennium Centre, and you would be in favour of the Arts Council STARVING (eeeeek! STARVING! Not even "existing"!)funding not just to that large list publicised a few weeks ago, but ALL of the organisations they support ..." blah blah blah.
The arts industry is big business in this country because it is "funded" by taxpayers who don't give a stuff about 99% of its output.
If an endeavour cannot find a paying audience, that means it is not wanted. It does not mean that some great souls should spend other people's money to keep them going because, in the judgement of these great souls, these projects are worth while.
Is the American film industry subidised or do the Americans make films that audiences queue up to see? The British film industry - which is basically a nationalised industry - makes films that can't find an audience because they are b-o-r-i-n-g. When Brits make the occasional good film, people go and see it. The fault is with the arts, not the "funding".
unsworth Why should art be funded? Who determines what 'art' actually is?
Exactly. When's the book burning start?
Extreme ? As has often been quoted, A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.
Newmania - Anything with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. I don't believe they got a grant.
For Kulturkampfers" everywhere
"The sun on the meadow is summery warm.
The stag in the forest runs free.
But gather together to greet the storm.
Tomorrow belongs to me.
The branch of the linden is leafy and
Green,
The Rhine gives its gold to the sea.
But somewhere a glory awaits unseen.
Tomorrow belongs to me.
The babe in his cradle is closing his eyes
The blossom embraces the bee.
But soon, says a whisper;
"Arise, arise,
Tomorrow belongs to me
Oh Fatherland, Fatherland
Show us the sign
Your children have waited to see.
The morning will come
When the world is mine.
Tomorrow belongs to me!"
This is a load of rubbish.
The reason for this (other than chasing airtime and headlines) is apparently that "deprived" children are denied access to arts events due to parental poverty.
Abject nonsense. The reasons for such cultural impoverishment are:
1. Parents are completely devoid of cultural values and see no benefit beyond anything not related to binge drinking or smoking, or not in the tabloids, gossip glossies, soaps or sports.
2. Parents are disinclined to spend money on anything that could be spent on their own gratification.
No amount of public money will change this. I make my own cultural choices and they do not involve sport, vertical drinking pubs, trash films and TV, soaps or rampant consumerism. I would prefer it if the partakers of such activities remain in their sphere and leave me to mine, shared of course with likeminded people!
(there are, of course exceptions to the above, but my observation is that the rule tends to apply!)
The "Carry On" films. I believe they made their own way in the marketplace. A bit lowbrow for all these arts funding mahatamas, of course. No deep message. No dark undertones. No drugs.
Why do the film industry need public money? Why do 'Arts' need an expensive Arts Council to dole out public money?
People flock to see what they wish to see. If people do not wish to see whatever WHY should the majority have to pay out, through taxes, for the enjoyment of a few?
People scramble to get tickets to see James Last and his Orchestra. Why then cannot our many many orchestra's learn from that experience and never forget The Electric |Light Orchestra.
So many Theatre's need public money to exist. That is surely saying that they are putting on shows etc that the public do NOT want to see!
Paul Daniels. Tom Jones. Shirley Bassey and all the variety acts do not get public money. They have to work hard to get the people interested.
I hope the next government will scrap The Arts Council and if Theatres. Opera Houses. Ballet and Orchestra's have to close the shutters then so be it.;
The money saved could be used building flats for MP's. Proper Housing for the Armed Services. More houses for the homeless and so many GOOD things.
Anonymous at 1052. I have no respect for anyone who does not have the guts to put a name to their spiel!
I'd noticed on my visits to Belgium that local politicians crawled all over artists and threw money at them. Sound bad.
I think this is an EU idea - to adopt the cultural aspect of society and control it - by funding the desired, acceptable elements i.e. the pro-EU and promoting such ahead of the anti.
Political correctness moving into art as it were.
Of course gauleiter Gordon would follow the EU instruction manual on this.
Jess The Dog: "1. Parents are completely devoid of cultural values and see no benefit beyond anything not related to binge drinking or smoking, or not in the tabloids, gossip glossies, soaps or sports."
This is grossly unfair! They devote a lot of time to working out their lucky numbers for the Lottery. Also, they are scratch card afficionados and can be seen patronising outlets them throughout the land.
Regarding all this art and movies with a message, message schmessage. If I want to send a message, I'll call Western Union.
Oh, there you are! I'm ready for my close-up, Mr De Mille.
Sorry Iain but you are talking nonsense.
As far as I am concerned and many other people. If someone thinks the government should be spending tax payers money on anything but the minimum of things like a minimal armed forces and the police and judicial system they are not right wing at all.
They are either left wing internationlist socialists or left wing national socialists. Both of which are not right wing, and certainly not libertarians or conservatives.
I for one completely disown these people I suggest you do the same.
Atlas Shrugged
I didn't read the word 'stalinist' once in the article by Ed Vaizey. He says no such thing.
I don't believe the greatest English language playwright of the 20th Century, Tennessee Williams, ever got "funding". Of course, he was suffering from an immense handicap. He was talented.
Five hours of culture a week or else! This announcement was so inept I couldn't help giggling. I kept thinking of Peter Sellers playing Fred Kite in I'm Alright Jack - "all them corn fields and ballet in the evening". This is yet another bogus announcement. And anyway anyone who really enjoys the arts doesn't call it "culture" and doesn't count the hours. What policy wonk devoid of emotional intelligence dreamt this one up?
Iain also before you start laying that PRACTICAL argument again on me please read the following carefully.
No one is more practical then myself. I built a manufacturing business from jack and have survived and prospered in spite of many set backs.
HOWEVER
Right now the powers of liberty in this country are the collective will of myself Guido The Devil the Libertarian Alliance and a relatively few other desperate individuals and mal-contents.
We can not change the world all on our own and we know it. The job is bigger then could possibly be imagined.
But like a religious preachers we hope to change this world very slowly one mind at a time. This will not change the world much if at all, but it makes us feel better trying.
As individuals we still have choices in our lives, thank god. I only wish to help as many as possible make well informed ones for themselves and their families.
Atlas shrugged
If schools controlled their own budgets, they could decide how much culture is needed and when.
Teachers being given charge of children's education - wouldn't that be a revelation!
Iain obviously confused the normally mild mannered Ed Vaizey with the normally mild mannered Simon Heffer - easy mistake to make!
By the way, Iain, as much as I adore Ed Vaizey (and I do!) it must be noted that he really deserves an award for WORST BLOGGER OF THE YEAR.
Ed Vaizey tries to blog - but he fails - over and over and over again...
:)
canvas "I think you need a chat with Sir John Tusa about art and culture asap - before you really become embarrassed by your unenlightened comments."
verity "If an endeavour cannot find a paying audience, that means it is not wanted. It does not mean that some great souls should spend other people's money to keep them going because, in the judgement of these great souls, these projects are worth while."
Another typically asinine, thick, narrow-minded comment from verity. Maybe she is in favour of Frank Field's suggestion of getting the wealthy to contribute to these things, as they seem totally incapable of such philanthropy at the moment.
Time was when 'mainstream' culture was willing to subsidise quality arts. Since they are now getting a free ride are you saying that the theatres which provide the training for the actors which go on to appear in, yes, Hollywood films should be closed down ? Because I don't see anyone in Hollywood offering to fund them !
"The "Carry On" films. I believe they made their own way in the marketplace. A bit lowbrow for all these arts funding mahatamas, of course. No deep message."
Congratulations, verity, as you have made the point that art and culture cannot simply be left to the mass market far more eloquently than I ever could !! When you say a film is 'boring', what you are in fact saying is that you are too thick or ill-educated to understand it, and would prefer the far more simplistic American film which even someone of your clearly limited intelligence can understand.
strapworld "So many Theatre's need public money to exist. That is surely saying that they are putting on shows etc that the public do NOT want to see!
Paul Daniels. Tom Jones. Shirley Bassey and all the variety acts do not get public money. They have to work hard to get the people interested.
I hope the next government will scrap The Arts Council and if Theatres. Opera Houses. Ballet and Orchestra's have to close the shutters then so be it.;"
s/w - your pig ignorance, and down in the gutter level of intellect, as evidenced by your inability to understand the apostrophe, is again making the argument against scrapping arts funding powerfully.
If you guys had your way, Lowest Common Denominator Shite would be available 24/7 across the country, while the incubation grounds of actors, musicians and singers would have been nuked in favour of 'Let them apply for the X-Factor' Marie Antoinette-ism.
I can forgive strapworld and verity for thinking this way - they are too thick to know any different. But I had hoped that Iain would know better.
verity: Once again you and I are on the same wavelength. The government has no business spending any of our money on any of the arts. Moreover, with very few exceptions, the greatest artists this country has ever produced, and the greatest writers, never received a penny of government money.
As for movies, they are an extremely high risk business, and as such even less suitable for taxpayer funding.
Verity
but didn't Tennessee Williams work in academia while he was writing his earlier plays, and before he could pay hus way, which amounts to a form of state subsidy.
Point of info - both Heffer and Vaizey called this initiative Stalinist. Vaizey said it in interviews yesterday. So there!
A few more points:
1. The arts are not nearly as subsidised as people think - in this respect the public sector is not so public - just as the private sector is really not that private (stuffed full of subsisdies from RDAs). Strategies to maximise earned income in the arts are (by and large) just as developed as in the private sector and the targets are high. In addition to earned income all government money must be matched from other sources. Most arts professionals spend all their time filling in funding applications these days from the bewildering array of different schemes. The real people on a junket are the ones who work for the Arts Council, which is now just a branch of government, wangling all kinds of lavish benefits for those at the top. Real independence should be restored to the Arts Council which (many moons ago) used to be a rather conservative outfit. Then you might get some good - non political - funding decisions.
2. The UK Film Council is a ludicrous waste of public money - a bunch of cyncial film entrepreneurs milking the public purse for all its worth. The place should be axed (Cameron take note) - that way we'll get some genuine competitiveness back into the film industry which is quite capable of paying its own way and turning a profit without public subsidy. One caveat - the old BFI Production Fund was always a good idea, produced some fine British films and should be restored - for genuine art and experimental film making only.
3. I am all for encouraging young people to discover the joys of the arts, but this latest bogus government scheme is the fast way to turn yoof off kulcha.
I think we need to get a little bit of perspective here..
1/ A teacher on the radio this morning indicated that the amount of funding available amounted to £15 per pupil per year. So I guess they are not going to bring about much improvement / cause much damage / waste too much cash [delete as you think fit] either way.
2/ Bonkers Burnham was forced into admitting to John Humphrys that this plan was not a 'target' for 5 hours of 'culture' a week, but an 'aspiration'.
So I don't think we need to lose too much sleep that anything is going to change this year..
But heigh-ho, if it keeps Dale's traffic levels up while he is out on a golf course, it can't be all bad...
5:21 - Oh, God! - this is the best yet! Too long and windy to fisk, but a couple of minor points to add to the general merriment on this thread:
Re the commercially successful Carry On films: Congratulations, verity, as you have made the point that art and culture cannot simply be left to the mass market far more eloquently than I ever could !! Well there you go. I'm such an idiot savant!
Another typically asinine, thick, narrow-minded comment from verity. Maybe she is in favour of Frank Field's suggestion of getting the wealthy to contribute to these things, as they seem totally incapable of such philanthropy at the moment.
No. Knuckle-dragger that I am, I don't approve of handing taxpayers' money over to enterprises that are not commercially viable. If those same taxpayers had wanted to see another movie about drug dealing in the Gorbals or whatever, they would have paid for a ticket. Although Frank Field is an admirable man, I don't think it is his business to tell rich people where to spend their money or which charities (and that's what support of "the arts" is - charity for the terminally self-regarding) to support.
Congratulations, verity, as you have made the point that art and culture cannot simply be left to the mass market far more eloquently than I ever could !!
Thank you.
When you say a film is 'boring', what you are in fact saying is that you are too thick or ill-educated to understand it, and would prefer the far more simplistic American film which even someone of your clearly limited intelligence can understand.
No. When I say a film is boring - or pretentious rubbish - I understand it and the motivation behind making it only too well. Egos of inadequate people who cannot produce anything people will buy of their own free will.
Since they are now getting a free ride are you saying that the theatres which provide the training for the actors which go on to appear in, yes, Hollywood films should be closed down ? Because I don't see anyone in Hollywood offering to fund them !
No. Hollywood doesn't do "funding" as you understand it.
Am I saying that theatres which provide training for actors should be closed down? Well, not if they are self-supporting and turning a profit for their investors and paying rent for the premises and salaries for the actors and stage hands, ticket sellers and cleaning crews.
If the money was extracted from the taxpayer, then yes, that is what I am saying.
You reprimanded Strapworld for "pig ignorance" for making a mistake with an apostrophe. May I point to this piece of your writing: "theatres which provide the training for the actors which go on to appear in, yes, Hollywood". An inability to distinguish between which and who is an early sign of ego-driven dementia.
I could go on, but I see my keeper is coming up to my cage with some nice plump bananas.
5:40 I didn't know that Tennessee had laboured in the salt mines of acadème. He survived pretty damn' well, did he not!
I think Verity has the point here - many of the most successful contributors to our cultural life [whether I liked their book/film/play/artwork or not] managed to do so without any state control.
"Culture" is and should be sufficiently objective that I don't need it to be dosed out to me by the state. The corollary is that someone else will want to look at/listen to things that I don't - I will want to look at the modern art that Iain doesn't. I'll also be watching the Carry-On films with Verity!
Where the state should help out - and I think its role should be way smaller than currently - is to make sure that we each get the chance to try out the different things on offer so we can then make choices ourselves. Five hours of "quality culture" as selected by Andy Burnham is not the way to do that. Schools working together with theatres, galleries, etc, might be. Then in adult life, the state can butt out as we make our own cultural choices.
Any coherent libertarian prescription - and Nozick acknowledged it - requires full and good information flow among "consumers," otherwise competition is fatuous. That means educating the young, but only in offering them the menu - not making choices for them.
The key to this is the 3 year implementation target, which will mean that it will be long forgotten by then (along with most of Brown's daily policy visions) or, hopefully, this shambolic government will have been consigned to the dustbin of history (where it belongs) in a humiliating rout in next general election.
No doubt taxpayer funding for the "National Film Centre" will be justified on the grounds that cinema is art for the people.
When it is pointed out that popular films pay for themselves, the argument is then inverted into the claim that it is because some films are unpopular that they ought to be funded by the taxpayer.
Which raises the question, who decides which films ought to be subsidised? The same people who demand that films ought to be subsidised of course!
The Left (lovers as they are of the feudal order - with they and their chums as the aristocracy) are keen to extract money from the masses in order to pay for what pleases them. Is there anybody in the country who does not know every detail of what the Leftist establishment believe?
A British (State) education? Humouring the bigotry of Leftist cretins essentially. Which reminds me - "tory boys never grow up" maybe you ought to look up the meaning of the word kulturkampf [Hint - Bismark]?
I think I would go further than to suggest that arts funding was useless I think it has a positively harmful effect . The British film industry serves us failure after failure but the tiresome bilge oozes ever onwards , it has got to the point when even when the British make a decent film the brand is so dreadful that no-one will go and see it until it has success in America. ( Four Weddings ). The reasons for this are not the hopelessly jaded palates of the viewers but the failure of narrative technique conception and above all taste . I think the point when the old dad in Brassed off coughs up coal dust at the brass band competition final at the Albert Hall must be some sort of cosmic nadir in pitiless soul torture . They deserve no only to fail but to never reappear .
The funded theatre is universally banal and attended only in an act of masochistic worship at the cloacal shrine .God knows I `ve suffered a few evening s that would have a living death without a sense of humour.
Then I would also say the free air of America with its low tax bracing atmosphere of achieve itself provides grand backdrop to ambitious art. TS Elliot , John Updike Robert Lowell leap to mind but for an artistic manifesto I doubt this can be improved upon
“ My name is John Ford , and I make Westerns “
Well if Vaizey said it was Stalinist yesterday he seems to have changed his tune by today's Times article - whatever Stalin was accused of it wasn't a lack of substance and i don't think he was ever criticised for downgrading a Green Paper to a Strategy Document. Perhaps Vaizey is another one who should learn a bit of history before he starts throwing such terms of abuse about.
It shocks me sometimes that even the likes of verity does not understand the REAL reason why the government should keep its grubby hands of the arts and just about everything else.
The sentence that comes to mind is.
He who pays the piper calls the tune.
Or more accurately put, because we all know who is really paying.
The person or persons that gives the money over, that they stole from the tax payer, calls the tune.
Which is far more serious to the sanctity of our own free minds, then losing a few bob.
Surly a free mind and the liberty to use it, are the only things we have of any real value, now or at anytime in the past.
I for one do not trust government to do virtually anything in my interests, even if they could possibly know what that is.
If I am not always completely sure at 47 years old. How in the hell is a government minister supposed to know, who has never even asked me.
Atlas Shrugged
Marvellous idea, Mr Dale, simply marvellous. But why stop at cutting funding for theatres ? Cut out all state funding full stop. YES !
No more schools - after all there is a danger of people learning to read - and they might start reading things which don't agree with your right wing view of the world. They might learn that markets are not perfect.
And stop subsidising the museums - I mean, there is a danger that they might learn something, and start to realise that the British Empire was not a complete analloyed success and unmitigated benefit. And if the people can't afford the charges, then close the bloody things. Can't have them running at a loss, now can we ?
And we save money - I mean the Greeks have been asking for those bloody Marbles back for years - and I mean, what do those Greeks know about culture anyway ?
And of course, last, but not least close down the bloody churches - after all they have music and sculpture and craftwork in them, and that can't be good for the oiks now can it ?
And get of all that modern art which is sponging off the taxpayer - I mean it's not as if a wealthy individual like Charles Saatchi is ever going to buy it, now is it ?
Not bloody likely !
And close all those Tate galleries as the encore ! Save all that tax dosh ! I mean, anyone would think that the money for those came from white granules that people put in their Rosie Lee ! I mean to say, 'Do me a faaaavvaaahh, Governor'..
The irony in 9:12's long, reptitive post weighed more than the Forth Bridge. Example: No more [state funding for] schools - after all there is a danger of people learning to read.
Not while the state's in charge, there isn't.
Blah de blah de blah blah.
Sir John Tusa:
"This is the definition I would suggest: the final value of the arts cannot be predicted or quantified; to curtail them on these grounds is to deny the possibility of an unpredictable benefit.
The risk of funding the arts offers benefits far greater than the immediate gains of not funding them.
The arts link society to its past, a people to its inherited store of ideas, images and words; yet the arts challenge those links in order to find ways of exploring new paths and ventures.
The arts are evolutionary and revolutionary; they listen, recall and lead. They resist the homogeneous, strengthen the individual and are independent in the face of the pressures of the mass, the bland, the undifferentiated.
In a postmodern world, in which individual creativity has never mattered more, the arts provide the opportunity for developing this characteristic.
The investment in the arts is so small, the actual return so large, that it represents value as research into ideas."
Canvas - Anyone who wants to "invest" in the arts is free to do so.
Thanks for letting us know that the arts are a link to the past. Except, the smarty-pants iconoclasts - the ones who need "funding" - are proud to be destructive towards the past and society at large.
This is their privilege, as long as I don't have to pay for it.
"anonymous" posters should be limited to ten words or less.
Canvas, I fed your post into Babelfish and couldn't find a translation into English. Care to tell us what it means? What is a "postmodern world", given that with every new technological advance, the word forges ahead into new modernity?
"Individual creativity has never mattered more?" Fine. Then people won't mind paying for it of their own free will, and not at the point of a gun.
At the point of a gun?????
Where do you think we're talking about?
"Verity", you cannot understand written English, but that does not mean that Tusa's argument is invalid.
"Kulturkampf" suggests Iain wants us to adopt the German language - is there any other reason for using that word? I'm confused.
Yak40 - your annoyance at the "anonymous" is ridiculous - almost everyone here is "anonymous", it's just that some use pseudonyms.
Funnily enough it is often the "modernity" that you despise - rather as Stalin and Hitler did with their demands for fascist realism - that washes it's own face with artists like Gormley, Emin and Hirst doing fine thank you very much - and the traditional figurative and "high arts" you like - like Wagner's Ring which Hitler famously kissed - that needs the public gravy.
A huge proportion of the funding from the public purse goes to those high arts and very little relatively to the new expression that is the lifeblood of our creative industries. Not directly necessarily. But through a perfectly invidious inspiration for architecture, advertising, music, film and television.
Personally as someone with an interest and some expertise across the full gamut from high to low and old to new and popular to unpopular I don't think the balance is too bad at the moment but that if anything the old school arts are getting too much.
Heffer is a Philistine and probably has little idea of where the balance of funding is these days. Are you a Philistine too Iain?
Anonymous February 13, 2008 5:21 PM
Elitist prat. Spend your own money.
Has 'Sir' John Tusa ever done a day's work in his life?
Anonymous of 11.41 and 11.42 -
Thickos both.
FYI John Tusa was Independent Chair of the Arts Policy Task Force, reporting to David Cameron in October 2007. (Wikipedia)
The Royal National Theatre pulls in tourists and produces world-class theatre.
8:13 - Oh dear. So early in the morning, you must have written your post before you drank your first cup of stupid.
"Point of a gun": tax, darling.
Your taxes are removed from you under threat of imprisonment. And the government is going to distribute some of the cash it has taken from you by force, to its pretentious mates who cannot earn a living practising their trade.
Your self-involvement and inability to understand a simple allusion leads me to believe you're in the subsidised arts and are an active sucker on the taxpayer tit.
12:33 - I assume you are the same Anonymous as the one I refer to here above? Your limited vocabulary (everyone you are really, really angry with is a "thicko" or "thick"),which tells me you are probably a scriptwriter in the susidised sector - possibly a writer of "edgy" films.
Whatever. You are one angry little dude. Try getting a job. Repeat after me: "Do you want fries with that?"
Verity - Yet again, no reason to your childish attacks, no argument, no merit.
I work in a financial institution which sponsors artistic endeavours.
"Verity" is a stooge - a recruiting sargeant for the Labour Party whose modus operandi is to alienate conservative supporters. I'm amazed Iain's readers put up with "her" and haven't seen through the deception.
Verity -
The "punishment" for not paying your tax bill is bankruptcy in the UK, not imprisonment.
"Personally as someone with an interest and some expertise across the full gamut from high to low and old to new and popular to unpopular I don't think the balance is too bad at the moment but that if anything the old school arts are getting too much."
Labour Party apologists supports Leftist establishment; hold the front page!
I'm sick of these tiresome non-thinkers. Argue amongst yourselves, by all means call me a "leftist", but don't pretend thgis site is anyhting other than a hard-right slug-fest, with real lefties infiltrating in order to encourage extremism.
Right of centre? Ha!
1:47 - "I work in a financial institution which sponsors artistic endeavours. "
NS,S. Who could have guessed you were an interested party?
1:51 - "Verity -
The "punishment" for not paying your tax bill is bankruptcy in the UK, not imprisonment."
Then all those OAPs who refused, or didn't have the money, to pay their council tax should sue for wrongful imprisonment.
2:46 - I don't think we want our political beliefs defined by an illiterate communist. I sometimes wonder if you people understand how very far left you are. You are teetering on the brink of madness, having lost all contact with real life.
Verity, I'm also a member of my local Conservative Association.
You, my dear, are off your trolley if you think that views which do not chime with yours must by definition be "communist".
I hope your personal hygiene problem is responding to the flea-powder.
3:31 - I do not believe you belong to the Tory Party, so can that defence.
What "personal hygiene problems" does flea powder clear up? I'm intrigued.
Given your sense of entitlement, self-importance and loopy incoherence, you are Heather McCartney and I claim my £5!
I believe you are Paul McCartney, and I claim mine! (Although you come across more like Robert Kilroy-Silk after oversleeping on the sun-bed)
You are not the cat-"lover" you claim to be if you don't know the consequences of letting the little blighters get in your bed-clothes.
Get out a bit more, engage with people, then you might develop some taste.
4:42 - Flea powder! How quaint! Don't you have Front Line over there?
Front Line? According to my research this morning, thst's a spray.
Try not to inhale so much, it's sent you barmy.
Is to-day a good day to be a supporter of the NRA? Can't these idiots understand that the Constitution allows the right toi bear the arms of the time it was written, not the mass-murder accessories of the 21st Century?
Front Line is not a spray. Perhaps it is in Britain. Who cares?
Yes, today and every day is a good day to be a supporter of the NRA. Three hundred and two million is a lot of people to expect to be sane. Some people will be nuts.
Look to the slimy, scum-covered pond you call your own society. Fathers stabbed on their own doorstep because your government has created a cesspit of lawlessness and "rights" that is clearly insane and unknown in human history. Islamic men suspected of planning mass mayhem are suing the government on who knows what grounds? Doubtless pointed in that direction by some kindly "human rights advisors" and some lawyers working for gigantic contingency fees.
In the US, they are going to have to allow guns on campus. If some students have guns, they can shoot mass killers, and then they wouldn't be mass killers.
Arms are legal in most states and their sale is controlled. Purchasers undergo background checks before they return to carry their guns out of the store. In Britain, the Jamaicans and others have thousands of unregistered guns. Any piece of garbage in Britain who wants a gun can get one easily, but any citizen who wants a gun for self-protection is told to trust your laughable police. Tony Blair must be so proud.
And now you are going to let this destructive wretch be unelected "president" of the EUSSR. How inept is British governance!
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