How do you put a value on culture? In this age of austerity, a political, philosophical question is too easily reduced to painful choices. Would you prefer a roof over your head, or a tune in your heart? Lorries to collect the rubbish from your streets, or a well-stocked library? It’s a decision nobody in a civilised society should be forced to make, yet these very alternatives are starkly posed in an ongoing public consultation by Hampshire county council. Only a fool would dismiss the questionnaire as political posturing – there are undoubtedly tough choices to be made – but neither should anyone be fooled into believing that social priorities can be reduced to a tick-box exercise.
A crisis of public services that has been brewing for the past 14 years spilled over this week with the publication of a draft budget from the authority charged with running the UK’s second city, Birmingham, that shockingly proposed the withdrawal of all funding, as of next year, from a range of cultural institutions that should be cherished as intrinsic to the self-respect of any 21st-century metropolis. The only remotely positive thing that can be said about the situation is that there’s no room for squabbling over crumbs, as so often happens. The pain is shared equally, with no discrimination between different disciplines, or high and low culture: art, opera, orchestral and other music, ballet and theatre are all for the chop.
