A culture change is on the way when this moribund government of the living dead is gone. Clock-watching, we wait for that witching hour on election night when it is blown away by the power of the vote. If you remember that morning in 1997, a fresh air blew and with it came a new mood, language, attitudes, habits of mind. This time the contrast will be starker, this dead government darker by far than John Major’s.
Culture itself was one mark of the scale of change when Labour’s Chris Smith sent attendances soaring as he abolished charges for museums and galleries. Creative UK this week put out its manifesto for the election, representing the vast industry covering all the arts, from the Royal Shakespeare Company to the thriving video-games industry, fashion, architecture, design, advertising, the phonographic industry and more. The arts are a vital British export, and key to the country’s soft power. But that can’t last if its funding keeps falling: the organisation warns politicians that they must shake off “complacency around the UK’s superpower creative status”. Arts infrastructure is eroding for future artists, designers and audiences.
The pie-chart of state spending shows no other investment where minuscule sums offer such enormous returns. That’s without pricing in local pride and regeneration, and the educational, emotional and psychological benefits – or just the sheer human value in the art itself. This manifesto’s asks are practical: a creative investment bank to stabilise funding and lever in private investors; restoring the arts’ share of lottery funds; and the urgent need for a post-Brexit EU touring treaty, letting performers travel both ways. Creative UK’s open letter to the next government calling for “urgent investment” is signed by the widest array of arts industry people.
Right now the first step of many local authorities going bankrupt is to slash the arts: section 114 administrators are forced to cut anything non-statutory, so arts budgets in reluctant Nottingham and Birmingham now no longer exist. Of the nine museums in Birmingham, one is only open one day a week and others are only open to pre-booked groups, says Maria Balshaw, the director of Tate and chair of the National Museum Directors’ Council. English councils, she says when I spoke to her this week, have almost halved per-person spending on culture, heritage and libraries.
Arts venues, festivals and events fall away under Whitehall cuts, passed on to the national arts councils and local authorities. Caroline Norbury, the head of Creative UK, lists a random selection of losses: this month, Glasgow lost its renowned literary festival, Aye Write, after losing its funding from Creative Scotland, while the Edinburgh fringe also lost out on grant money. Meanwhile, Welsh National Opera has cancelled its tours to Liverpool. How destructive is that. “But it’s small local arts that often suffer most,” she told me, picking out Greenwich Dance that shut two months ago, which delivered high quality performance, plus community dance for everyone from elders to toddlers.
Overall, public funding for the arts fell by a third under this government. Business sponsorship fell by 39%. The government did well in keeping the arts alive through the pandemic, but the latest bung is still a real-terms cut. One bright spot is that earned income (box office sales, venue hires, catering etc) rose by nearly half; but any future income is reliant on state arts training that is vanishing.
Schools have cut drama, dance, and design and technology teachers, as arts were dropped from the Ebacc-approved subjects, causing a 47% fall in numbers taking arts GCSEs since 2010. Cuts to arts courses in universities have just been announced by the education secretary.
The government got little credit its for its 2022 festival of Brexit fiasco. You may have forgotten that the toxic contamination from the referendum forced it to rebrand as the mysterious Unboxed science and arts festival, costing almost £120m, for which, the National Audit Office said wryly, no audience engagement data was available. That £120m is peanuts, but not as small as the £10m Balshaw says would account for all the closed days in museums around the country this year.
On election night, the anti-culture culture will vanish: the one where it is acceptable to sneer at any arts defenders as “luvvies”. This is the culture in which museums have been assaulted as wickedly “woke” for the moderate historical labels on works bought with slave money. The culture whose daily attacks on the BBC are more than verbal: a third of its funding was lost in 14 years, with another £200m cut this year. And yet look at all the BBC provides. This week the 90 magnificent concerts of the Proms were announced, with 3,000 musicians from Daniel Barenboim to Florence Welch performing, as well as, yes, a rendition of Rule, Britannia!, showcasing how the BBC’s five orchestras form the backbone of British music.
Vindictive detestation of our great national broadcaster will end as Labour’s arts plan promises support, announced in a speech by Keir Starmer last month, one which no previous Labour or Tory leader would ever have given. As my colleague Charlotte Higgins wrote, this flute-playing working-class boy was unafraid to talk with emotional sincerity about what the arts can do for people, and not just for Treasury cash registers. Within his speech was the warning that nearly half the nominees for cultural awards last year were privately school educated, with a promise children will have arts back in their schools. Whatever the absolutely inevitable disappointments of any Labour government – because nothing can ever be enough – enjoy the overnight culture change. One symbol will be the new celebration of culture itself.
• This article was amended on 26 April 2024. The BBC has five orchestras, not three as an earlier version said.
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
