The Tories' culture war has intensified with the revelation that they're plotting to slash the funding for university arts courses by nearly 50 per cent. Not that we should be remotely surprised at the flagrant lack of regard they have for the things that have made life in lockdown over the last 12 months vaguely bearable, of course.
It's nearly six years since Philip Pullman told Sky News that "it's a terrible fate to be ruled by philistines and barbarians as we seem to be at the moment". Since then, the situation has only got worse, as exemplified by Rishi Sunak's implication last year that artists are indolent layabouts who should get a "proper" job and start making a meaningful contribution to society and the economy.
The conclusion to be drawn from those comments and the proposed cuts to higher education funding, as well as (for instance) from the glaring lack of support given to the ailing music industry, is clear: that the Tories are content - or indeed actively eager - for the arts to be the exclusive preserve of privileged hobbyists, a chumocracy enjoyed by those who already have independent means.
What's next? The creative arts being subject to government approval? That cultural dystopia doesn't look so distant when you consider that the National Trust has come under fire for its "woke agenda" (in other words, merely seeking to acknowledge that much of the nation's wealth and history is built on the backs of slaves). And even less distant when you factor in the fact that Oliver Dowden, who criminally calls himself the Culture Secretary, has issued a thinly veiled threat to an assortment of national museums and galleries if they dare to deviate from "the Government's position" on "issues of contested heritage". That he then had the nerve to claim that the institutions "should not be taking actions motivated by activism or politics" would be laughable if the warning wasn't so worrying.
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