Under the Coalition cuts there has hardly been a collapse in national cultural life. More than 49 million people visited directly-funded museums last year, up two million on the preceding year; and that included 3 per cent more children. Free museums were a cornerstone of the arts policy in the Lib Dems’ “pre-manifesto” of last year. The party also said it would support libraries and ensure that those threatened with closure “are offered first for transfer to the local community”; again, whatever that means. The Lib Dems also promise to protect the independence of the BBC through maintaining the licence fee, and to “support growth in creative industries”, “modern and flexible patent, copyright and licensing”, and “addressing the barriers to finance faced by small creative businesses”. Again, more detail, please.

The renewal of the BBC’s charter is one of the big arts issues facing the next government. Before the last two or three renewals there has been debate about whether the licence fee should be removed, only for the status quo to be maintained. The advance of digital technology has changed the old certainties, and this time there will need to be a serious discussion of funding methods. As for the rest of arts policy, it is hard to see there will be much difference between the parties whichever of them end up in government, because there is no money. And those in the arts world who think they have a divine right to live off the taxpayer, just because cultural life is so important to our society, may have to think again.

What should the policy be? I share the presumption that the arts are crucial, and need to be brought to everybody who wishes to share in them. I’d start at school, bringing back peripatetic music teachers, dismissing ideas of cultural elitism by ensuring that every child was exposed to what is supposedly culturally elite, and ending the prejudice towards science subjects in the curriculum by emphasising that a trained mind can be achieved through a study of literature, languages, music or history just as it can by maths or physics. If there is to be an Arts Council, and it is to hand out money, it needs to have rigid quality control. I should prefer the private sector to be encouraged to support the arts, especially outside London, in return for significant tax breaks, rather than the taxpayer give the handout direct to the institution or performers. If that means some institutions and performers have to up their game, so be it.

But the BBC's future must be the main priority for the new government. Radio 3 alone is worth my licence fee; the rest comes with varying degrees of dispensability and in some cases carries with it a presumption of stupidity on the part of the audience. If the BBC is not brought into the 21st century, the next government will have failed.