When it ended, arts were kicked out of Cabinet in the penny-pinched 1970s and Thatcherite '80s. Demotion, however, was good for the arts. Sitting below the political eyeline enabled the Arts Council to recover its independence and the arts institutions their vigour.
The return to Cabinet was a by-product of John Major's election victory in 1992, a result so freakish that it freed the Prime Minister (by his own admission) from normal burdens of long-term planning and party debts. Major asked his major-domo David Mellor what he'd like to do next and the pair cobbled together a Department for National Heritage (DNH), embracing Mellor's special interests in arts, media and sports. The last two interests conspired five months later to unseat Mellor; for the rest of its existence, the DNH was headed by soporific nonentities.
After Tony Blair's election in 1997, everything had to be new and improved. The DNH was rebranded DCMS and assigned to the likeable Chris Smith, who was tasked with promoting a shortlived Cool Britannia. Smith and his successors saw to it that the Arts Council did as it was told. Its subjugation was ultimately enforced when a DCMS official, Alan Davey, was shuffled across to become head of Arts Council England by a Labour Secretary of State, James Purnell (both are now brother-executives at the BBC).
Under the Tories—Jeremy Hunt, Maria Miller, Sajid Javid—the DCMS has shown a stony face to the arts. The three parts of the hybrid departments have been pulling in different directions, and culture is, by a large margin, the least voteworthy of the three. Its degradation and devaluation have been visible for all to see.
The prompt and public abolition of the DCMS would be the best thing that has happened to the arts since Jennie Lee two-timed Arnold Goodman. Its existence has been oppressive. Leadership in the arts has been tamed. Conformity has replaced challenge. The heads of Covent Garden, the National Gallery, the National Theatre are pale shadows of once-robust predecessors. The Arts Council is a rubber-stamp. What to do with the doomed department? Media—essentially faster broadband and the sale of television franchises—should go to the Department for Industry. Sport and Culture belong in the Department for Education, where their skills can be harnessed to the national curriculum for the purpose of improving young bodies and minds.
The ideal place for the arts is to be as far from government as possible, and as close to the grass roots. The solution is at hand. Scrap the DCMS, liberate the ACE, privatise the South Bank and there's a good chance we can bring about an overdue cultural renaissance.
The return to Cabinet was a by-product of John Major's election victory in 1992, a result so freakish that it freed the Prime Minister (by his own admission) from normal burdens of long-term planning and party debts. Major asked his major-domo David Mellor what he'd like to do next and the pair cobbled together a Department for National Heritage (DNH), embracing Mellor's special interests in arts, media and sports. The last two interests conspired five months later to unseat Mellor; for the rest of its existence, the DNH was headed by soporific nonentities.
After Tony Blair's election in 1997, everything had to be new and improved. The DNH was rebranded DCMS and assigned to the likeable Chris Smith, who was tasked with promoting a shortlived Cool Britannia. Smith and his successors saw to it that the Arts Council did as it was told. Its subjugation was ultimately enforced when a DCMS official, Alan Davey, was shuffled across to become head of Arts Council England by a Labour Secretary of State, James Purnell (both are now brother-executives at the BBC).
Under the Tories—Jeremy Hunt, Maria Miller, Sajid Javid—the DCMS has shown a stony face to the arts. The three parts of the hybrid departments have been pulling in different directions, and culture is, by a large margin, the least voteworthy of the three. Its degradation and devaluation have been visible for all to see.
The prompt and public abolition of the DCMS would be the best thing that has happened to the arts since Jennie Lee two-timed Arnold Goodman. Its existence has been oppressive. Leadership in the arts has been tamed. Conformity has replaced challenge. The heads of Covent Garden, the National Gallery, the National Theatre are pale shadows of once-robust predecessors. The Arts Council is a rubber-stamp. What to do with the doomed department? Media—essentially faster broadband and the sale of television franchises—should go to the Department for Industry. Sport and Culture belong in the Department for Education, where their skills can be harnessed to the national curriculum for the purpose of improving young bodies and minds.
The ideal place for the arts is to be as far from government as possible, and as close to the grass roots. The solution is at hand. Scrap the DCMS, liberate the ACE, privatise the South Bank and there's a good chance we can bring about an overdue cultural renaissance.
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