I am interested in these arguments and debates, not just for historical reasons, but because the debates replicate many of the issues which are being discussed and debated nowadays. How far should the action of government extend into the organisation of institutions of art? How far should museums and art schools be funded directly by government as instruments of public policy? Or should they instead be funded by their users, by students through a system of fees as is now the case in universities and art schools, or by visitors and philanthropic supporters through admission charges and donations in the case of museums? Should the government itself engage in issues relating to the practice of art or should it allow other bodies with delegated authority, including the Arts Council, a free voice to regulate and encourage the practice of art?

In practice, the government tends to be interested in systems of regulation and control and in reducing levels of public funding, without having any very evident deeper commitment to the best ways of teaching art and encouraging art practice. None of the parties in the recent election had much to say on these issues. The Conservative party has stuck to the principle of free admission while at the same time progressively cutting back on public funding of museums and art schools to the point where there is a risk that they become unsustainable. It was obvious throughout the debates surrounding the general election that the current Conservative party is deeply neo-liberal, intent on cutting back the responsibilities, and costs, of central government and transferring them back to the private citizen.

The Labour Party, meanwhile, committed itself to maintaining tight control of public expenditure, which assumed some level of continuation of this approach in practice, if not ideologically. Neither of them have much obvious belief in the role of government in art education or in wider aspects of cultural policy. The modern-day Conservative party is a party of laissez faire. The Labour party long ago lost its long-standing commitment to the right of the individual citizen to have access to the citadels of high culture.  

Yet it is right to give thought to those questions which preoccupied the Radicals of the 1830s. What is the best system of art training? How do we ensure that the most able people in the country have the facilities and opportunities to practice art?  And how do we ensure that the display of art in museums and public galleries has a proper cultural and educational value to citizens at large? These questions, many of which were first asked by John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, remain legitimate today.