Rob Blackhurst

The Independent, May 3, 2004

THE INDUSTRIOUS Tessa Jowell is not an obvious disciple of Oscar Wilde. But this week the Culture Secretary will don the metaphorical smoking jacket and cravat to make an impassioned plea for "arts for arts sake". Too often, she claims, we are forced to debate culture in terms of its spin-off benefits - like education, reduction in crime, and improvements in wellbeing. Bean-counters, should acknowledge that a great work of art is valuable because it gives us a "transcendent thrill of feeling".

This is heady stuff for the most impeccable of New Labour Cabinet Ministers. Jack Straw and David Blunkett are never happier than when offending the sensibilities of "Hampstead Liberals"; Charles Clarke wanted to make medieval historians an endangered species; and, come election time, Tony Blair would far rather share a header with Kevin Keegan than a Royal Box at Covent Garden.

These bouts of philistinism betray Labour's strong record. They have restored free museum entry, presided over a huge increase in visitor numbers, and have doubled funding from pounds 198m to pounds 411m next year. But it is in the private sector that arts are flourishing: sales of books are higher than ever; theatre attendances are up through the availability of cheap tickets, and notwithstanding Gordon Brown's recent tax grab, one of the gripes about the British film industry is that there is too much money to fund projects. Truly, the arts wasteland of the Thatcher years is over.