I have spent a lot of spare time today reading the live updates on the Guardian site about the Arts Council funding decisions: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/culture-cuts-blog/2011/mar/30/arts-council-funding-decision-day-cuts Oh my, what horrible decisions they had to make. But of course these are decisions based on the fact that the Government cut 29% of the funding. This stuff just makes me so sick.
I’ve said it before, but as soon as I can I’m “gonna get out of this place” and go somewhere that values the Arts. Like Germany, for instance. Yes, they have their own problems – what with the massive debts of rebuilding the East, the general weird issue of integration of minorities, a healthcare system I just can’t understand, etc. – but they actually have THEATRES in towns.
I seriously fear that in 5 years time if the cuts continue, much of the Arts scene in the UK will be gone. And the integration projects with schools and the disabled will go, and the focus will become even more profit driven than it already is.
Last time the Conservatives cut stuff, the Music Ed. system in the whole of the UK suffered for at least a decade… I distinctly remember sermons from our orchestra conductor bemoaning the fact that nobody learnt the viola, because there was no funding for it. It is so easy for people like Guardian Trolls to claim that we don’t want our taxes to go towards the Arts, and every time it makes me grind my teeth in rage. Why is Arts provision not enshrined as a duty of the government? Currently it seems to be an optional extra.