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There were blue cocks and red faces as the BBC kicked off its Get Creative initiative with a live Front Row debate titled ‘Are artists owed a living?’ Chris Sharratt reports.

It was a moment of high farce that seemed to sum up the cavernous ideological divide that exists when it comes to the funding of the arts in the UK.

The economist Philip Booth of the Institute of Economic Affairs had just dismissed Katharina Fritsch’s fourth plinth sculpture as “pornographic” – well, Front Row presenter John Wilson did rather mischievously describe it as “a giant blue cock”. You could almost feel the heat of Booth’s red face through the radio. “It’s a cockerel, not a penis,” Wilson helpfully explained.

Booth was one of five panelists on this 40-minute debate, rather provocatively titled ‘Are artists owed a living?’, the first in a series of discussions as part of the BBC’s year-long Get Creative strand... Keep reading on a-n and listen on BBC