Louise de Winter suggests that the coherent lobbying that John Nicholls called for in the last issue of ArtsProfessional has already begun, and calls for the arts sector to organise itself to present a united front.
John Nicholls is quite right that the arts sector needs to muster its arguments and resources in anticipation of the General Election and a new Government (AP204). We need to be clear that we have done all we can to secure the best possible policies and funding basis for arts and culture. Now is not the time to resign ourselves to the inevitable, which the Arts Quarter survey findings seem to suggest. John wrote about the need for active intervention by the arts community, and that is what the National Campaign for the Arts (NCA) intends. The publication of the Manifesto for the Arts was the first step in what we hope will become a nationwide campaigning platform for the arts. John is right to point out that any lobbying needs to be conducted in a unified and co-ordinated way: we are encouraging our members to help us take positive messages about the arts directly to politicians. Many politicians do not see the arts as a key electioneering issue. It is up to all of us to ensure that they do.
The NCA also resists the view that cuts to the arts and culture budgets are inevitable. We must not concede ground before the battle has commenced. Yes, politicians of all hues are saying that there will be cuts, but we should seek to influence how and where those cuts might fall. We need to make the distinction between good spending and bad spending, good cuts and bad cuts, jobs and job losses. For the comparatively little funding that the arts receive, the sector makes huge differences to positive outcomes in health, the criminal justice system, education and communities. It is tempting for any politician to balance the arts against health, education or housing, and decree that they are not as necessary, but shaving £10m or even £20m off the arts budgets will not make a difference to our national debt, and will be hugely detrimental.
We need to get behind the manifesto’s arguments to ensure that the value of the arts in education and its link to the creativity of our workforce is understood and retained; that our local politicians recognise the positive benefits the arts make to their communities; and that whoever forms the next Government wholly supports the role of the arts in our society.
Everyone I speak to believes that we have an opportunity to make a positive case and demonstrate the value of what the arts and culture bring to the UK as a whole. I do not sense a collective surrender, although we must not be complacent either. A recent editorial in the Belfast Telegraph summed up the value of public investment in our arts and culture: “Culture is not something divorced from everyday life, but rather the expression of it and as such should be treasured as much as life itself.” It is something worth fighting for.