Headbanger of the Day
August 17 2012
Picture: World News
Indeed, let's upgrade him to Headbanger of the Month. This morning my shower was ruined by the sound of David Ruffley MP suggesting, on the Today programme, that we should cut government spending by abolishing the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Now, having worked for the Conservative Party I'm used to the occasional headbanging Tory MP making loony suggestions. Normally, they are kept safely on the backbenches and nobody takes much notice. But Ruffley is quite well regarded amongst his colleagues. So to hear him calling for the cessation of state support for the arts and heritage is alarming - especially if you've worked hard, as I and former colleagues have (and as people like Ed Vaizey continue to) to overturn the notion that the Conservative party doesn't care about the arts and heritage. Ruffley says we should axe DCMS because it wastes 'unproductive' government spending. That is, it doesn't generate growth or jobs. Well, Ruffers, pop along to the British Museum and see how many overseas tourists are thronging its galleries. Or the National Gallery - I could go on. Plus there's the awkward question of who's going to pay to conserve all those dusty bits of our national heritage that aren't appealing to the private sector. That's what government spending is for, Ruffers; to pick up the cost of things nobody else will pay for. Like the military, that other famously productive arm of government spending.
Ruffley also said that it was only thanks to the Liberal Democrats that George Osborne didn't cut government spending even more in 2010. In which case, and I never thought I'd say this, thank God for Nick Clegg. There have for some time been rumours that DCMS will be abolished, with the excuse that the Olympics are over and there's not much for it to do. It could also be seen as a useful way to deal with the Jeremy Hunt problem, which is sure to flare up again when Lord Leveson reports in the Autumn. But I hear that Culture will retain its own department and seat at the Cabinet table, but will leave its swanky offices in Trafalgar Square (actually, I've been there and they're pretty dull), and be re-housed within the Treasury. However, this curious form of government hot desking probably means that the department will soon cease to be.
Update - an academic writes:
I am often asked by parents of applicants to my university department what 'the point' of art history is, and I find that people are often surprised and impressed by how a strong economic argument can be made for the subject's importance.
According to the Visit Britain website the value of tourism to the UK economy is approximately £115bn or 8.8% of GDP. Much of that tourism - probably most of it - is heritage and arts related. Museums and galleries are regularly in the list of top visitor attractions.
The big 3 in London - British Museum, National Gallery and Tate - are among the most visited art destinations in the world and top the league table of UK visitor destinations:
In addition to tourism, we can add in the economic activity generated by the art market (large and small), and the economic growth stimulated by publicly funded arts projects - Turner Contemporary, for example, in Margate has had a real stimulus on the local economy. Both private and public sectors play their parts therefore.
It would be nice to have a less impressionistic analysis and some solid figures to back this up but I bet art history can be closely linked to a sizeable percentage of GDP - perhaps even equivalent to the contribution of the City?
