So, with the general election now called, like everyone else I will be deciding what my priorities are, finding out how the main parties respond to my concerns and voting accordingly. You can bet I will be paying special attention to arts policy: how safe are theatres, galleries and other public-funded institutions in the hands of rival parties? I will be asking my local candidate some searching questions about what percentage of the national budget should go to buying Titians for the nation, and how much the BBC will be able to spend on Doctor Who in coming years.
Will I nuts. Is there a single person who will vote in this election according to arts policy? Seriously: does anyone intend to vote because of what the different parties propose to do for – or, in the case of the Tories, no doubt, to – the arts? Not me, and not anyone I can imagine without shuddering. At these kinds of times, when the nation's future is held in the electoral balance, you realise exactly how silly and trivial the media fiction of "the arts" actually is.
I love art but I feel nothing at all about "the arts". Only bureaucrats, TV executives and editors believe "the arts" exist as a corporate category, an interest group. I don't want to belong to any interest group that would have me for a member. What kind of petty-minded person would put the cultural comforts of the middle classes ahead of schools, jobs and the NHS? There is a world out there, arty people, and this election is about that world.
As it happens, the party that cares most about the common good also happens to be the one that is least likely to slash museum budgets and close theatres. Fine. So in voting Labour I know I won't be pissing on cultural life. But if I was? Metaphorically? If Labour believed "the arts" could go hang themselves because it wanted all the money for better hospitals? I'd still vote for them. There are bigger things at stake than a new paint job for the National Theatre lobby.
