‘it’s not acceptable for extremely niche minority interests to hog huge proportions of Arts funding’

Theatre, music and art galleries? I don’t think for a second that these are ‘niche minority interests’. In fact, I’d suggest that these ‘cultural’ activities are available for absolutely everyone to enjoy.

The Arts Council (which is what Polly is talking about here)put a lot of research into what the population of Britain DO want from the arts which is why their decisions to cut funding are so disastrous. We could NOT do with 99% of those engaged in “drama” and “media” and “food technology” to hit a brick wall at pretty high and fatal velocity; these are creative outlets that are widely accepted as “art” whether you decide that they are or not. However, if you insist that graffiti and that which is not a “throwback to the 19th century and pre-WW2 period” is only worth our attention then perhaps look at projects such as this:

http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/pressnews/press_detail.php?rid=0&sid=&browse=recent&id=902

Let’s remember that art however is subjective and to argue over the definition of it is missing the point entirely. People get a great amount of enjoyment and satisfaction from participating in these activities and to reduce funding would be a great shame indeed to all sectors of society.

Opera? Theatre? Galleries packed full of pretentious overpriced toddleresque installations?

Perhaps what you really mean (Polly) is the loss of Middle Class Arts. None of the above have any relevance to the lives of the working classes; nor to indigenous regional culture.

Where are the galleries of graffiti? Why isn’t informal vandalism in housing estates celebrated as art? - probably because it wasn’t made by a flock of Jeremys and Ophelias with double-barrelled surnames and plummy accents.
Why not celebrate the CCTV-captured images of after-pub brawls and the ritual coating of her majesty’s highway with semi-digested kebab mixed with stella as performance and installation art?

This “beacon of light” was in the past; and we cannot live in the past.

I mean, I, like most people (it seems), am happy to condemn the Olympics and Muslim Wars as a poor return on investment; but I wouldn’t be so blinkered as to condemn them for not being Art.
I would condemn the Olympics for simply being in London rather than anywhere else - why not Glasgow for Puck’s sake?

Things like ballet, Turner Prize and Shakespeare are just contrived sanitised “frankenstein” art; the living art is all around us: poisonous advertising; urban dilapidation; the Celtic revival; fusion cookery; not throwbacks to the 19th century and pre-WW2 period.

Frankly, we could do with 99% of those engaged in “drama” and “media” and “food technology” to hit a brick wall at pretty high and fatal velocity for all the prolefeed and cultural devastation they are responsible for with their evident adulation for the seven deadly sins.

Before you start condemning “anti-culture”; you ought to first develop a reasonable notion of what “culture” is.
Culture must be living and not dead; and it’s not acceptable for extremely niche minority interests to hog huge proportions of Arts funding.
It’s bad enough that so much of the country is economically centralised around London; without it suffering from being culturally centralised, suffocated, and polluted by our own city of evil.

If you want to explore why NewLabour is draining funds from the arts sector and pumping them only into projects that support its world view; try reading “Nineteen Eighty-Four”.
NewSpeak NewLabour is INGSOC!

But the pressing issue of a dwindling arts sector is frightening. It seems as if the government is moving away from its policies of ‘eductation, education education’ to ‘Education: our way and the best way’.

Artistic subjects form an essential part of a young persons overall development and provide an outlet for creative sensibilities.

Bollocks to the Olympics.