‘Time for the arts to stand on its own two feet and stop sponging off the taxpayer’
From the start, the combatively worded motion came under attack. Culture secretary Ed Vaizey called it ‘brutal, vulgar, left-wing, and hostile to excellence and quality.’ He urged us not to think of the arts as a layabout teenager watching Neighbours and eating cold pizza all day. The arts doesn’t sponge off the taxpayer, he said, it’s the other way around. The subsidy supports the burgeoning tourism market. He revealed that the independent arts sector welcomes stated-funded art and regards it as a research and development department. He defended free entrance to museums with this economic parable. ‘Imagine a Peruvian visitor who comes to the British Museum to see some of his national treasures. He reaches the café, with an extra £20 in his pocket because he got in for nothing, and he spends it on carrot cake and lapsan souchong.
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