This blog has made the newspapers today with two Plaid Cymru MPs taking exception to some of the comments in a well-argued piece by contributor Jeremy Townsend here.
Jeremy suggested that in a harsh political climate the Welsh Government needs to ensure that politicians should not be involved in deciding artistic priorities and that inevitable cuts to the heritage budget need to be delivered in a creative manner. He made the point that because the Eisteddfod was being held in a sparsely populated area it had received an additional £100,000 in grant this year despite having made a profit in 2008. In contrast other important events were struggling to make ends meet.
He also argued that our arts policy was being hidebound by a traditional and backward looking view of heritage and that this is wrongly dictating spending priorities.
It is Jeremy’s personal view but nevertheless a valid contrbution to a wider debate on the future of arts policy in Wales and how it should respond to a harsher economic climate.
In contrast the response of Elfyn Llwyd and Adam Price in the Western Mail was entirely predictable and kneejerk. They argued that the Eisteddfod needs additional subsidy precisely because it moves around Wales and that to suggest otherwise is anglocentric. This is despite the fact that a number of respected Welsh commentators have suggested that the festival might need to look for a permanent site in the future.
It is an attempt by the two MPs to shut down debate not to engage in it.
Mr. Llwyd alleges that Jeremy shows ‘little awareness about the reality of what goes on in Wales’. Others might argue that anybody who gets this sort of reaction from two such establishment figures has hit the nail on the head and shown a remarkable prescience about what is going on in this country.
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I think Mr Townsend probably speaks for the silent Welsh majority. Mssrs Llwyd and Price clearly do not like any debate that challenges the vested interests and small c conservative agenda that they espouse. If you ask me, 100k EXTRA for a festival which already recieves hundreds of thousands or 100k on supporting grass-roots sport/drama/music for example, then the choice is clear. It may not be your party policy, but maybe it should be!
I agree with Jeremy Townsend. Arts funding/allocation is sloppy, either by the arts council wales or arts dept of the assembly. One knows that these people have little idea what they are actually doing with money…just an extra 100k…not £76,567 or £112,564 or what is required ..could have been 200k with an extra wink. 100k could have given 20 individual artists exhibition grants and a degree of socialist thinking should be given with public funds. Arts Funding in Wales is akin to a private members club scenario. Yes it would have been better in swansea or cardiff . But there would have been more journalist there and the ACW does not like that.
Eisteddfod receives 500 K, Welsh National opera 6.5 million.
Case closed, I think, and tough one for the welsh-haters among you…
Silent majority indeed – you also happen to be innumerate, or at any rate you don’t know what you’re talking about in terms of arts funding, which is the question here.
How come the Welsh-haters always use grand Daily-Mail like pseudonyms like ‘SilentMajority’, while at the same time being afraid to us their own names?
I don’t believe the Eisteddfod should be some sacred cow that non Welsh-speakers aren’t allowed to comment on but I repeat a comment that I made on another blog:
“I’m afraid this is the damning paragraph:
“The pessimist in me can see the cultural regressives winning. The evidence is already there in the way the government has acted in the last few months. For example, the National Eisteddfod received a £100,000 bonus because it’s taking place in the middle of nowhere. This is despite the fact that the festival generated a surplus last year, while other, perhaps more ambitious festivals still hang together by a thread.”
Referring to cultural regressives and the Eisteddfod in the same paragraph was asking for trouble!
Did you catch Hardeep Singh Koli’s round-up of the Eisteddfod in which he noted that more people visit the Arts Pavillion on the maes than visit some galleries in a year? In what way is Brecon Jazz more ambitious? You can go to jazz festivals the world over.”
I could also add that the male voice choir tradition is being supplanted by smaller male choirs and mixed/youth choirs as demonstrated by the success of Only Men Aloud and Ysgol Glanaethwy, who sing a wide repertoire, including, gasp, horror, material in English.
“Eisteddfod receives 500 K, Welsh National opera 6.5 million. Case closed”
Quite.
165,000 visitors, 5,000 competitors. Where else would the 56 artists get 40,000 people viewing their work? Concerts in the Pavillion, gigs on the Maes, gigs in Maes B, gigs in Maes C, gigs at the Cymdeithas venue, gigs in various pubs in town – that’s every day. Don’t forget the theatre. Locals raising £11 each. A farmers union donating the prize for the prose medal.
Regressive my arse!