As anyone who follows Welsh politics will know, the Welsh government will soon be facing massive budget cuts – the kind that have not happened since the Assembly was established in 1999. Until now, all parts of Welsh public life have benefited from the certainty that next year’s budget always goes up.
But no longer. The most vulnerable part of the budget is probably the Heritage department, and I would not be surprised if the government is already looking at what savings can be made here.
What worries me most is that there is an overwhelming sense of cultural insularity and a complete lack of cultural ambition within Welsh political circles – and when the financial axe inevitably falls, I fear that it will fall on the wrong targets.
A short while ago, Plaid Cymru MP, Adam Price launched an attack on Welsh National Opera for not being Welsh enough, citing its lack of Welsh commissions and the failure of the company to ever appoint a Welsh musical director as examples of this supposed wrong-doing.
Why does Welsh National Opera need to prove its Welsh credentials? It is an opera company, first and foremost. If it has a role as a commissioning body, then works should be commissioned from composers with the talent and vision that satisfies whatever project is in mind. The nationality of that person is irrelevant, likewise, its musical director.
You may be interested to know that the present musical director of the New York Met is American – its first American-born artistic leader since its formation in 1880 – and guess what? With that approach, you end up with Mahler and Toscanini as resident conductors, and one of the finest opera companies in the world. OK, that’s New York not Cardiff, but you see my point: any cultural institution worth its salt should only be concerned with artistic integrity, not nationalistic flag-waving.
If artistic integrity is what it’s all about, then the Welsh government’s funding for the film ‘Hunger’ released last autumn, was certainly something to be applauded.
Tory MP for Monmouth, David Davies, didn’t think so. Davies slammed the government for having the audacity to provide funding for the film, which is about the IRA prisoners’ hunger strike during the 1980s, and depending on who you talk to, may or may not be sympathetic to the IRA. More importantly, however, is the fact that the film is a challenging, thought-provoking, well made, critically-acclaimed film by a talented director – in short, exactly the sort of thing we should be proud to support. (Also, in an uncharacteristically sensible move, the funding was given on the proviso that post-production work was carried out in Wales – so was good for business too.)
Though neither Adam Price nor David Davies has a direct say on how Welsh money is spent, their opinions – unfortunately – carry weight, and are heard in all the right places. Davies’ views are representative of that section of Welsh political life for whom funding of the arts is seen as a frivolous waste of public money at the best of times – let alone when money’s tight. This spectacularly reactionary way of thinking says that cultural funding is fine as long as it doesn’t cause offence. In times of financial pressure, I worry that many inside the Welsh government will start to take this view as well. After all, who wants to have to defend the claim that you’re supporting the IRA while closing hospitals?
Adam Price’s views on the WNO represent the alarmingly protective and parochial view of the world shared by many in Plaid Cymru. This equally reactionary way of thinking says that if something is not for, of, or about Wales, then it is intrinsically bad. Worryingly, Plaid is in charge of the Heritage department, and Price is an influential man within the party.
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.
The government needs to guarantee two things in my opinion. Firstly that artistic ideology is left to the Arts Council for Wales and the other organisations responsible for assessing the quality of projects to support. And secondly, that cuts are not administered on a blanket basis, but are delivered in a more creative manner.
On the first issue, the purpose of having an Arts Council is to avoid a situation where politicians directly make decisions about the arts. As a rule, politicians know little about the subject, but know much about its potential to manipulate the population. At its extreme, political interference in the arts could result in the Heritage Minister becoming a dangerous propagandist, but given the limitations on Welsh political power, is more likely to result in the Minister becoming simply a patron of populist trite. If we want Welsh cultural life to be independent, relevant and progressive, then this arms-length distance must be maintained at all costs.
The second issue concerns the broader levels of funding, i.e. how much should be given to the different umbrella organisations, rather than how much should be given to individual projects. Before the government considers any general cuts – say, 10% off everything in the department – it has to ensure that all other, more imaginative solutions have been tried.
For example, how about a cut in funding to all organisations that have made a surplus in the last couple of years? How about making sure the Eisteddfod only takes place in large towns for the next few years, so that it can generate more income? How about temporarily reversing the policy of free entry to museums, galleries and Cadw sites? None of these measures needs to be permanent, but I think they might be necessary if we are to preserve a vibrant cultural scene over the next few years.
However, the combination of insufficient cash, timid government, and knee-jerk public reaction will, I am afraid, probably result in an arid landscape for Welsh arts. Far from being the ‘forward-thinking’ little nation that we would like it to be, Wales will forever be defined by male voice choirs and traditional Welsh costume.
This, after all, is why the department responsible for all of this is known as the Department for Heritage (‘something that is passed down from preceding generations’) rather than the Department for Culture (‘intellectual and artistic activity’)
And that, I think, says all you need to know.
Updated January 21st 2010: This post was winner of the Welsh Politico Awards 2009 silver award for best blog post of the year.
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