A new Renaissance? You have to be joking

If you want more on the context of arts funding, you will do no better than read William Skidelsky’s post, Britain’s New Renaissance in First Drafts and then read Mary Wakefield in Coffee House on what should go on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square. To which I would only add that having seen the new designs (and what is there at the moment) it is less a new Renaissance and more straight back into the Dark Ages.

Mad and bad

So said Samuel West at the Equity meeting yesterday, attacking Arts Council England’s proposals to cut funding to the arts; and Peter Hewitt, chief executive of ACE is reported this morning as feeling that he had been ambushed by the vote. His reaction, and the management blather he speaks, perhaps point up the real problem: indifferent leadership and a signal failure of imagination. Better is the more considered view of Sir John Tusa, on Radio 4’s Today Programme, “This is a painful transition, probably not a very well-managed transition, but I suspect it actually has to take place”.