I guess that the news of the general election due to take place in the UK tomorrow will have penetrated to most parts of the world, even if with little detail. It does promise to be an event of significance beyond these shores, for a variety of reasons. The political situation here does not often feature in these posts. That is not because I have no interest in politics, but primarily because their purpose is primarily to think about art, about my situation as an artist, and the relationship between my artistic activity and other aspects of life.
Facing tomorrow’s election, however, I decided that I would look at the manifestos of the main parties in order to see whether they had anything at all to say about the arts. Let’s face it, the subject has not figured at all in public debate, as far as I am aware. The result was interesting. Only the Labour Party has anything to say on the topic. They have an interesting proposal for an “arts pupil premium”, which I gather means that funding will be awarded to schools specifically in order to advance the teaching of the arts. For a long period of time now pressure has been on schools to concentrate upon teaching basic skills in literacy and numeracy, and advancing science. This has had the disastrous effect of marginalising both the arts/humanities and sport in our educational system. I suppose that the Labour proposal is directed at changing that.
Elsewhere the only significant issue in the area of cultural politics has been rather vague and general references to the situation of the BBC, and the need to protect its autonomy. It does appear that the arts feature only rather marginally in the minds of most of our political figures. Taking a wider view, beyond the immediate situation of the election, one normally hears reference to the artistic scene only as a resource supporting our tourism industry. It is a pretty disappointing scene, if not a depressing one.
My feeling of depression in this particular respect is nothing compared to the wretchedness I feel about the electoral campaign in general, which has been distinguished by its bad temper, downright misinformation and failure to see the issues facing the country as rather wider (and in the longer term more important perhaps) than our membership of the EU. The role of the “social media” has been particularly concerning, providing a platform for the unregulated dissemination of unsupported rumour, and the prominence of bad temper and abuse. Taking it by and large, the election can be considered to be a text-book case in how not to do democracy. There are, perhaps, glimmers of light, in that I am aware that people have been trying very hard often to form responsible decisions fighting against the context in which they are being required to do so.