New Labour's new arts ABC.(arts policy in the United Kingdom)(Reprint)

The following is reprinted from the London Times by permission of John Tusa, managing director of the Barbican Arts Centre in London. The editors of Arts Education Policy Review saw it as an echo of some problems on this side of the Atlantic.

You can argue about New Labour's arts policy over the last four years, tussle with a balance sheet of hits and misses. Yes, Chris Smith and Alan Howarth have been infinitely better than Stephen Dorrell or Virginia Bottomley. But can the government's direct responsibility for the expensive banalities of the Dome, or the fiasco of Cool ...