British government moves to dramatically cut public funding for the arts

[The Northerner]

LONDON -- The art scene exploded in Britain over the past decade, giving rise to jewels like the Tate Modern museum on the silvery banks of the Thames and sparking a renaissance of playwrights, filmmakers, artists and dancers. The fuel for that boom: a surge in generosity from Britain's single biggest patron of the arts -- the government.

But now cash-strapped and desperate to slash the largest budget deficit in Europe, the new ruling coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats is moving to close the curtain on an era of what they describe as excessive government patronage.

The coalition is preparing to cut arts funding so dramatically that it could sharply reduce or sever the financial lifelines for hundreds of cultural institutions from the National Theatre to the British Museum.

The cuts would be more than a temporary fix. Officials are calling for a permanent shift toward the U.S. model of private philanthropy as the main benefactor of the arts, upending a tradition of government sponsorship that helped produce the likes of Academy Award-winning directors Sam Mendes and Danny Boyle and playwrights including Lee Hall, who was nominated for an Oscar for "Billy Elliot."

The move underscores the profound changes in the role of government that are taking place from Greece to Spain to Britain. It happens as European nations scramble to rein in runaway spending, in part by slashing public funds to sectors that came to survive -- even thrive -- because of them.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/03/AR2010080306964_pf.html

[RC]

1. How about cutting the obscene amounts they spend on dead-end aircraft carriers without

catapults and jump jets that melt and buckle the deck of same when taking off and landing.