Only Labour is really serious about the arts

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/03/only-labour-really-serious-about-the-arts

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Your editorial’s conclusion (1 May) that a further period of Conservative-led government would result in yet further failure to realise the potential of the arts and our creative industries is correct, but your praise for Labour’s Charter for the Arts omits two key points.

First, Labour is the only party to have engaged with the national debate on cultural policy over the past three years. For the first time since Jennie Lee’s white paper 50 years ago, we have the prospect of a real national debate between the arts and government and a fresh and forward-looking national cultural policy supported by renewed arm’s-length bodies.

Second, you don’t identify the importance of Labour’s commitment to transparency in the operation of the national lottery. Our research suggests that when Camelot releases data on how much people spend on the lottery, the difference in spend per household across the nations and regions of the country when set against the respective lottery grants awarded will occasion a national outcry about winners and losers.Christopher GordonDavid PowellPeter StarkGPS Culture

• Your leader on political attitudes to the funding of culture in this country is apt. Since the end of the second world war, one of the reasons the UK has attained such prestige internationally is on account of its many great achievements in the arts. Perversely, many politicians regard support for the arts as of minor interest, mere entertainment. They seem to be unaware of their importance as a factor in holding society together. I hope that in the forthcoming election the arts will be instrumental in deciding which way people vote.Meirion BowenLondon

• I could not agree more with your leader on culture policy. In a 21st-century sophisticated country, the arts must play an important role. We cannot consider ourselves “civilised” if this is not the case. It is iniquitous that our cultural heritage could suffer more draconian cuts under a future Conservative government. But funding for the arts must not stay ring-fenced in our show-case capital but be spread fairly and equitably to the rest of the country. I work as a volunteer steward in my local theatre and have witnessed the feel-good factor for myself when audiences emerge excited and happy from a richly entertaining evening. Curtailing this is I feel is the road to a cultural desert with not an oasis in sight.Judith A DanielsGreat Yarmouth, Norfolk