It was a Labour government that founded the Arts Council, a Labour arts minister who produced the first ever White Paper for the arts, and it could, possibly, be Labour that rescues the arts from years of neglect under the Conservatives.
The manifestos have yet to be published but, in March, Sir Keir Starmer spelt out his party’s vision that the arts are “essential to our economic growth and our national identity”.
That’s easy to say – even Boris Johnson trumpeted the importance of the arts while slashing arts funding – but the Labour leader announced what looked like a considered strategy, more detailed and hopefully more deliverable than the usual unfunded political platitudes about art being a great social leveller.
