Letter: The arts need more than cash

The arts need more than cash

Sir: Polly Toynbee (28 July) falls into the common error, also propagated by the "arts lobby", that what the arts need in Britain is hard cash, and given the cash you get the art. Rubbish! Art requires a special kind of inspiration, innovation, technique, professionalism, dedication - these cannot be bought or manufactured by lottery money.

The fact that Britain is being claimed by those who know no better as the world centre for fashion, pop music and similar media ephemera shows just how far we have sunk artistically. What arts need is not so much cash as priority, being pulled into the public foreground by political attention, being taught unashamedly and openly to young and old alike, so that they can begin to comprehend that Beethoven and Schubert are in every sense "better" and more nourishing than Oasis and Spice.

We may then get the writers, directors, and so on, that good art requires - rather than the media populists which the lottery is likely to reward. That no great play, for example, has been written in the past 15 years - when, God knows, the need was there - testifies to the sad state of things.

IAN FLINTOFF

London SW6