Margaret Hodge, the culture minister, seems to have been keeping her head down since launching what she proudly described as her "square on" attack on the BBC Proms in a speech to the IPPR on 4th March. Indeed, according to the department of culture, media and sport website, Hodge—who was appointed by Gordon Brown a year ago—gave 14 speeches on the arts before that day and has given none at all since.
The supreme leader—who was quick to say that he was a fan of the Proms—may well have made his displeasure clear to the hapless Hodge by forcing a period of silence on her. While her speech on Britishness and the arts was mostly unexceptionable (as well as unexceptional), it also contained the most bizarrely snotty and ignorant attack on the arts ever made by a minister who is supposed to speak up for them.
In case you missed it, here are Hodge's exact words. (Apologies for her Prescottian English.) "The audiences for many of our greatest cultural events—I'm thinking in particular of the Proms but it is true of many others—is still a long way from demonstrating that people from different backgrounds feel at ease in being part of this."
When the furore about her remarks first exploded, a few apologists tried to pretend that Hodge was talking about the last night of the Proms and its televised Edwardian-era flag-waving. But as the sentence just quoted shows, Hodge's attack was on the Proms as a whole.
A culture minister could probably not have chosen a more inappropriate target in the world of subsidised classical music to chide about access, outreach and multiculturalism. This year's season, which opens on 18th July and continues until September, will have 84 concerts. The programme must have been drawn up long before Hodge made her ill-advised remarks. But like most recent Proms seasons, it stands as a reprimand to her invertedly snobbish silliness.
First, the ticket prices for the Proms are strikingly low. In more than 50 of the concerts, you can get in for £8 or less, while no concert except the last night (which is so popular that they have to put the prices up) costs more than £40 for a stall seat. Compare that with the price of tickets to hear the "non-elitist" band Coldplay this autumn, which range from £65 to £250. A season ticket in the Proms arena costs £190, which is the equivalent of less than £2.40 per concert every night for nearly three months.
Then there's the BBC's coverage. Every concert is carried live on Radio 3. Many are broadcast a second time around. Several are televised on BBC4, and this year there will also be a regular Saturday slot on BBC2. There is no classical music festival in the world that is more widely diffused.
It would be a mistake, of course, to judge a government by the personal commitment to or involvement of individual ministers in the arts. On that basis the Bavarian revolutionary government of 1919, whose incompetent excesses helped facilitate the rise of the Nazis (some of whom also cared a lot about the arts) might qualify as an ideal. Nevertheless, Margaret Hodge's inept and stupid words should not just be remembered by all attendees to the 114th Proms this summer. They could also serve as an epitaph for New Labour's policy on the arts and on much else: good intentions (and some good deeds) at first inhibited and then undone by fear, foolishness and a fundamental lack of confidence. Happily the Proms, at least, will endure.
Fit for a king
If you like cheap tickets and the excitement of the new—and if you will be in London from October onwards—then be sure to have a look at King's Place. The first modern, purpose-built recital hall ever built in the capital, this new hall next to King's Cross station seats 420 people and will be the home base for contemporary specialists the London Sinfonietta and the early-music band the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. I think it could become a rival to the Wigmore Hall. The complex also contains two art galleries, a conference and events centre and an office complex. At the end of the year, it will become the new home of the Guardian.
I had a sneak preview of King's Place at the end of May when members of both its music groups tried out the acoustics. The sound, which can be moderated or clarified by sliding curtains around the walls, was terrific. Tickets for the opening concerts have recently gone on sale online at www.kingsplace.co.uk at only £2.50 a time. The culture minister may not feel at ease, but I think everyone else will.
