Mick Hartley

We've heard about problems at the Arts Council before. They called the LGB Alliance a "divisive organisation"; “a cultural parasite and glorified hate group” that had “neo-Nazi” supporters. They created a “toxic” culture of fear for staff who dared to question transgender views. They've poured money into " a steady stream of trans-themed projects", which include "£19,954 for My Genderation with a “northern, working class, neurodivergent, queer, trans woman” and £26,551 for “Whose menopause? Exploring Cisgender and Non-Cisgender menopause experiences through an inclusive and participatory photography pilot programme”".

Jonny Best at UnHerd – How activists captured Arts Council England:

Arts Council England (ACE) is an organisation that cares — and you can tell what it cares about by searching through the hundreds of documents on its website. Diversity, racism and inclusion; class and disability; the environment and the climate crisis. There are tens of thousands of words outlining the thinking that grants access to its half a billion-pound budget. If you want ACE’s money, you’d better convince it that you care about the same things, in the same way.

However, the flip-side is that there are some issues that ACE seems not to care about — like free expression. ACE now warns funded organisations that it will “monitor… artistic and creative output that might be deemed controversial” and requires them to consider “the views and perceptions of different stakeholders, including their appetite for risk”. On the next page of the guidance, there’s the threat of sanctions — from “increased monitoring” to “withdrawal of funding”. This is an object lesson in how to have a chilling effect on culture in Britain. The announcement by Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer this month of a full-scale independent review into the organisation is welcome; the Arts Council’s role in limiting artistic freedom must be examined.

It's all about activism now: climate activism, gender activism. Encouragement and funding seem only to be forthcoming for those with the right opinions – or those who've learnt how to press the right ideological buttons in their application.

As the need for a government review attests, the original organisation is being pulled apart by the competing demands of political fashion, a levelling attitude to art itself, and the increasing dominance of activist staff. Ultimately, ACE isn’t just ignoring the developing crisis in artistic free expression — it appears to be actively fostering an intolerant culture. “Do not think of the Arts Council as a schoolmaster,” wrote Keynes in 1945, “the arts owe no vow of obedience” — by which he meant obedience to government. What he didn’t anticipate was that, nearly 80 years later, the Arts Council has become the schoolmaster and the disciplinarian, dishing out orthodoxies from on high.