The Arts Council was founded in 1946, in the words of Maynard Keynes, ‘to encourage the best British national arts, everywhere, and to do it as far as possible by supporting others rather than by setting up state-run enterprises.’
The arts, said Keynes, ‘owe no vow of obedience.’
The Arts Council, he specified, is no schoolmaster or regulator. ‘How satisfactory it would be if different parts of this country would again walk their several ways as they once did and learn to develop something different from their neighbours and characteristic of themselves.’
Today, Arts Council England defines itself as follows:
‘We are the national development agency for creativity and culture. We have set out our creative vision in ‘Let’s Create…’
How was that unconstitutional overthrow allowed to happen?
ACE needs urgently to be reverted to its founding purpose.
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