SEPTEMBER\/OCTOBER, 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Election Manifesto proudly announced that art and music will \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcno longer be the preserve of a privileged few\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Yes, that one again. Like all Sir Barney Rubble\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s other promises he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t bother burdening us with how he might achieve this impossibility. It is an obvious whopper and their first lie. Labour has form in repeating clich\u00c3\u00a9s it imagines will be popular with their more extreme philistine wing.
\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThe privileged few\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. It trips easily enough off the tongue, but who are they? I imagine they mean me, or anyone tolerably well educated with a curiosity beyond the mind-rotting Mesmer of social media. \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThe privileged few\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 is a phrase only a Trot would use. To them it means \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcthe educated\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. Oh yes it does! Place \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcthe educated\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 on top of \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcthe privileged few\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and they form a perfect crustless sandwich. If you troubled yourself to become even slightly educated or, worse, to be naturally more thoughtful than average, you make yourself a target for the resentful commissars of dumbing down. Calumniating the educated was a policy perfected by the Soviets, and is currently enjoying a second wind (third really after Mao\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Cultural Revolution) with the Chinese. It was always a meaningless over-simplification, not least because \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcthe privileged few\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 often included those whose income and class would normally place them amongst the unprivileged many.
This sort of clich\u00c3\u00a9 is expected of the Left and must look good on paper to those still fighting the battles of Samuel Bamford and Annie Besant \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 whoever they were. We, you, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcthe privileged few\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, are a necessary target to be despised.
The paradox is that, as a civilised country, we purport rightly to want everyone educated to a high standard, but then slag off those with the impertinence to achieve it. And this while the rest arm themselves with influencers, ignorance, semi-literacy and machetes: those with imaginations informed by snippets of randomly accumulated trivia and catchphrases. Fact: education sets you apart, makes you privileged. But is it not mystifying why we insist on every child being subjected to fourteen years of free full-time education? Why bother encumbering those unprepared to make any effort when all they want is to remain proudly part of \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcthe unprivileged many\u00e2\u20ac\u2122? For our Labour bosses, education is never a case of raising up, but always one of lowering down; equality not quality the prize. Since 1919 when the school leaving age was raised from 12 (it had been upped from 10 in 1899) to 14 we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve increased the leaving age incrementally until in 2015 it topped off at 18; it can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go any higher than that. None of these exemplary \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcadvances\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 has caused any discernible increase in the percentage of the population joining the large minority that is \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcthe privileged few\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.
But hang on a minute. Since when was music the preserve of \u00e2\u20ac\u02dca privileged few\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. Have these people attended a pop festival recently, or ever? What they mean, of course, is classical music, such as is enjoyed only (they imagine) by \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcthe privileged few\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 who tune in to Radio 3 and Classic FM \u00e2\u20ac\u201c both being so \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcprivileged\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 that, like national museums, they are of free access to all. And if they mean \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcsubsidised\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 classical music, live opera and orchestras, which they probably do, they will have to buckle down to reforming the Arts Council. And they won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do that, heavens no, because most of those involved with State Art are enthusiastic Labour voters and therefore powerful lobbyists who the Government won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want rocking the boat quite so soon after it has set sail.
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a good job the intended Arts Minister, Swingem Dangling, a classical cellist, lost her seat heavily to the Greens. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have had to admit to being among \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcthe privileged few\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. What then? The Trots might have paraded her down Whitehall wearing a placard announcing her shocking individualistic crimes. She would have had to come clean with a public confession of her error in succumbing to the bourgeois attractions of acquiring special skills and the sort of rarified appreciation which made her a despicable privileged outsider.
But hang on another minute. If Labour is talking about \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcthe privileged few\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 of State Art \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that well-appointed foster home for gullible charlatans who spend all the visual art cash on \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcchallenging contemporary art\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c they may have a point. However, firstly, even the word \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfew\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be extended to mean those interested in that area of art; \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcthe privileged handful\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 more like. And, again, are they going to provoke that vocal lobby amongst their own supporters? Of course not. And so this one vital aspect, so deserving of being targeted for its lack of both privileged and unprivileged appeal, is the one area certain to be preserved from criticism. Labour will support State Art as an example of their open-mindedness, their belief in \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcprogress\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and the boldly \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcchallenging\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, not to mention their loathing of anything traditional \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 even knowing that if they were asked on the qt for a personal opinion, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d agree that it promoted mostly artless tosh of interest to hardly anyone.
So here is their first broken promise. Things will remain the same, with State Art bigotry set in reinforced concrete. \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThe privileged few\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, whoever they are, will go on being the hated target of \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcthe under-privileged many\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, whoever they are. Labour knew all along this is nonsense, but thought they should say it anyway because it has the superficial aura of class tuffness. Pathetic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SEPTEMBER\/OCTOBER, 2024 Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Election Manifesto proudly announced that art and music will \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcno longer be the preserve of a privileged few\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Yes, that one again. Like all Sir Barney Rubble\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s other promises he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t bother burdening us with how he might achieve this impossibility. It is an obvious whopper and their first lie. Labour […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leader"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2780,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779\/revisions\/2780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}