Luvvieland is rattling the begging bowl again. After 11 years of plenty - thanks to a meddling but generally supportive government - the arts world suspects, rightly, that the days of handsome handouts from the taxpayer are over. Not least because the ever more fantastical budget for the 2012 Olympics is sucking money from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport like a giant leech clamped on a small minnow. That's the background to the campaign launched in The Times on Saturday by Mark Jones, director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, aimed at persuading a few more of Britain's super-rich to turn themselves into latter-day Medicis and Carnegies by pumping some of their surplus dosh into the arts.
There's certainly room for improvement. Compared with their American counterparts, Britain's zillionaires generally have a lamentable record of donating money to anything - and certainly not to culture. It wasn't always so. You only have to look at the names adorning some of our finest cultural institutions - Tate the sugar billionaire; Courtauld the textiles magnate; Burrell the shipowner; Clore the shoe king; Sainsbury the grocer - to realise that those at the top of British commerce once prided themselves on founding and funding arts bodies.
Their modern counterparts can hardly complain that “times is 'ard, guv”. According to The Sunday Times's new Rich List - published, by happy chance, the day after Jones issued his plea - there are now 75 people in Britain with a billion pounds or more stashed away (or “three commas on their bottom line”, as they say in the Square Mile). And although not everyone enjoyed the annus mirabilis of our richest resident, steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal - whose family's wealth jumped from £8 billion to £27.7 billion in 12 months - the average annual increase in the fortunes of those in the Top 1,000 was a very tasty 15 per cent.
So there's no lack of serious dosh sloshing round the vaults of whichever tax haven is currently in vogue. Why, then, doesn't more of it find its way to culture? Why, for instance, can't the National Gallery attract the multimillion donations that keep the Metropolitan Museum in New York going with no subsidy? After all, its address is as swanky, its halls as marbled, its art as breathtaking.
Well, the cultural world itself is partly to blame, as the V&A boss acknowledged. Employing a logic that escapes me, many in the arts have no problem with accepting subsidy from government, which sticks its oar into everything - yet they treat donations from philanthropists with huge suspicion, imagining that they will come with horrible strings attached. Had Mozart, Michelangelo or Shakespeare exhibited the same fastidious attitude to private patrons, we would not now be enjoying The Marriage of Figaro, the Sistine Chapel or the Sonnets.
Jones is right to say that our tax system should give more breaks to arts philanthropists than it does. In that respect, we still lag behind America. But I refuse to believe that this is the only, or even the main, reason why the arts here attract such comparatively paltry donations. It's the prevailing ethos that's the problem. Very wealthy people hate playing second fiddle. But that's exactly what they have to do if they give money to a British arts institution, because that institution will still have to answer primarily to the Arts Council, and jump through its hoops. The success of Glyndebourne, which gets no subsidy yet still puts on some of the world's most compelling opera, demonstrates what can be done when an arts organisation refuses the crutch of public funds. But to do that requires courage and a stubborn streak of independence - two qualities that are not notable in the arts at present.
Then there's the matter of showing donors that they are appreciated. Jones wants the Government to give more gongs to arts philanthropists. I suggest the opposite: abolish the honours system altogether. It's hopelessly random anyway. America doesn't have one - so what sort of peer esteem do wealthy Americans crave instead? It's the esteem that comes with having a seat on the board of a great cultural institution such as Carnegie Hall. And how do they get a seat? By donating millions! It's not rocket science.
Even so, I don't underestimate the difficulties of persuading Britain's New Rich to buy into culture. Many feel no allegiance to this country - let alone the overwhelming gratitude felt by the Jewish refugees of the early 20th century who bankrolled our arts scene for decades. Most are more interested in buying a football club than paying for Puccini. And the arts face stiff competition from many other good causes in the race to prise open fat wallets. Oxford, Cambridge and other elite academic institutions are just as desperate to top up their funds - and, the unspoken agenda, eventually buy themselves complete independence from government. Third World charities can tug the heartstrings in a way that the arts cannot.
And there's one other barrier standing between the arts and the super-rich. The latter can be as uncomfortable as anyone else about entering the daunting temples of culture, and possibly revealing their ignorance of an artform's history and conventions. Perhaps, instead of aiming their educational work at kids, cultural bodies should be running art appreciation classes for City slickers with million-pound bonuses to burn.
Or perhaps they should point out what extraordinary value a small investment in the arts can be. After all, for the money that Roman Abramovich would have to spend to bring one decent striker to Chelsea, he could buy the services of an entire British orchestra - lock, stock and bassoons - for five years. Has he no musical friend who could persuade him that this might be a lovely new toy for him to show off? After all, it would only be a moment's work with the Tippex to change “Royal Philharmonic” to “Roman Philharmonic” on the programmes.Remember when?
Two seemingly incidental aspects of the Fritzl Affair have shaken me even more than Herr Fritzl's serial incest. The first is that he built the underground cells for his benighted (grand)children with such chilling Teutonic ingenuity and efficiency. Plumbing, wiring, soundproofing, camouflage - all apparently installed without the neighbours suspecting a thing. Now, what does that remind you of?
Obvious? Not to Österreich, one of Austria's leading newspapers, which gave me a second jolt by calling Fritzl's deeds “the worst crime of all time”. Further evidence, surely, that the land of snow flakes and strudel and schnitzel with noodles is still gripped by a very creepy historical amnesia.
A challenge too far
Disposables or washables? Well, I'm so glad you asked, because a crucial angle seems to be missing from the current Great Nappy Debate. Namely, the male angle. It's surely no coincidence that the Pampers era has also been the first in humanity's 50,000-year history when dads (or at least some dads) have been willing to change a nappy occasionally. Men can just about stomach the thought of whisking a used nappy off a mewling babe and immediately chucking away the ghastly thing. But the notion of unpinning a soggy, soiled piece of cotton, removing its assorted deposits, and then washing it? That's surely a domestic challenge too far, even for the newest of New Men.
Stepping backwards
The old-age pension is 100 years old. When Asquith introduced it in 1908, it was five shillings a week - a sum that was regarded as shamefully low by progressives in his party. But if even that paltry figure had kept pace with the growth in Britain's GDP, the state pension should now be £161 a week. The actual figure? £90.70p. Some progress.
