Sometimes luvvies are their own worst enemies. Good grief, did I say sometimes? There are few sounds more likely to turn us all into philistines than the perennial chorus of arts luminaries droning on about how vital the arts are for the nation. They are right, but that’s not the point. Coming from them, the message sounds utterly self-serving. As Mandy Rice-Davies might have put it: “Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?”

Even the title of their latest missive puts my teeth on edge — both of them. It’s called Get It: The Power of Cultural Learning. But why should we “get it”? To keep arts people in subsidies and jobs? And if you think I’m being cynical, tell me how else to interpret the report’s very first sentence. “In the economic downturn,” it reads, “funding needs to be protected or ring-fenced to enable cultural learning opportunities to thrive.” Well, at least they get straight to the point: a blatant demand for the arts to have special treatment, just as the axe is falling everywhere else.

Who would support that? Obviously the people who published the report: the “Culture and Learning Consortium”, which turns out to comprise the Arts Council, the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and several arty foundations. Plus the usual suspects from luvvieland — Judi Dench, Kevin Spacey, Nicholas Serota, Antony Gormley, Philip Pullman among them — who spout the customary trite truisms. Art is “essential and transformative”. Culture is “oxygen, water, nourishment”. The trouble is that this is exactly the sort of propaganda you would expect to hear from exactly these people. As an argument in favour of arts funding, it’s about as “essential and transformative” as a wet sock.

And the language in which it’s written! Does anybody outside arts’n’education use the word “outcomes”? Did Barbara Follett, who I see has now been elevated to “Minister for Culture, Creative Industries and Tourism” (presumably because of her keen interest in Star Trek), really engage her brain to tell us that the ministers are “passionate about improving the cultural offer to children”? What tosh. If they are so passionate about improving it, why don’t they just do so? They’ve had 12 years.

The tragedy is that there is certainly a compelling case to be made — socially, educationally, even economically — for putting more art into children’s lives. It makes them brighter (scientific fact), keeps them off the streets (look at the results in Venezuela) and helps to dispel the inarticulate, sociopathic surliness that is characteristic of so many kids on bleak estates. And, in fairness, many of the small-print recommendations in Get It are reasonable. Yes, teachers (and those pulling their strings) should stop pushing art, music, dance and drama to the margins of the timetable, and recognise that these are intellectually demanding subjects in their own right. And yes, arts bodies should be striving harder to engage with youngsters, even if they have to ditch every hallowed tradition in their temples of culture. How could I not believe that when, at the age of 54, I go to concerts or theatres and often find that I’m one of the youngest people in the audience?

But this ignores the root of the problem. Hundreds of millions of pounds — from taxpayers and lottery players — have already been poured into arts “outreach” projects. I’ve lost track of the bewildering number of cutely named schemes that now exist to introduce children to culture. So has everyone else. Yet millions of kids still grow up knowing and caring nothing about the arts. And the reason is the great unmentionable of British life — class. If you grow up in a middle-class household, your parents will probably take you to museums, pay for ballet classes or music lessons, and have a few decent books knocking around. Indeed, a willingness to nurture a love of culture in your offspring is one of the key defining qualities of being middle class. It’s not hard for arts bodies to get through to these families, because they are pushing at an open door.

But that leaves millions who don’t grow up in such households. This is where the thinking behind Get It (and dozens of similar reports) goes askew. It assumes that such children are just as susceptible to the arts, if only more and more public money could be thrown at the task (and, along the way, thousands of jobs created for performers and bureaucrats).

But this won’t work. The only way that the majority of families will become enthused by high culture is if the arts are regularly and entertainingly demystified by gifted communicators working in mainstream TV. In other words, if there was a stupendous sea-change in the media that shape the tastes, prejudices and aspirations of millions. I searched Get It from cover to cover for any discussion of how the vast communicative power of TV, the internet or popular newspapers could be harnessed to convey the joy of the arts — as manifestly doesn’t happen at present, except through niche channels that you wouldn’t sample unless you were already a convert. But I looked in vain. How can the glaring absence of ballet, theatre, opera, classical music or visual art from the terrestrial networks — networks that show fine history and nature programmes, between the hours of pap — not be worth even a mention in a report about bringing culture to kids? It’s like doing a survey of British shopping habits and never mentioning Tesco.

That says something damning about the arts and education establishments. Neither sees the big picture. Each is fatally blinkered by its enervating reliance on government funding and priorities; by its own jargon and protocols; and by the vested interests of the professionals in its ranks. As a result, each is capable of reaching out only to those who are easily reached. The majority of the population will never be in the club. And this report, like so many others, is nothing but hot air, concocted to tick the right boxes and justify subsidies while ignoring the problem that dwarfs all else — the unapologetically lowbrow agenda of the British media.

I’m afraid I don’t “get it”.

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