Ed Vaizey

Today is Stress Down Day.  It’s being launched by Samaritans.  I held a reception for them at the House of Commons last night, as I am chairman of the all-party group for Samaritans.  Samaritans are, according to surveys, one of the most admired charities in Britain today - and yet few people know what they do.  Most people think they focus exclusively on suicide, and paradoxically, that means occasionally people feel that there is a stigma involved.  Thankfully, that is changing, with a lot of young people now involved as volunteers.  Founded more than fifty years ago, they set up the first 24 hour helpline.  But Samaritans are not just at the end of the phone - they now have a hugely successful text and e-mail service; they work in prisons where they train prisoners as volunteers; they even go to rock and pop festivals to provide a drop-in centre.  Every year, 17.000 volunteers help 5 million people. 

When I set up the all-party group, I offered to train as a volunteer.  It was tactfully suggested that I might not pass the programme.  Apparently, you have to be a good listener. 

I’ve managed to geta  copy of the Director of the National Gallery, Charles Saumarez Smith’s, lecture/essay on The Politics of Museums.  As far as I am aware, only an extract has been published on the web, so it feels a bit Samizdat to have it on my desk. 

The article in last week’s Observer was, by definition, more polemical because it was a precis.  The full lecture is much more balanced.  It is a valuable oversight of - and insight into - the the politics of the arts for the last thirty years.  Whether it is fair or not is irrelevant - it fairly reflects, I think, the perception of the arts world, given that it is written by someone who has been at its heart for the last thirty years.

Saumarez Smith is certainly fair to the Government - he praises them at length for free admissions and long-term funding.  So his critique should be taken seriously.  Saumarez Smith makes three powerful points.  The first, the need for politicians to encourage philanthropy, not just with fiscal changes, but also by signalling that the arts are important and worth supporting.  This, I think, will be the main focus for debate in the next few years.  Secondly, a need to move away from an obsession with the glossy and superficial, and to re-engage with the sense of the virtues and values of the past - a deeper cultural understanding.  And finally he focuses on the need for museums and galleries to add to their collections, somethingwe tried to address at the last election with our proposal for an acquisitions fund.   

Saumarez Smith’s contribution has been followed by the warnings of the British Library and the Arts Council about funding.  It’s clear that the arts world is beginning a debate about their relationship with Government over the next decade, as they recognise that whether it is Brown or Cameron, the climate is changing. 

I managed to get to the Arts Council’s reception this week for a very brief period.  Christopher Frayling and Peter Hewitt, respectively chairman and chief executive, launched a glossy report with ten year policies at the Hayward Gallery on the South Bank - incidentally an unfriendly place to visit if you are a Cameroon on a bike.  As well as an impressive video, there was an installation - “of all the people in all the world” - by Stan’s Cafe which was, well, brilliant really.  It was witty, poignant, quirky and thought provoking all at the same time.  They use grains of rice to illustrate statistics.  A large mound, representing those who die crossing the Mexican/American border, appears next to a smaller mound representing those killed fleeing East Berlin, for example. 

I don’t think it is too controversial to say that there has been some controversy at the Arts Council in recent years, with regular upheavals and a sense of constant revolution.   It will be interesting to see if there is further change to come, or whether we will now see a period of prolonged stability.