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Museums and Galleries

Before we stopped, I was explaining that the reviewing committee has responded to the Commission for Unclaimed Assets, arguing that a fund for acquisitions would be an appropriate use for at least some of the money. We have advised the Secretary of State of our response, and look forward to her support in our endeavours to take forward the best interests of her department and the wider public interest. Thus far, I have presented our concerns as a failure. It is more than that; it is a tragedy. For the sake of a ha’p’orth of tar, the ship is being lost. For the sake of arranging things right, we are losing objects of enduring value to people now, in the past and, most important, far into the future when, to misquote Kipling, the vanished pomps of here today will be as one with Nineveh and Tyre. We are making the same mistake as the city fathers in Beijing who demolished the hutongs in the dash for immediate economic growth and so-called progress. As night follows day, they will regret it. The folly of this approach can be seen so clearly on the London Underground today. As you look around, you see a reproduction of the Rokeby Venus, advertising the blockbuster Velasquez show at the National Gallery, which the cultural pages of the press have hailed as a ““must-see item””, ““the show of the year”” and ““five star””. We are lucky in London. We can see the Rokeby Venus, as opposed to many of the other pictures in the show, almost every day in the National Gallery because, in its early days, it was saved from export by the then-National Art Collections Fund. The philistines, the bean-counters, the Mr Gradgrinds and the Alderman Foodbottoms and Colonel Sibthorps all decried the cost of this frivolous extravagance, but what goes round comes round. It was cheap at the price. The best is always cheap, always endures, is always on the cutting edge, always pays the best dividends and provides the best value for money to our fellow citizens and taxpayers.