Message of misplaced optimism for the arts

the great and good were always the low point in a slow season. Somehow

the year ahead was always going to be historic or memorable. Somehow it

never was.

The world being what it is, that was hardly surprising. The only thing

that ever really changes on January 1 is the calendar. Yet this week, as

usual, the messages of misplaced optimism have been wending their way

towards the dustbin of history while their authors pray that no-one will

remember them 12 months from now.

Sir Alan Peacock, for one, must be hoping that the gift of prophecy

has not deserted him. Nineteen ninety-one, says the retiring chairman of

the Scottish Arts Council with remarkable understatement, ''was a tough

year''. The recession hit attendances and sponsorship alike, as arts

workers are only too well aware. What Sir Alan fails to note is that

those same people are as demoralised as they have ever been, largely

because of his efforts.

Peacock's arrival at the SAC was greeted with dismay from more than a

few of us. How safe could the publicly-funded arts be in the hands of an

arch-priest of the free market whose prescription for commercial

broadcasting was, if anything, worse than the scheme eventually adopted

by the Government? And how much encouragement can you take from the

prognostications of a man who thinks the ''consumer'' is king?

Not very much, if the New Year message is anything to go by. While the

Office of Arts and Libraries has obtained a ''gratifying'' increase of

13.77% for the next fiscal year -- after a decade of undefunding -- Sir

Alan has been embroiling the SAC in Lord Palumbo's National Arts

Foundation and the Foundation for Sport and the Arts. He seems not to

have inquired what these two brainchildren of the property developer

lord mean for the council's role.

Meanwhile, he also says that the SAC is in favour of a national

lottery to fund the arts. As with the iniquity of sponsorship, however,

he is careful to state that such an exercise should be ''as a complement

and not a substitute for government provision''.

We've heard this sort of thing before, and each time we hear it we

know the principles on which the SAC was founded are being further

undermined. It's a matter of political culture. For people like Sir Alan

there is nothing sacred in the idea of public funding -- quite the

reverse. The ''market'', whatever that might be in this context, is more

relevant than corporatist principle.

Yet a survey released last month by the SAC itself demonstrates the

dangerous dependency created by the free market enthusiasms of Sir Alan

and his kind. Business sponsorship of the arts rose by 2% last year (a

drop in real terms) compared with a 15% increase the year before. The

glamorous companies and events -- Scottish Opera, Ballet, the RSO, the

SCO and the Edinburgh Festival -- mopped up 67.5% of sponsors' money, of

which 90% went to the central belt. Glasgow, in its year as European

City of Culture, took the lion's share among the population centres.

In other words, under Sir Alan the SAC chased sources of funding which

might be characterised as elitist, unreliable and outside public

control. Now he fancies a lottery, a source more vulnerable to recession

than most.

No-one seems to question this. Yet year by year the SAC is drawn

further from its original purpose and from any thought of real

accountability, however many mountains of paper are generated in pursuit

of a ''Charter for the Arts''.

Put it another way: if this year turns out to be a good one for the

arts in Scotland it will be because Sir Alan has departed from the SAC.

IT'S a pity that the Edinburgh Festival seems to have forgotten about

Hugh MacDiarmid in the centenary of his birth. Some of us would have

relished the chance to dissent from the benign conspiracy surrounding

our greatest poet, whereby his virtues are magnified and his vices,

intellectual and literary, are forgotten. It would have been fun to

discuss how it came about that an iconoclast was turned into an icon.

As things stand, Brian McMaster's first festival as director appears

to have no place for a piece of MacDiarmid in the jigsaw of its

programme. Given the poet's reputation, that's worrying enough. What is

more troubling is Mr McMaster's belief, according to reports, that

literature has no part to play in his event.

The director seems to think it a great pity that there is no book

festival this year to take the MacDiarmid problem off his hands. After

all, he points out, the man ''was primarily a poet''. I wonder what he

thinks Shakespeare was.

CALL me sentimental, but I'm delighted that Eleanor McLaughlin has

decided to ignore a daft tradition and stand again for Edinburgh

District Council after her term as Lord Provost ends. While we're at it,

I hope her Labour colleagues have the sense to ensure that she hangs on

to the regalia.

It suits her, after all. Bad lord provosts are easy to come by, as the

citizens of the capital are only too well aware. But anyone who can

conduct herself with dignity, be popular, at ease with people of all

classes, represent her city as it deserves, remain a good socialist, and

put the likes of Robert Maxwell in his place when the need arises, is a

valuable commodity. Not that I'm biased, you understand . . .

THE news that Edinburgh could become home to Scotland's first liver

transplant unit is, of course, welcome. But was it tasteful to make

plans for the development public on Ne'er Day, when some of our livers

were not, shall we say, quite themselves?