“One cannot ignore the woes of three national companies, or their common origin. Devolution, the 1997 mantra of victorious New Labour, has reverted large parts of the island to a dreary provincialism where parish pump functionaries lord it over public entertainments. Anti-elitism, the lip service that Labour rulers pay to their grass roots, has fostered a class war against high culture. And the disavowing of responsibility that is the hallmark of this governmenthas allowed successive culture secretaries and arts council chairmen to escape Scot-free – in the Caledonian sense – for demolishing two generations’ worth of artistic growth in the very regions where it was most needed.”