What should the future role of public funding be in the UK arts scene as more of the world transitions to an American-style system of private philanthropy? “Should the state help pay for the arts? Of course it should; it always has. State support for the arts is a great European tradition. The great patrons of the performing arts and the visual arts have always been rulers or monarchs. Now they are governments… Whether you are talking about 18th-century Vienna or the UK today, the wealth that was and is handed out to the arts is the people’s wealth. And it is absolutely right that it should be spent on the arts.”