GIVEN the UK Government’s continuing refusal to give financial support to our struggling steel industry, I noticed with that that same Government recently slapped an export ban on a multi-million-pound piece of art, allowing taxpayer-funded arts bodies, local councils, public donations and various benefactors time to come up with the necessary funds to “save a £35 million Rembrandt for the nation” (“Temporary export ban is placed on £35m Rembrandt in hope of finding a UK buyer”, The Herald, October 17). This, mark you, is a nation so stuffed full of valuable art that more than one-third of it is not and never has been on public display.
Over the past decade the UK Government has had a 100 per cent success rate in coming up with probably hundreds of millions of pounds of directly and indirectly mostly taxpayers' hard-earned money to prevent valuable artworks and historical artefacts being sold to foreign buyers ... yet there is not one penny forthcoming to invest to temporarily subsidise steel, an industry which is vital to our nation's long term competitiveness – an industry which will undoubtedly return to profitability in the not too distant future.
Great art should not be hoarded away unseen. Art is for displaying, not for gathering dust in some dark cellar for 100 years. Selling just a fraction of it would bring in untold millions.
To add insult to injury there is the obscenity where the estates of millionaires who have died owing huge sums in taxes and death duties are permitted to pay in lieu of sometimes millions, valuable works of art "to the nation", enabling them to leave the bulk of their fortune to their families, rather than the public's half empty coffers.
But why should we be surprised by this preferential treatment given to that esoteric fraternity .... as in art's modern idiom, where the McGonagalls of their genre Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst, are revered beyond the uneducated world's comprehension. The UK Government has chosen celebrity over substance ... from czars to advisers to House of Lords placements, celebrities abound, the theory being that the commoners are so captivated by their fame they will pay more attention to them than any politician.
Those naked emperors of art have amassed a fortune from their dubious skill, while most of today's genuine artists will go their lifetimes unrecognised, without due reward, just as the Burnses and the Van Goghs went their whole life under-valued and in poverty. It took future generations to realise their genius; it will take our future generations to realise how big a rip-off our modern art really was ... and in a UK devoid of heavy industry, how blind to reality the present UK Government really was.
Bill McMullen,
25B Princess Park, Erskine
.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel