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They have started waving shrouds over the arts in London. As the recession bites and the Government talks of imposing pain all round, the wail goes up that our cultural life will take a pounding. Indeed we may see slumped in the gutter that most sacred of cows, free entry to museums.
Lobbyists were up early at the weekend. The Art Fund's former director, David Barrie, claimed implausibly that "I don't want to be a prophet of doom" and was just that.
Reintroducing fees, he said, would be "grizzly grim a heartbreakingly retrograde development".
Already the arts have been butchered by Tessa Jowell's Olympics extravaganza, promoted from sacred cow to omnivorous white elephant.
Now the recession is forecast to cut anything up to 10 per cent from the arts budget. Coupled with a predicted 20 per cent cut in private donations to the arts, it is hard to see how the museums of London can escape a serious assault on their revenues - given that they have blocked the customary source, the paying public.
This debate is the dinosaur of public finance. To some the freedom to wander at will around the great collections of the capital has, when it has applied, been seen as a boon to inhabitants and visitors to London alike.
Open to all are the marbles and mummies of the British Museum, the porcelain and Indian carpets of the V&A, the monsters of the Natural History, the old masters of the National and the young masters of the Tate.
Akin to cathedrals and public parks, their claim on public expenditure is for the greater enjoyment and education of the populace.
To others this is a load of rubbish. Museums and galleries are no different from other cultural enterprises, such as concert halls, theatres and opera houses, a fact they themselves concede in charging often exorbitant prices to get into focused exhibitions and blockbusters.
And why should a few privileged giants get special favour in government grants when competing museums (such as London's Courtauld Gallery) must charge and suffer unfair competition.
London may be special but not ideologically so. The provinces are seldom so blessed. The Tate in London may be free but, in a gesture of metropolitan elitism, it charges £5.65 to see its collection in St Ives.
The National Maritime Museum may be free to the glitterati of Greenwich but hapless visitors to its outpost in Falmouth must pay £8.75. Museum charging is evil near the fleshpots of Fleet Street and Parliament but fine for the provincial peasantry.
Prior to 2001, national museum trustees were allowed to reach their own decision on admission charges, a freedom granted by the Tories.
Most levied some charge though some, such as the BM and the National Gallery, did not. The Blair government set aside some £5 million to compensate those who had charged for not doing so.
The ending of charges led to an approximate doubling of attendance, though an investigation I did at the time revealed that many museums, reluctant to deploy staff on the boring task of counting, simply entered a round figure sufficiently large to please ministers.
As the rumblings today indicate, reverting to free entry did not end debate. To some of the museums, a swift rise in visitor numbers vindicated the decision.
The Natural History Museum rose from 1.7 million at £9 a ticket to 3.7 million when free, the V&A from 1.1 million to 2.4 million last year.
Critics pointed out that the museums risked getting trapped by their own argument. That numbers doubled proved only that, as with London's evening newspapers, a service supplied free is bound to see a rise in demand.
Indeed the mere doubling in numbers was disappointing: make Covent Garden or the National Theatre free and they would be under perpetual siege.
Some museums, such as the Natural History, the Science and the Maritime, protested the loss of buoyancy in income from visitors, which had boosted their coffers and entrepreneurial zeal.
The level of government grants has not kept pace with inflation. Some claimed that increased earnings from shops and catering more than compensated for the loss of takings from entry - though in that case we might wonder why they charge for special exhibitions.
Every other national museum and gallery in Europe charges, with no evidence of empty galleries or loss of cultural awareness on the part of their citizens.
The truth is that museum charging has always had more to do with the politics of subsidy than with cultural dissemination. Museum admission is like student fees, a talisman of middle-class entitlement.
The few studies made of free admission (such as at the Maritime) found that the same mostly local visitors were simply coming more often.
It was hard to perceive any surge in visits from the supposedly impoverished working class. I doubt if the social composition of the National Gallery's crowd is any different from that at the Louvre or New York's Metropolitan.
Meanwhile, millions of foreign tourists have been given a free ride which they decline to return when we visit their cities.
The irony is that this year promises to be a boom year for those institutions dependent on inbound tourism and domestic leisure.
The recession and the exchange rate will lead millions more to holiday in Britain. West End box office revenue is already reaching unprecedented levels.
Visitors to this spring's festivals are breaking attendance records. The current Hay festival is up 15 per cent and visits to the National Trust up 30 per cent.
London's museums should be riding the crest of this wave. It should be a bumper year. Yet the millions who will pour through their doors will leave their coffers depleted as they beg the Government to bail them out.
Their argument, that visitor takings more than match the loss of entry money, will be tested to the limit.
It rots any institution to depend wholly or largely on public subsidy. Museums indulge themselves by refusing to ask those who most benefit to pay something for what they have enjoyed, as happens to every other art form and everywhere else in the world.
They have created such a taboo that a Tory arts spokesman, Hugo Swire, was even dropped by David Cameron as arts spokesman for questioning it.
I am wholly against the Government forcing museums to charge for entry, let alone removing grants from those that do, as the Tories did when introducing charging in 1973.
But museums should be treated as consenting adults. If they want to stay free and think they can make more money in other ways, that is their business.
But if they want to take advantage of a booming market by charging, let them. There is nothing special about museums. We should all grow up.
Reader views (4)
£1 in the slot turnstyles would reduce queuing as would Oyster Card readers. They need to keep it simple and streamlined.
- Alan In Bow, London, 26/05/2009 14:35
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After much thought I think I agree with a modest charge but I do think OAPs and children under 12(accompanied by an adult) should have free entry, other school children should be half price.
Official school parties under the supervision of teachers should be free during term time.
Alternatively it would mean paying more tax so government could make up the Art gallery and Museums short fall.
- Rosieinlondon, London UK, 26/05/2009 13:03
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I agree. Leave the decision to the museum/gallery in question - not least because people on the ground in all walks of life should be the ones exercising their judgement, not grandstanding politicians in Westminster. Left to their own devices I think most trustees will probably decide to go for a modest charge if only because when people have to pay for something they usually appreciate it much more and look after it better. And above all, like most people, I don't see how such trustees can justify not charging when the main beneficiaries of that are non UK taxpaying tourists visiting London.
- Anne, London, 26/05/2009 11:22
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The Louvre museum in Paris has always charged for entrance (currently 9 euros) but manages to attract over 8 million visitors a year, at least 2M more than the British Museum. Free entrance is offered to European nationals under-26, teachers, the unemployed etc, and to everyone on the first Sunday of the month. One might reasonably have expected the figures to be the other way around.
The UK financing model benefits primarily the privileged few who live within easy reach of the national museums, and overseas visitors, at the expense of the taxpayer.
The French model obviously works, so why not follow it? The money saved could be invested in bigger purchase grants, better display space and better marketing skills.
- R. Goodacre, London SW15, 26/05/2009 11:17
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