No, I don't accept that either - some 'professional politicians', including some of those you mention, definitely care about such issues as unemployment, poverty, homelessness, education, a health service, world peace, the arms race, human rights, the class system, gender discrimination, etc., which are certainly amongst 'the kind of things that concern me', as much if not more so than what are perceived as 'artistic' matters - but then I wouldn't accept that the latter are not deeply embroiled with the former. If you are saying that politicians are not interested in a supposedly depoliticised view of arts and education, then all the better for them. Give me the view of one truly cognisant of the situation of sweat-shop workers in Mexico, of Palestinians on the West Bank, of poor Asian families in Bradford, of single mothers the world round, of the total ruthlessness of the owners of global capital, on art and their concomitant perspective on the significance or otherwise of its various manifestations, to that of one whose world is centered around supposedly autonomous artistic issues viewing everything else in the world from that perspective.

As far as competitive anything is concerned, it would surely be foolish to shelter all children from competition at schools, considering that at present they are likely to encounter an awful lot of that in the wider world they'll grow up to become part of. In sports, there is such a thing as decent competition without all concerned being unaware that ultimately 'it's only a game'.

Like t_i_n, I managed to avoid sport (for the most part) during my school years.  Like him, too, I have since discovered the pleasures (and necessity) of exercise.

But I can't agree with him about sports or team games. In my view, participation in such gives rise to an ugly 'tribal' mindset which encourages children to think in terms of 'us' and 'them', rather than viewing themselves as individuals.  We've seen, in the behaviour of bladder-headed football fans, how this can be carried forward into adult life. And how easily this mindset can be adapted to politics, too.

There is a direct and very straight line leading from the Fuhrer's goose-stepping minions at Nuremberg to the scarf-wearing troglodytes who stand in the kop, cheering on their 'heroes' and hurling obscene abuse (and sometimes missiles) at their 'opponents'. 

And yet this is what Brown and his pack want more of.

I suggest a useful approach for the 21st century would be to ditch this unquestioned adherence to hoary old themes like 'team spirit' and concentrate on seeing ourselves as individuals. 

I think we need to be a bit careful about the individuals point - I think that as a society there are ways in which we have gone rather too far in individualism; what is needed, it seems to me, is more collective activity - and I think music-making is particularly good for this - to remind ourselves that there is such a thing as society, in which people rub along together through compromise and tolerance.  Excessive individualism is every bit as dangerous as the sinking of the self into tribal or national (or class, or even school) identities; the two seem to me to be closely linked, two sides of the same problem.

This piece in today's Guardian picks up a lot of the issues we've discussed on this thread:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2176406,00.html

I entirely agree, and regrettably this stems from the Public-School system which encourages belief in a "thug elite". It's what the nation "needs" to keep its armed forces supplied with cannon-fodder.  The notorious case in which two bone-headed British squaddie thugs threw two 15-year-old Iraqi boys off a bridge into the centre of the river below is taken straight out of a British school "PE bullying" session.  (The boys drowned, of course - a Military Inquiry absorbed absolved (sp!) the murderers of all blame and even allowed them to remain in the Services).

The question here isn't "PE or not"...  it's about encouraging tribalism and rewarding thuggery,  provided these can be harnessed as grist to the national mill.  Education has nothing to do with "competitions", "house points", "gold medals" and all the loathsome paraphenalia of Public Schools (the only experience of "education" Britain's political leaders have, and therefore the one they wish to force down the throats of all others).

There is an essential dichotomy here between music (a discipline which relies entirely on collaboration, listening to others and reacting appropriately) and PE - a competitive discipline which establishes who is top-dog, and who may therefore bully those at the bottom of the pile.

Moreover, every politician has read Machiavelli (I mean, those who can read at all); it's far easier for them to set the knuckle-draggers and hurdle-jumpers against the piano-plunkers and xylophonists,  and let them slug it out,  rather than dirty their hands with anything so dull as educational policy.

Evidently what Britain needs is a leader who can sing "O Sole Mio" with Luciano Pavarotti...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7011688.stm

While we are in huggy agreeing mode, I agree with PW on this. Sorting out how best to arrange things so that the different demands of human beings as individuals and as members of a collective (or a series of collectives) can somehow be squared is what politics is (IMHO). The fact that there is a necessary conflict between the two is what makes it interesting, important and endlessly unsettleable.