I would neither welcome nor expect a situation where the kind of funding of which Ian writes comes - and is henceforward expected to come - solely from "public" sources (i.e. via HM Treasury and/or local authority taxes in UK); the reason for this view is not at all political - it is simply because, as I mentioned in my response to Ian and have alluded to elsewhere in the past, every conceivable source of funding - public, corporate and private individual - must continually be explored and tapped as far as possible in order to keep afloat those things that we so value.
I'd be very surprised if there's a musical institution anywhere who is in the position of being forced to turn back those alternative sources of funding if they are offered them (unless they come with some questionable strings attached) by virtue of being in receipt of public money. The issue is of whether they should have to find it that way rather than being able to operate with the security of public money. And I'm sorry, but any question of how money raised through taxation is spent (or whether it is to be spent or raised through taxes at all), is in every sense of the word a political question.
Taking the last bit first, I agree with what you say about that political question, but that's not the point I was making; of course it's a political issue how HM Treasury spends the money it nicks off those of us who pay, but what I had said was that my reason for not wishing to exclude other funding sources is not fuelled by any political stance on my part, so it seems that you may have misread my meaning there. I do also agree that there remains a potential (and no doubt in some cases actual) problem of conflict of interest when public and private sponsorship might become available for a single project - you're absolutely right to point that out - but what I'm trying to say here is that the view on this needs to change, purely because the sheer need for funding is so great that the expectation that it can come in sufficiency purely from public, private individual or corporate sources alone is pie in the sky. The risk of strings possibly being attached to private individual or corporate sponsorship deals may not necesarily be any greater than in the case of publicly funded projects and it is important to establish some kind of universally accepted understanding that no such strung attachments are at all welcome in arts funding, irrespective of the nature of the source of the funds concerned.
OK - so now back to Sir Elliott McCarterney (except that his would probably by choice be a flying stone rather than a standing one - and certainly nor a rolling one...)
Well, the obvious question in this context is to do with how much public money, directly or indirectly, McCartney's 'classical' projects received, and why those would receive such support (for example by being played by publicly funded orchestras) when his other projects do not, presumably? Not least considering that the classical projects are most definitely commercial successes, albeit not on the level of Beatles hits or maybe some of his other work.
I suppose that it is inevitable that some people might balk at the thought that Sir M Cartney might have gotten public or indeed any other kind of sponsorship for any of his "classical" projects when he can so easily afford to buy and run an entire symphony orchestra out of just some of the change in his designer back pocket...
Best,
Alistair
