Yesterday I held forth at the same dispatch box that cradled the notes and timepieces of great orators like Edmund Burke and brilliant wits like Oscar Wilde. I was at Trinity College Dublin to debate arts subsidies.
Inviting state-subsidized students and academics to reject state subsidies is always a lost cause, but I made the case that subsidies corroded true art. They centralize what should give us diversity. They bureaucratize what should be free-sprited. They tax the poor for the delight of the rich. And they give us, not Shakespeare and Chopin, but an unmade bed and the Millennium Dome. On the other side, my usually bone-dry friend Dr Sean Barrett argued that arts spending was tiny, and better than most of what government does with our money.
But I wonder if Ireland's economic woes will make taxpayers there less inclined to fund any kind of state spending. After years of boom, house prices have fallen around seven percent in Dublin (some say the final fall will be three or four times that) and the unemloyment lines are growing.
Ireland's boom started, like Britain's, following a radical tax-cutting and public-sector reform programme But then Euro membership turned the real boom into an inflationary boom. Now a rising Euro makes it harder for Ireland to sell abroad and get through these hard times. Euro membership has been a euphoric drug. But now Ireland's suffering the hangover.
I was just trying to book some last-minute event tickets the other day. It's astonishing just how quickly many big events get sold out, mostly because of the policies of the promoters. Concerts and sports fixtures underprice their tickets in the belief that this makes them more accessible for the 'real fans' or because promoters earn more from sell-outs. So if you don't get in immediately the phone lines open, you've no chance.
A lot of policymakers would like to keep it that way because they simply don't like the idea of 'touts' selling tickets and making a profit out of Wimbledon and the like. The image is of the shifty, ill-shaven character flogging high-priced tickets outside the ground. But the reality is that there is now a thriving secondary market in event tickets, thanks to the internet and other highly respectable agencies such as Seatwave.
So folk like me can get the tickets they want, even if they have to pay a bit extra.
So I'm glad that the House of Commons committee on Culture, Media and Sport, in its recent report on the subject, rejected the case for heavy restrictions on the resale of tickets. The promoters want regulation so that they can continue to control prices. But you can't buck the market. An open and secure secondary market has got to be good for fans. Seatwave, for instance, offers a guarantee that the tickets it sells are genuine, 150% refund if they do not arrive on time, and a full refund if the event is cancelled (which is more than you get from many promoters).
But politicians are born meddlers, and the Committee also suggested that there should be a levy on tickets resold online. The idea is that any premium on the price can be channelled back to players and performers. In fact it would be just a tax on fans. And such is the way of these schemes that most of the cash would go back to the biggest stars, who are already not short of a bob or two. The market – free of daft political schemes like this – is unquestionably the best way to ensure that tickets end up in the hands of those who most want them.
Never depend on common sense from politicians; it's not their strength. But in rejecting the idea of a ban on secondary online ticket sales by both touts and bona fide organizations the Culture, Media and Sports Select Committee has come close to showing something akin to sense. While their criticism of the rogue elements of the ticket touting world is justifiable, they are right to ignore those calling for a levy on secondary ticket sales.
The entertainment industry should provide solutions to the problems of its own creation and desist in seeking government intervention. In attempting to squeeze more cash out of the punters through a further levy they are merely trying to keep their up-front ticket prices artificially low.
Within each segment of the entertainment industry, from sport to music, through to such things as opera, ballet and musicals, each has its own individual economy; yet touts appear regardless. The touts may have purchased tickets and be looking to sell for a profit, perhaps cashing in on sold out shows and the increased demand upon a scarce resource or they may be selling on the tickets of those who couldn't attend. Either way all the tickets have been legally purchased from the seller, so the seller should have maximised their profit from the event, in which case what happens to the ticket after that point is irrelevant.
The under-pricing of tickets creates an unnatural scarcity which is reflected in the prices paid to ticket touts. We should leave the touts alone, and start suggesting that the producers and entertainers charge the real market value of their product. They will know when they've succeeded in this – the touts will only ever be able to garner face value prices for the tickets in their hands.
And for those that can't afford the real prices, the providers should find a way of redistributing the wealth within the prices they ask.
It's time to make the Olympics not only profit making but also interesting. Every four years the Olympics rolls into some poor naïve city and proceeds to prove to all and sundry that it wasn't worth the time, the effort, or the money that was spent on it.
With London 2012 expected to be enormously over-budget, I would suggest implementing the following plan - not just to save money, but to also put some life back into the Olympics. Post 2008, regional qualifying should take place over three years, reducing the field of competing athletes to a cream of the region. Then, when the Olympics come around, the events are simply a series of finals with no one but champions competing in them. Perhaps the Olympics could be reduced to a three-day event. Infrastructure would then be dispersed around the World and costs shared, and the event itself would be short and sweet.
The amount of taxpayer's money that is going to be wasted upon on the upcoming London Olympics is not even known by the current administration. The honesty of their continual claims that it will not be over budget is hard to believe, but they could insure themselves against dramatic loses by seeking to have the cost of the games shared across the globe! The Olympic Committee will continue to seek others to pay for their games and, unfortunately, many cities/governments will continue to force their taxpayers to pay.
It has to be remembered that governments are vain, and there is nothing better than an Olympics to rub the egos of those in power.
[Ed - I also like Sir Simon Jenkins' rather more modest proposal: that we deliver the Olympic games at the originally agreed cost and not a penny more. If that means we have to use existing stadiums and venues, well, so much the better!]
It's time to bring this farce to an end. The Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square has been abused, in the supposed name of art, for too long now. November of this year saw the erection of "Model Hotel 2007" (pictured left), by Thomas Schutte, a few sheets of coloured glass, and some metal rods; this replaced the eyesore more commonly known as "Alison Lapper Pregnant" by Marc Quinn. Rather than commissioning any further pieces of artwork the Mayor of London should begin a campaign to raise the statue originally intended for that plinth: King William IV.
King William IV reigned from 1830 to 1837, during which time he played a key role in the poor law reform that led to the Reform Act of 1832, also under his reign slavery was abolished (even though he had previously spoken against this) and child labour laws established. He was the first truly constitutional monarch of Great Britain and he also served admirably (no pun intended) for his country in the Royal Navy. Thus qualifying him for his place in Trafalgar Square.
Yet it is highly unlikely that the current Mayor, Ken Livingston, would have high regard of someone who was a champion of the poor and who held the people of this country sovereign. It is also doubtful that he'd even allow the statue to be placed there as originally intended, even if it were privately funded, let alone publicly! But the real reason for not allowing the erection of a statue to someone who achieved so much could be the embarrassment it would cause to our current crop of politicians.
Timothy Garton Ash had an interesting article in The Guardian this week, on the subject of religion in a free society. His argument is that for religious diversity to work we need to spell out more clearly the essentials of a free society.
Freedom of expression must be reclaimed from political correctness. Freedom of religion and equality before the law must be reasserted. Doing this requires a secular public sphere but the question is, what does that mean in practice?
It should not mean every trace of religion has to be purged. Displaying Christmas manger scenes in public buildings, for instance, or exhibiting the Ten Commandments in a law court does not strike me as problematic. It merely reflects the heritage of a country's culture and laws and, in reality, does no harm.
As Garton Ash says, it is practical questions that matter more than the theory of secularism. How to apply it to faith schools, for instance, or the teaching of evolution, the Mohammed cartoons, the building of new mosques or the hijab?
I have no problem with faith schools receiving public funding, but they should not discriminate between applicants, and religious instruction should be optional, separate from the standard timetable, and funded by the church, not the taxpayer. The theory of evolution should be taught in science lessons, though not perhaps as an absolute truth. Intelligent design, on the other hand, has no place in science lessons. This is not to say it's invalid, just that it's not a scientific theory and should not be taught as such.
The Mohammed cartoons are a straightforward example of freedom of expression. Living in a free society means you have the right to offend, and the right to be offended (but not to incite or threaten violence). New mosques and the hijab, on the other hand, are matters of equal treatment and religious freedom. People should be free to pursue their faith as they see fit, so long they don't harm others in the process.
This whole debate is one that liberalism is well equipped to deal with.
At some point someone has tell these politicians to stop. Yet another has been found to be have opened his mouth without thinking when pontificating on football. This time it was Richard Caborn MP, the former Sports Minister and now a possible Ambassador for the 2018 World Cup bid (please, no!) gave his views on wages in football:
I think there ought to be cost controls. Huge television revenues are now washing through into wages and that is something football ought to look at and some of that ought to be invested back into football.
There ought to be a discussion, not just at the English level but at the European level, and that's why the new European white paper and the new treaty changes on sport are important in this area and there ought to be some relationship between income and expenditure.
In simple terms for the former minister: Football clubs take the money coming in and then allocate it as they see fit based on how best to make a profit through the best use of their resources. Players wages are just one small part of it, but they are a reflection of how much the club value the talent at their disposal in the context of the competition around them. Not only do the revenues go on players wages but also on transfer fees, community outreach, fees to the Football Association and assorted other outgoings that are all part of the trickle down in wealth. Of course all this could be cut off at source by the government through taxation on TV revenues at a punitive rate, and thus destroy football as we know it.
A private industry is successful at entertaining people, and they are being rewarded for this and yet this is seen as wrong? When Mr Caborn speaks of, “cost controls” what he actually means is, “the government should legislate and impose a salary cap on the wages of individuals working in the private sector.” The clubs are better able to dispose of their income more wisely than a government minister ever could and they should be able to do so as they please without interference from economically illiterate ministers.
A dusty bandwagon that has been rolling along has recently had the accumulated dust shaken off it by a new person jumping on it. The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown has recently furthered his idea of “British jobs for British workers” by expressing his support of quotas in the Premiership. It is a support offered in the belief that if imposed then the pool of home–grown talent would grow and the English national team would succeed.
This bandwagon was rolled out of the Geneva recently on suggestions by both the President of Uefa and the President of Fifa that the imposition of player quotas would be the best way to revive the talents of home grown players in the face of the influx of cheaper (and in most instances better) foreign imports. (Ed: I think we can all see where this is going). If imposed quotas would be nothing more than a protectionist measure against the failing market that is: the development of quality national football players.
If you examine recent transfer prices of those that are regularly in the English national team (and many who aren’t) you will find that they are exceedingly high, especially when compared to the talent that is available on the Continent. The simple reason for this is that good English players are in short supply (thus high prices), and with a global economy it now means that we can import English speaking foreigners cheaper, and they are usually better football players.
The burden of player quotas on English football would not improve the current situation. That will only be achieved if we allow our children to be free to choose sports at school, and we also allow parents to be free to coach and train them without the heavy hand of the state stopping them for fear of prosecution. Until we have large numbers of quality football players we shall continue to import. If this is stopped through protectionism then we can watch money drain from the game as can the Treasury from its coffers.
Yesterday I held forth at the same dispatch box that cradled the notes and timepieces of great orators like Edmund Burke and brilliant wits like Oscar Wilde. I was at Trinity College Dublin to debate arts subsidies. 
I was just trying to book some last-minute event tickets the other day. It's astonishing just how quickly many big events get sold out, mostly because of the policies of the promoters. Concerts and sports fixtures underprice their tickets in the belief that this makes them more accessible for the 'real fans' or because promoters earn more from sell-outs. So if you don't get in immediately the phone lines open, you've no chance.
Never depend on common sense from politicians; it's not their strength. But in 
It's time to make the Olympics not only profit making but also interesting. Every four years the Olympics rolls into some poor naïve city and proceeds to prove to all and sundry that it wasn't worth the time, the effort, or the money that was spent on it.
It's time to bring this farce to an end. The Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square has been abused, in the supposed name of art, for too long now. November of this year saw the erection of "Model Hotel 2007" (pictured left), by Thomas Schutte, a few sheets of coloured glass, and some metal rods; this replaced the eyesore more commonly known as "Alison Lapper Pregnant" by Marc Quinn. Rather than commissioning any further pieces of artwork the Mayor of London should begin a campaign to raise the statue originally intended for that plinth: King William IV.