The resigners allege that the Council is being run on business lines and that the government is more interested in hob-nobbing with pop stars than it is in the high arts. It is important to be sceptical whenever you are confronted with a tale of decline. For some people, every democratic change implies a vulgarisation. No doubt to certain members of the landed gentry it seems like a backward step that scullery maids have got the vote. Seen in the round it is clear that doom-laden tales of what Saul Bellow called a 'moronic inferno' of popular culture are unfounded.
Literacy rates continue to rise and fewer people leave school without qualifications.
There is without doubt a degree of snobbery in the idea that Britain is dumbing down. The flamboyant retreat of the Arts Council members and the Dome's creative director are largely pique. The members of the Arts Council panels have been complaining about government support for the arts for as long as there has been an Arts Council - and rarely with less justification than today. For all the wining and dining of pop stars at Number 10, the high arts are booming, and have been for more than a decade. The art market is awash with cash, with the money that business has been failing to invest in new industry, in fact.