ACE Funding Update (a.k.a. My Recent Obsession)

Finally, there’s some good news for the organizations at risk of losing their Arts Council England funding. According to this article, the Arts Council is reconsidering its funding cuts:

The Arts Council has been forced into a partial climbdown to reprieve about 25 of the theatres, orchestras and dance groups whose grants it had threatened to scrap. [. . .]

Two specialist publishers that translate foreign works into English, Dedalus and Arcadia, are also likely to be spared . . .

The absolute best part of this is the reason why Sir Christopher Frayling reconsidered—“It is not the decibel count which has influenced us, but reasoned argument.”

So not only did complaining about how organizations were treated actually work, but someone affiliated with a government admitted to being swayed by “reasoned argument”! You Brits are so funny and polite . . .

Frayling now accepts it was a mistake of the council not to publish a list of the 194 organisations whose grants were to be removed. It was left to them to go public or contact media outlets.

Doesn’t he know that admitting a mistake is a sign of weakness. . . .