I do not see how the arts in the United Kingdom could be given tax advantages that were unavailable to other types of charitable activity. The changes which Hague announced yesterday are a necessary but not a sufficient condition of a recovery which cannot yet be guaranteed. But it may also be that - this time by example - Labour's modernisation will in turn, and in time, help to save Conservatism from itself.. This newspaper's campaign to persuade the Chancellor of the Exchequer to reform the tax system along American lines and thus "Save the Arts" has got off to a good start. The letters in support are developing the argument and identifying key issues. Daily newspapers can indeed work with their readers to change government policy. It is important to see clearly what the American system comprises.
The US government itself gives little directly to theatre companies, orchestras, museums and the like; instead they are supported by individual donations which, up to very high limits, qualify for tax relief. In effect the government helps the arts by providing donors with a tax deduction. There is a further point about the American example that its British supporters need to take on board - it is not confined to donations for the arts Any giving to any charity qualifies for tax relief This must be correct. And it's a sign of the cultural resistance to internal democracy in the Tory party that the survey exposed only limited demand for it. But the Labour attack neatly glosses over the fact that both the NEC and the party conference are becoming, by Tony Blair's explicit design, less rather than more influential in the formulation of policy. There is another reason, too, why Labour may seek to mute its criticism of Hague's new proposals: by avoiding a complex and inherently unstable electoral college for the party leadership elections, Hague has been able to boast that the electoral system will genuinely be one member one vote. One effect of Hague's changes will be to make, once again, the institutional influence of the unions in the Labour Party an issue of public debate.It used to be said that Margaret Thatcher's reforms - particularly, but not only, those which democratised the trade unions - helped to save the Labour Party from itself.
Labour's, by contrast, still includes a 33.3 per cent share of the vote in leadership elections for the trade unions. The plebiscite on the manifesto will be, like Labour's, a demand by the leadership for endorsement by acclaim from a wider membership of proposals over which it has had only the most limited influence. (Given the vociferousness of the pro-EMU minority in the party, it may actually be a rather livelier affair than Labour's was before the 1997 election.) Democratic centralism lives too, in a practical and little noticed proposal designed to ensure that wholly unsuitable candidates are not picked by local parties in by-elections. Just as the Labour NEC can impose shortlists, so Conservative Central Office will now provide - for the first time - a list of selected candidates from which local parties have to choose.
