For those unfamiliar with American folklore, the title is an oblique reference to popular beer commercials whose slogan was ‘And now it’s Miller time’.
Extrapolating ever so slightly, it’s Miller time in British politics, a time when a trendy, empty-headed leftie like the eponymous Maria can sit on the Tory front bench as Her Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.
Moreover, it’s a time when such a post, indeed such a department, should be seen as necessary – in a country that first showed the world how to organise government and now seems hell-bent on showing how not to.
A simple observation will demonstrate that the moment a state decides to govern culture through a specially designated ministry, the national culture takes a precipitous dip.
This is partly a case of post hoc, ergo propter hoc, for the existence of such a post betokens a tyranny, democratic or otherwise, and no form of tyranny is conducive to cultural expression. But in this instance the chicken and the egg exist in a symbiotic relationship.
For example, when the post was instituted in the nascent Soviet Union, Russian culture was in the midst of the so-called Silver Age, glittering with such names as Pasternak, Blok, Soloviov, Florensky, Levitan, Kandinsky, Prokofiev, Akhmatova, Tsvetayeva, Bunin.
Enter the 1917 revolution, and with it the People’s Commissar for Education and Culture Anatoly Lunacharsky. What happened next… well, you know what happened next.
The Nazi revolution also introduced a similar post in 1933, appointing Joseph Goebbels to the task of overseeing culture, mainly seen as an extension of his principal function of Hitler’s chief propagandist.
Germany at the time, and for the previous 250 years, was synonymous with Western music to an extent to which no other country could ever be described as synonymous with any other art.
And what was Germany’s most salient contribution to the world’s musical culture after the appointment? The Horst-Wessel-Lied. Boy, did he ever. A bit of a come-down after Schubert’s and Mahler’s lieder, to say nothing of Bach’s cantatas, wouldn’t you say?
Somehow all those Debussys, Ravels, Célines and Prousts had managed to deliver a reasonable output in France long before 1959, when André Malraux rode his white steed into a newly created post of culture minister. Alas, one struggles to point out the country’s blinding cultural highlights in the subsequent period. Perhaps Messiaen; c’est tout.
Our own culture department is, along with the Maastricht Treaty, John Major’s gift to the nation. Alas, in both instances this is a gift that keeps on giving – cultural subversion in one case, political debauchment in the other.
From 2012 the post of Culture Secretary has been graced by Mrs/Ms Miller and, if she has done anything at all to promote cultural excellence, it has escaped me. Let’s just say that the fruits by which one is supposed to know them are clearly tasteless and arguably poisonous.
Mrs/Ms Miller first caught my attention during last year’s Wimbledon, when she attacked the BBC for its bias. No, not its leftwing bias, which is clearly at odds with the BBC Charter, and shame on you for having thought that. After all, Mrs/Ms Miller is a modern Tory politician.
No, what caused her ire was a few unchivalrous remarks sports presenter John Inverdale saw fit to make about Wimbledon singles champion Marion Bartoli. Clearly this was a cosmic problem requiring cabinet-level involvement.
Immediately afterwards, Mrs/Ms Miller announced she would boycott that year’s British Open which is to golf what Wimbledon is to tennis. Why? Because it was going to be held at Scotland’s Muirfield club that doesn’t admit women.
That club is, of course, a private institution and therefore has as much right not to admit anyone as a member as you have not to invite anyone as a guest. But Mrs/Ms Miller had to justify her existence somehow, as if presiding over the barbarian onslaught on what used to be a great culture wasn’t enough.
Now that she has been caught with her hand in the expenses till, everyone and his brother is clamouring for her dismissal. My point is that she shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
We’ve lost the ability to see the woods of fundamental corruption for the trees of the most trivial kind. Don’t get me wrong: we don’t want expense-cooking cheats as our governors.
But, given the choice, I’d prefer to see fiscal dishonesty rather than a fundamental political, moral and philosophical corruption going by the name of modern British government.
One of its telltale signs is the very existence of Mrs/Ms Miller’s department – and another one is someone like her engaged in any politics above the level of a local PTA.
So yes, by all means it’s Miller-out time. And is it too much to hope that the ensuing vacancy will never be filled?