The only governing party with a coherent vision on culture is the PVV, reports the Green Left at the Paradiso Debate.

Sound recording available to listen to here!

You will hear successively Axel Rüger, director of the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, responding to the assertion made by VVD member Mark Harbers that the art world is not entrepreneurial enough. This is followed by responses from former CDA culture spokesperson Nicolien van Vroonhoven (consistently called Nicolien van Vroemhoven by presenter Twan Huys) and former NNT actor Boris van der Ham, now culture spokesperson for D66. This is followed by an impassioned speech by Mariko Peters of the Green Left, who delicately reminds that the only negotiating party with a vision on culture is the PVV, to which the VVD reports that subsidies should go to institutions that manage to attract large audiences, and not to clubs that do not (yet) achieve that.

Good: 200 million it is going to be, if it is up to the VVD. Almost a quarter of the total art budget has to be cut, and the art world doesn't like that. As the VVD said through spokesperson Mark Harbers, we should look for that money mainly in more expensive ticket sales and the elimination of 2 orchestras. However, when we set this figure of almost 25% against what the cheese slicer of 18 billion in cuts would cost other sectors, namely 8%, the art world's excitement is somewhat justified.

Something's a bit off. Only, as Kunsten '92 chairman and culture bobo Ad 's Gravesande put it in his opening speech of the Paradiso debate on 29 August 2010, it looks more like a reckoning. The PVV, through Geert Wilders, has opened the attack on 'the' elite and any resistance is futile in advance. And Paradiso is unmistakably within the ring of canals that the populists are aiming their arrows at.

So now then, rarely was the cultural sector's traditional Uitmarkt debate in Paradiso as lively as on this Sunday, although this time most of the unrest took place between the discussants, and not between hall and stage. That hall kept remarkably quiet, and perhaps that was because the art world has now understood that complaining about lack of money is no longer quite 'in', anno 2010.

We covered the case on twitter and we recommend everyone to start a search for '#paradisodebat' in their twitter program to see the live broadcast details of the spectacle once again.

We have here, for your learning and entertainment, another audio clip of the debate's conclusion. You will hear Axel Rüger, director of the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, responding to VVD member Mark Harbers' assertion that the art world is not entrepreneurial enough. This was followed by responses from former CDA culture spokesperson Nicolien van Vroonhoven (consistently called Nicolien van Vroemhoven by presenter Twan Huys) and former NNT actor Boris van der Ham, now culture spokesperson for D66. This was followed by an impassioned plea from Mariko Peters of the Green Left, who delicately recalled that the only negotiating party with a vision on culture is the PVV, to which the VVD reported that subsidies should go to institutions that know how to attract large audiences, and not to clubs that do not (yet) achieve that.

After which our southern neighbours, through RphO director Hans Waege, sprinkle some salt in the cultural wound: art subsidies are not up for discussion in Flanders, because they preserve the Flemish language and culture, including in the high arts. And so the discussion in The Hague, in that "deep darkness", as Van Vroonhoeven described it, should actually be about that phrase after that Flemish comma.