Disguise art as education and watch the money roll in

Tessa Jowell has found a clever way of getting to the Chancellor's soul and his coffers

Here's a scenario I fantasise might have happened during the public spending negotiations between the Culture Secretary, Tessa Jowell, and the Chancellor, Gordon Brown. The Chancellor might have asked Ms Jowell about Stoppard's new trilogy of plays, about to open at the National Theatre. Ms Jowell could have whipped out a copy of the New Statesman, and said: "Never mind, the plays. Take a look at this."

In the magazine, Stoppard declares that New Labour lacks culture. Due to lack of money, says Sir Tom, "regional theatres can't afford to put on new writing as often as they did... I don't want to be seen as trying to get theatre a bigger slice of the cake. It's about the view of life of those who provide the cake – what a culture or society is trying to be. When you go abroad, you feel that culture is integral, not a little treat for a day off... It comes back to lack of culture. The Government knows that the state of the health service will lose them votes, whereas the state of the arts will not."

Then Tessa would slam the article down on the Treasury table, her piercing blue eyes penetrating Gordon's expressionless defence until he relented, got out the cheque book and eased the travails of regional theatres and galleries.

It's a scenario that won't have happened for two reasons. First, Mr Brown will have made it clear that the priorities this year are health and education and might have hinted, not altogether unreasonably, that the arts recently had a record increase in revenue spending and still reap the benefits from the lottery.

The second reason is that Tessa Jowell doesn't agree with Tom Stoppard anyway. From my recent conversations with her, it is clear that she believes that Labour has done much for the arts, particularly in the area of increasing access for the disadvantaged, with more to come on that front in the autumn. Yes, she wants more money; but her approach is not to argue that we just need art for art's sake, but (hit those government priority buttons) art for education's sake.

Actually, it's a canny way of getting to the Chancellor's soul and, perhaps, his coffers. With her Secretary of State for sport hat on, Ms Jowell has been waging an argument that sport leads to fitness which prevents obesity among the young, and obesity among the young is reaching epidemic proportions. With her arts hat on she argues absolutely correctly that access to art, theatre and music is a vital part of education; and, as with the Baltic centre opening in Gateshead this week, the arts are driving the regeneration of our cities. You have to hand it to her. She is hitting all the government priorities with a portfolio that the Labour leadership rarely even mentions. Does anyone remember a press conference from the leadership on arts and culture in the last election campaign?

Tessa Jowell is an astute politician; if selling the arts as a feeder for education and regeneration is her best bet of getting more money, then that is what she must do. But it doesn't make Tom Stoppard wrong.

*An unusual press release arrives from the Royal Shakespeare Company. Unusual, because it says that the RSC associate director Greg Doran confirms he is on the shortlist to be artistic director; and candidates don't often give that confirmation. Unusual, too, because Mr Doran also wishes to point out that his is a solo application, not a joint application on behalf of himself and his partner, the actor Sir Antony Sher. The Observer had reported that theirs was a joint application. In that inaccuracy, The Observer mirrored theatrical gossip, which believes that Mr Doran's partner would have an input into the RSC's output. I wonder why there should be such a belief. No one has claimed that the National Theatre actress Imogen Stubbs influences the views of her husband Trevor Nunn, the NT artistic director. No one asserts that the former RSC actress Joanne Pearce has influenced her husband Adrian Noble in his running of the company. Why should it be any more likely with a gay couple? Sexism is presumably the wrong word for these insinuations; but there is some odd prejudice at work.

*When Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones died in 1969, the vicar at his Gloucestershire church said that Jones had lived a lifestyle of which the parish could not approve. This week the vicar at the Gloucestershire funeral of the Who's John Entwistle alluded to another deceased band member, Keith Moon, and said that Entwistle was now "reunited with Keith up there, making great music". Have the wild men of rock become tamer over the years, or have West Country vicars become decidedly more right on?

*Vanessa Redgrave claims in an interview in this paper that she would have difficulties in becoming a Dame. "My difficulty is in receiving anything that says British Empire, because I am a Unicef special representative at the service of children from any country," she said. I hope she will not feel obliged to return her CBE.

d.lister@independent.co.uk