“The arts need to prepare for the fightback now. The cuts have been so long heralded that they have taken on a patina of inevitability. In fact much can change, even during this parliament. Many councils will change colour, returning power to the party which imaginatively transformed declining post-industrial cities through cultural development in the last hard times. Meanwhile any potential post-2015 government will need to be pressed to see this retrenchment as reversible.”