There’s a cultural crisis in Scotland. Funding for culture is down, and there seems to be little commitment on the part of the government to make culture a priority. “The Executive responds by arguing that it needs to concentrate on health and education. The urge to fund anything cultural has been sapped by the overspend on the parliament building, heralding in an almost Covenanter-like distrust of frivolity.” Scottish arts are healthy now. But does the Scottish Executive plan to “starve Scotland back into the cultural night that preceded the Act of Union – and what an irony that would be.”