Richard Spring MP
Member of Parliament for West Suffolk

At Tate Britain there are two magnificent exhibitions. David Hockney has selected a huge number of his favourite watercolours and oils by JMW Turner, whose work is of breathtaking beauty. I have a small collection of watercolours by the exotically named Hercules Brabazon Brabazon, who sailed the Mediterranean on a steam yacht, and was once known by some as the poor man’s Turner at the turn of the last century. There are definitely echoes of Turner’s work, I like to believe!

Equally a magnificent collection of paintings by the pre-Raphaelite Sir John Millais, with a range of paintings from Highland scenes, to portraits and medieval depictions.

Long after politicians have made their last speech, paintings of this quality live on to be appreciated by generation after generation.

The Arts Council has a new objective - the pursuit of excellence. This apparently means culling some 200 organisations. I am getting furious letters from constituents about this, suggesting that it is yet another manifestation of an urban-obsessed government. Of course our major collections are in our big cities, and London in particular, but there is a thriving artistic and theartrical  tradition in East Anglia.

The Arts Council is now under fire from leading actors and others. My advice to the Government is - be very careful indeed. Those in the arts may be small in numbers but they are very vocal and passionate advocates.

Raids on the National Lottery to carry out core government functions is bad enough, but oh dear, this will be cause an earthquake. Small and regional theatres are deeply loved outside London.

The Arts Council boasts that it works to get more art to more people in more places. They might wish to consider re-writing their mission statement. 

Art and beauty don’t usually appear in the same sentence as corporate and funds. Many see them as two distinct and irreconcilable spheres.

Much has changed, however, in recent times. Modern art is now very much a thriving business thanks, in some part, to the partnerships which fostered during the Nineties between artists such as Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and other Young British Artists and shrewd business-minded gallery owners and dealers such as Charles Saatchi and Jay Jopling. Evidence that this particular art bubble is very far from bursting was shown this week when Lucien Freud became the world’s most expensive living artist selling his portrait of his friend Bruce Bernard for £7.62 million. This record only lasted a single day until Damien Hirst sold his Lullaby Spring pill cabinet for £9.6 million at Sotheby’s.

Taken in context with the prices achieved this year for legendary names such as Warhol, Rothko and Bacon, and I am sure many investment funds that focus on art as a commodity will rubbing their hands with glee. At the end of May there was a conference at the London Business School devoted to treating art as a serious alternative investment option and highlighting its strong performance in recent years. Yet those who have invested will almost certainly bear in mind the sharp correction that came at the end of the dotcom boom. The question is – will they diversify at the right time or leave it one auction too late? Perhaps there will never be a real answer!

President Kennedy’s father Joe was a hugely successful investor.He once observed that in getting in and out of the stock market the final 10% up or down should be left to somebody else.

Most press attention has been devoted to the soaring cost of property. The London stock market is now quite close, however, to its all time high, and New York is now well above its all time high. However these pale into insignificance compared with many other stock markets, notably China.

The world is awash with liquidity which has driven up property prices, stock markets, and the art market. A sale at Christies in New York last week of modern art yielded an astronomical $354.6 million, largely on the back of Russian buying. Significantly, auction prices were for the first time displayed in roubles, and no doubt will be in the Chinese yuan before long.

Anthony Bolton, London’s most successful investment fund manager, warned against all this excess in his retirement speech last week. The securitisation of borrowing means that the normal direct relationship between a lending institution and a borrower has been lost, and private equity deals can fuel the market without the normal restraints.

Growth in the British economy has been largely driven by the consumer, on the back of rising asset prices. Any reversal would create a significant problem for any Chancellor of the Exchequer in the future.