Simon Rattle on arts cuts: ‘The fact that I think they are idiots doesn’t mean it surprises me’

He’s in Australia, talking to Andrew Ford on the ABC:

On politicians who question public funding for the arts: ‘The fact that I think they are idiots doesn’t mean it surprises me. I grew up with a generation of politicians who had a hinterland, who’d been through wartime and realised the value of anything that helps the human spirit. Those were different times…We lose arts and culture at our peril.’

On relative values:  ‘In Germany there has always been the feeling that the arts are absolutely central to everything. England isn’t a particularly rich country but London is one of the wealth centres of the known universe….We all have to fight our corner. With 85 billionaires there, don’t there have to be two or three who have an interest in the arts?’

Listen here.