对英格兰艺术委员会（Arts Council England, ACE）新任主席的采访中，她表示希望该机构能够“重拾昔日的辉煌与自信”；然而这种观点实际上是对英格兰文化体系所面临危机的错误诊断。真正缺失的并不是“自信”，而是反省、诚实以及结构性改革。
The interview with the new chair of Arts Council England (ACE), who says she wants the organisation to “get its swagger back”, misdiagnoses the crisis facing England’s cultural system Swagger is not what is missing. What is required is contrition, honesty and structural reform.
自成立以来已有八十年时间，英格兰艺术委员会依然沿用着1946年制定的运作模式——该模式偏袒歌剧和古典艺术形式，却系统性地忽视了爵士乐、民间艺术、世界音乐、铜管乐器演奏、合唱艺术以及基层文化艺术的发展。问题并不在于机构缺乏信心或活力，而在于其内部结构的严重失衡。
Eighty years after its creation, Arts Council England remains built on a 1946 architecture that privileges opera and classical institutions while systematically marginalising jazz, folk, world, brass, choral and grassroots arts and music. This is not a matter of confidence or energy; it is a matter of structural imbalance.
玛格丽特·霍奇（Margaret Hodge）在2025年发布的《英格兰爵士乐现状评估报告》，以及英格兰艺术委员会与数字、文化、媒体和体育部（Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport）在2026年发布的回应文件，都指出了官僚主义、相互不信任以及决策机制的混乱等问题；但这些报告并未深入探讨更根本性的缺陷：例如彩票资金的滥用、国家级文化机构的垄断地位、地区间的发展不平衡、治理结构的透明度不足，以及基层文化艺术基础设施的严重衰退。这些问题早已存在，历次评估都揭示了同样的问题：英格兰艺术委员会的集中式管理模式不仅延续了历史上的不公平现象，反而抑制了当代文化艺术的发展。
The Review of Jazz in England Margaret Hodge’s review (2025), and ACE/Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s 2026 responses all identify bureaucracy, mistrust and inconsistent decision‑making – yet none confront the deeper failures: lottery funding misuse, national portfolio organisation dominance, regional inequity, governance opacity, and the collapse of grassroots infrastructure. These problems are not recent. Every major review confirms the same pattern: ACE’s centralised model reproduces historical privilege and suppresses contemporary cultural practice. International evidence shows that modern cultural systems – in Scandinavia, Ireland and Australia – are built on devolved delivery, direct investment in artists, touring infrastructure, and integrated cultural‑education policy.
国际经验表明，斯堪的纳维亚、爱尔兰和澳大利亚等国家的现代文化体系都是建立在权力下放、对艺术家的直接投资、完善的巡演基础设施，以及文化与教育政策的紧密结合基础之上的。而英格兰却缺乏这些关键要素。英格兰艺术委员会现有的运作模式既无法实现政府的文化发展目标，也无法支持地方文化事业的发展，更无法充分发挥基层文化艺术的巨大潜力。
England has none of these. ACE’s legacy architecture cannot deliver the government’s growth agenda, cannot support regional cultural economies, and cannot unlock the high‑growth potential of grassroots arts and music. What is needed now is not swagger but a new organisation.
如今所需要的，不是“自信”，而是一个全新的、能够有效推动文化发展的组织架构。
I propose a dual‑pillar system that safeguards national institutions while establishing a dedicated body for grassroots arts and music, with transparent allocation formulas, restored lottery funding, art form‑specific policy and a national touring infrastructure. Swagger will not fix England’s cultural system. Structural reform will.
我主张建立一套双支柱体系，在保障国家机构的同时，成立专门的基层艺术与音乐机构，采用透明的资金分配公式，恢复彩票资助，制定针对不同艺术门类的政策，并建设全国巡演基础设施。虚张声势无法修复英格兰的文化体系，结构性改革可以。克里斯·霍奇金斯，伦敦伊灵
I propose a dual‑pillar system that safeguards national institutions while establishing a dedicated body for grassroots arts and music, with transparent allocation formulas, restored lottery funding, art form‑specific policy and a national touring infrastructure. Swagger will not fix England’s cultural system. Structural reform will. Chris Hodgkins Ealing, London