The line graph compares the proportion of adults taking part in three leisure activities — going to the cinema, reading books and playing video games — in one country over a thirty-year period from 1990 to 2020.

Overall, participation in cinema-going and video gaming rose steadily throughout the period, whereas book reading declined. By the end, the activity that had once been least popular, video gaming, had overtaken reading.

In 1990, reading was clearly the most common pastime, practised by 60% of adults, while gaming was negligible at just 5%. Over the following three decades, however, reading fell consistently, dropping to 50% in 2000 and then to 38% by 2020. Gaming moved in the opposite direction, climbing to 18% in 2000 and reaching 50% by 2020, so that it finished well ahead of reading.

Cinema-going also increased markedly, more than doubling from 20% in 1990 to 55% in 2020, at which point it was the single most popular of the three activities. The gap between the rising and falling trends therefore widened sharply across the period.

It is sometimes argued that public money is better spent on essential services like healthcare and education than on the arts. While I accept that basic services must come first, I disagree with the view that the arts therefore deserve no public funding at all.

There is an obvious force to the argument for prioritising hospitals and schools. These services meet fundamental human needs: without adequate medical care people suffer and die, and without good schools a country cannot develop the skilled workforce its economy requires. When budgets are limited, as they always are, it would clearly be wrong to fund an orchestra while patients waited months for treatment. In this narrow sense, the priority is not in doubt.

However, to conclude from this that the arts should receive nothing is, in my view, a mistake. Music, painting and theatre are not mere luxuries; they enrich people's lives, preserve a nation's culture and identity, and are enjoyed by millions. The arts also make a real economic contribution, attracting tourists and supporting large numbers of jobs, so the spending is not simply money lost. Moreover, much cultural life would collapse without public support, since many valuable projects can never be profitable on their own.

The sensible position, then, is not to choose one over the other but to fund both in proportion. Governments should certainly guarantee healthcare and education first, but a modest, well-managed level of arts funding costs relatively little and brings benefits that a purely practical view overlooks. A society that meets its physical needs while neglecting its cultural life is, ultimately, a poorer one.