Bad politics is shrinking our lives

Another European election, another culture-free zone.

I am not talking only about the rhetorical drabness, the dearth of poetry, or often of anything resembling genuine human speech, the colourlessness that has characterised the UK general election campaign.

I mean that I can barely recall a single significant mention of culture or the arts by any of the party leaders. True, Ed Miliband did deliver a speech in February announcing that schools would be pressured to offer creative subjects and made to appoint local "culture champions".

He went so far as to insist that Labour would put the arts "at the heart" of his government

if he wins on 7 May.

The Conservatives responded by accusing Labour of promising money they didn't have. The subject was dropped. Culture has not figured at all in the live TV debates. If there are mentions of culture in party manifestos, they tend to come quite a long way behind commitments to tackle the deficit or restore the NHS. Miliband has said that, if elected, he will convene a Prime Minister's Committee on the Arts, Culture and the Creative Industries. It will be something of a miracle if this body can save all but the most prestigious arts institutions from what most see as inevitable cuts.

All this is entirely predictable, even normal – of course voters don't care about culture – but also tragically short-sighted. Let me attempt to correct the culture deficit.

Culture and the arts are grotesquely undervalued as an economic, social and spiritual factor in people's lives, and in the life of the people. The recent report from the Warwick Commission, Enriching Britain: Culture, Creativity and Growth, attempted to express this in the language of economics. The "creative industries" – I must say I prefer the old term "the arts" – account for up to 10% of the British economy. They are an economic success story, employing 1.7 million people and growing at nearly 10% in 2013. They enhance the UK's place in the world and are a hugely significant part of its appeal to visitors. Yet they receive a relative pittance in terms of public subvention, amounting to 0.3% of total public expenditure.

"We must begin to care about, understand and invest in our cultural assets," say the Commissioners with eminent good sense, "in the same way that we value and plan for health, education and welfare."

All this is true but does not go far enough. The trouble with justifying the arts in terms of their economic contribution is that they become, in theory at least, replaceable. If what matters is economic performance, it does not matter how it is achieved.

The value of the arts is clearly more than economic. The social and health benefits of the arts are also stressed by the Warwick Commissioners. The arts help to build community and identity and to enable people to "develop rich expressive lives".

All true again, but that still makes the arts a means to an end. How about this: the arts matter because they remind us of something we seem to keep forgetting, what it is to be truly and deeply human. They remind us that we have hidden depths, that we are not robots or adjuncts to computer terminals or infinitely biddable servants of the global economy. They remind of us of the world of the imagination and allow us to dream of better worlds; they offer a perpetual rebuke to the late Baroness Thatcher's grim insistence that "there is no alternative".

Europe rightly prides itself on its culture. Europe's great museums, auditoria, theatre, opera and ballet companies, orchestras, musicians, artists, novelists and poets, are our greatest ambassadors; it is no exaggeration to say that they are the envy of the world – why else would they be so widely emulated?

Culture is the flower of our living, the expression of our flourishing. All is built on toil and trade, but who would remember the economic success of the Athenians if they had raised no temples and staged no plays?

Or as a contemporary Athenian, the violinist Leonidas Kavakos, recently said: "If there is something which really makes us rich, it is culture, not money."