We walk on to the Millennium Bridge, looking towards St Paul’s. Tate Modern is behind us. “The humanities, the understanding of music, drama, art are things that stay with you for your whole life,” Serota continues. “It’s not just about knowledge – it’s about experience and understanding and feeling. There’s a lot of talk about the fact that you know we need people to be proficient in Stem [science, technology, engineering and maths] subjects, because that’s our future. Actually, our present is that we’re world-renowned in the arts. Wherever you go across Europe and America, people are clamouring for British artists, British performers. It’s a great success story, so we should be backing it.”
