The veteran novelist Doris Lessing yesterday joined the literary assault on the "philistinism" of the prime minister by comparing him to Robert Mugabe.
Lessing, 80, the writer of the Good Terrorist and The Golden Notebook, claimed Tony Blair and New Labour played the "class card" by bashing so-called cultural elites every time it got in trouble in the same way the Zimbabwean prime minister played the race card.
The criticism, from a woman who was made a Companion of Honour by Labour, is if anything more wounding than the blistering attack on Mr Blair and his methods by the novelist VS Naipaul earlier this week, who accused him of being a pirate at the head of a socialist revolution which is "destroying the idea of civilisation in this country".
Naipaul, 68, who has made no secret of his distaste for what he sees as a trend for dumbing down in public life, said: "Every day you hear on the radio some minister from this appalling government saying something about things no longer being for the privileged few ... It is terrible, this plebeian culture that celebrates itself for being plebeian."
Although Lessing distanced herself from Naipaul's wilder comments, she told Radio 4's Today programme that she too was alarmed by this "very philistine" government's tendency to rubbish high culture. However, she believes the real damage to the arts, libraries and universities was done under the Thatcher governments.
Their worries echo the dogged criticism of government arts policy from the theatre director Sir Peter Hall, who formed a shadow arts council two years ago to monitor New Labour's "hollow anti-elitism for the sake of it". Although this has since petered out, the resentment in some quarters which it represented has not. Only this week there was disquiet about the composition of London mayor Ken Livingstone's new cultural strategy group, which although it contains a magician, had no room for a representative of "serious music and opera".
The arts minister, Alan Howarth, strongly rejected the claims of philistinism and said both Lessing and Naipaul were confused about the nature of the government's anti-elitism. "It is surprising that such a distinguished man of letters as VS Naipaul should fall into that trap. This government is unapologetically elitist in the sense of supporting cultural excellence. Equally, we are unapologetically anti-elitist in our commitment to create opportunities, to widen access to the widest range of people to enjoy cultural excellence."
He claimed there was an "element of ritual" in Hall's denunciations. "We usually get this sometime around the time of the summer solstice."
He said the arts had got their best-ever funding settlement in the last spending review.
