For the first 10 months of 2022, it seemed that British musical life was returning to some kind of normality. But that was to reckon without the decisions of the one organisation in this country whose sole reason for existence is to nurture and encourage the arts throughout England.

It was generally accepted that there would be cuts when Arts Council England announced its next round of funding, but no one could have imagined that those cuts would be imposed in such an arbitrary and, in some cases, seemingly spiteful way. The root-and-branch destruction of English National Opera has inevitably attracted most attention – the suggestion the company might move to Manchester was quickly seen as the red herring it so obviously was, while the justifications offered by Arts Council apparatchiks have been specious. But however shocked anyone was by the decision, they can hardly have been surprised.