I gather the Arts Council was as surprised as the rest of us at the rapid turn-round of the news of how the arts had fared in the Budget, and if what I suspect is true it says a lot for the power of the arts lobby. There was relief all round that the cut which might have been as much as £14m was actually only £4m, less than 1%, and that ACE will not be passing it on to its clients. We all expected that the DCMS would have to absorb its own £20m cut and then work out where the damage would be most felt, a process which, experience tells us, can take a week. But the explanation seems to be that culture secretary Andy Burnham knew that speculation would become rumour would become outrage, and whatever he said then would either be a confirmation of worst fears or a climb-down in the face of a barrage of accusation, so he persuaded the Treasury to let him get this rare piece of good Budget news out to this so-powerful sector before that corrosive process could get started. There was an easier way. He could have just left it on a train.