MPs and councillors have joined leading academics, authors and trade union activists in calling on the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition Government to reinstate funding for the People’s History Museum in Manchester and seven other non-national museums.
As part of the coalition’s savage cuts in public spending – which reminds many of those working in the arts of Margaret Thatcher’s philistine and decade-long Kulturkampf against the liberal left in this country – eight “non-national” museums will lose their funding from central government, putting not just their annual operations but their very existence in peril.
The museums on the Government’s “hit list” include the Design Museum at Shad Thames in central London; the Geffrye Museum in Hackney, east London; the Horniman Museum and Gardens in Forest Hill, south-east London; the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester; the National Coal Mining Museum in Wakefield, West Yorkshire; the National Football Museum in Preston and Tyne and Wear Museums in Newcastle as well as the People’s History Museum in Manchester.
In an open letter to David Cameron’s Government, John McDonnell, Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington, Andrew Gwynne, Labour MP for Denton and Reddish, and Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, joined councillors from across the north-west of England, writers and historians in arguing that this cut should be reversed while there is plenty of money for bankers’ bonuses, nuclear weapons and uncollected corporation tax.
Martin Empson of the Manchester Right to Work campaign, who co-ordinated the letter, said: “Museums have historically been places where the poorest in society have been able to educate and inform themselves about their own history. It is particularly ironic that the People’s History Museum, dedicated to the collective struggles of ordinary, working class people, is losing its funding. At a time when we face huge cuts in the welfare state, the lessons of history represented by the People’s History Museum are important for all of us.
“At a time when education is also under attack, institutions like museums have an important role. They cannot be places that are priced out of the reach of ordinary people and must rely on funding from the Government. The response from social historians and authors, as well as trade unionists and politicians, to this announcement shows that the museums under threat are considered to be of national importance. We believe this decision is a mistake.”
