Secularism and Sikh daggers
Following the form Jako established in his “Complaint to Dave of Though Cowards Flinch” article, I must now pen my own Complaint to CaptainJako of Frank Owen’s Paintbrush Collective.
The issue at stake is secularism, particularly in the case of the young Sikh boy who has been excluded from school as a result of refusing to leave his Sikh ceremonial dagger, called a kirpan, at home.
It also concerns a judge who spoke out on the subject, to defend the boy (though far from unequivocally, going by his appearance on Radio 4’s Today show this morning).
Jako has this to say:
“Insisting that Sikhs should have the right to walk around with their ceremonial daggers – even in schools – certainly suggests the man is possessed by a religious arrogance of such massive proportions that there isn’t room for any other considerations.
“Pity the BBC Asian Network didn’t bother finding an opposing point of view. I’m sure there’s a sensible Sikh out there willing to say that some of the more eccentric teachings of their faith should not be given privilege over the law of the land (and of course basic common sense).
“Failing this, a secularist organisation would have been happy to point out that allowing children to take knives to school is ridiculous.”
I disagree. There are several counter-arguments to make.
First, since Jako brings up secularism, that principle – which I hold dear – is simply the notion that government should not respect any one religion over the others or over agnoticism and atheism. It is the view that the State should not attempt to impose moral values on us.
This principle is not at stake in this case. Quite the opposite. Thinking secularists would surely defend the right of anyone to do anything, provided that it was unlikely to result in harm or the coercion of any individual.
When Jako claims that ‘the more eccentic teachings of their faith should not be given privilege over the law of the land” I am at a loss to explain such anti-religious nonsense, a parody, almost, of real secularism. Just because something is a law does not justify it.
If we take the incident of the Sikh girl and her kara from a few years back, where no health and safety issues were at stake, the courts quite rightly ruled that to exclude her for wearing something so connected to her beliefs was discriminatory. So the law is not so uncomplicated as Jako thinks anyway.
In this vein, it is my thinking that rather than call out anyone who defends the right of the religious to make use of the articles of their faith that are important to them, we secularists should be asking the religious to extend their support to those of us with similarly strong beliefs, outside the field of religion.
For example, at my school, I was regularly denounced for wearing a lapel pin depicting a red star and hammer and sickle. Freedom of expression is important – and it would contravene the principles of secularism to apply it merely to religion rather than to other fields. So if we want to level the playing field, let’s support the right of the religious to wear their symbols, and the right of everyone else to wear theirs too.
Second, undeniably there is a question of health and safety when someone wears a dagger to school. Presumably, of course, the dagger doesn’t contravene legislation on the carrying of knives, isn’t sharp and can be worn out of reach, under the clothes. And if not, then there is room for compromise. A smaller dagger, perhaps, unsharpened. It’s already encased in wood.
I see no reason to jump straight to denunciation before all the relevant information is to hand.
Finally, why such strident denunciation of the judge for saying that he believes the child should be permitted to wear the Sikh dagger? It’s not religious arrogance to say so. If we reduce things to competing rights, the right to follow the commandments of one’s religion or ethical and moral code, does not in this case infringe anyone else’s rights. So it is the trump card surely?
Attitudes such as Jako expresses bring no benefits to secularism as a cause, and can cause an impulsive reaction against secularism on the part of the religious. If we’re not to drive them into the arms of the Melanie Phillips of the world, a little tolerance might be called for, along with the recognition that there are some spheres in which the role of the State should be to defend expression – of all forms of it.
(More information over at Left Foot Forward)
QE poetry competition announced
Giles has a quite brilliant poem about Quantitative Easing and continued constraints on lending. This is quite a feat. Go read it.
Here’s is my paltry effort.
There’s this bloke who runs England’s Bank.
He saw the economy starting to tank.
So he doled out more dosh
To those already awash.
And they used it to maintain their rank.
Competition closes mindnight tonight. Prizes to be decided by me. Giles’s will be hard to beat, mind.
MP expenses and MP selection: the missing link
Phil at A Very Public Sociologist has been asking what we should do about MP’s expenses, and Neil at Liberal Conspiracy (and Bleeding Heart Show) has been saying Labour in Liverpool might be in for a right good kicking for not selecting a local candidate.
There’s a connection here, and I’m damn well going to find it if you bear with me.
Phil first. Quite rightly, he says:
But for any improved system to work, it’s not enough to engineer better constitutional arrangements. Politics needs to re-engage the millions of people who’ve been alienated from it these last 20 years. It’s not a matter of educating the electorate or forcing citizenship classes on school kids. Parties need to eat humble pie and listen to the real problems of ‘real’ people, and pay big business and the mythological ‘Middle England’ less mind.
Yup, there’s the connection with Neil. Getting the expenses issues sorted is all about parties, and what they do in selecting candidates and then holding them to account as their local representatives and delegates to parliament.
The radical constitutional answer to the whole question of MP’s remuneration (salary and expenses) is, as simply as I can put it, to gather up all the money currently spent – salaries, expenses, constituency costs, the lot – into one big pot. Then dole it all out to local parties represented in parliament on the basis of the more members a local party has, the greater the percentage of the total pot that local party gets.
There are two big wins here. First local parties get a greater say in their MP’s programme. Second, the incentive for the party to recruit is matched directly to an increased reason for individuals to join the party.
That’s the simple version. It’s written up in more detail here at Left Foot Forward’s Progressive Manifesto slot, and if you really want to vote for it as the best progressive idea presented to LFF, which it is by miles, you can.
But will this be accepted by parliament, under whichever party’s control, as a radically effective way of both cleaning up parliament by making MP’s more directly accountable to the people who select them to stand, and re-energising local democracy?
Will it buggery.
There’s a near total antipathy to ‘party politics’ such that this solution would be difficult to ’sell’ to a wider electorate, whatever the assurances about overall spending.
Even more importantly, MPs simply wouldn’t vote for what many of them would find utterly objectionable – answering to their members in any meaningful sense. That’s not a criticism of MPs, merely a statement of the reality that most MPs are treated and expect to be treated like demi-gods by their local parties, with this culture fostered by a wholly compliant national and regional party organisation. There will be no radical constitutional change of this nature until we have enough constitutionally radical MPs who are bound by their local mandates to push it through.
In the case of the Labour party (and I don’t care about other parties), a change to this culture can only be brought about within the party itself.
That’s why I advocate (and will continue to do so through my LRC membership in particular) the strategy of national disaffiliation and local re-affiliation by trade unions; this is the way to shift the culture of PLP domination of the party quickly and effectively (see also Adam at The Day Today on trade union links).
But breaking a culture of unnecessary deference within the Labour party is only the first part of what needs to be done. A new culture of pro-active local policy making and party organisation needs to follow in its wake.
In part, this will come necessarily with the extra resources directed locally. There will need to be plans on how to spend the money and local parties will face a challenge getting their act together. Early on, there will be cock-ups, I have no doubt.
But perhaps the most essential part will come in the development of a new relationship between MP-as-delegate and local party, and this will need to be a key aspect of every selection process.
At the moment, party members involved in selection l0ok for some key things in those they are grilling, and these tend to be focused on their beliefs, but more particularly their oratory and ‘charm level’, linked to the level of personal clout that might be expected on behalf of the local area.
Outside party influences aside, that is often why local candidates can be overlooked in favour of the ‘names’ from the metropolitan, think-tank, professional political elite; looking and sounding good, knowing their lines, knowing which buttons to press, is what they’re trained at. As Neil is keen to point out in the Liverpool Wavertree case, that not a criticism. It’s just the way it is.
Local parties need to select with different things in mind. They need, in many ways, to take on the same role as a board of charity trustees, or a school governing body, takes on when it interviews and appoints a chief executive, a headteacher, or perhaps even more aptly, a project manager.
There needs to be a job description and a person specification focused on what they have identified as the key tasks and challenges for the next four years, both locally and in terms of the national party. The focus needs to be less on charm, more on organisational skills and experience. Oratory should be in the ‘desirable’ column of the person specification; ‘ability to manage resources to time and budget’ should be in the essential column.
This will favour local candidates, who will understand what resources are available, in the context of the task set for them by their ‘trustees’. It will also favour working class organisers.
When I was last involved in a selection process, I had one question for each candidate. It wasn’t about their beliefs – they are important but I felt I should have seen those evidenced on the application form. It was about organisation of the constituency office and how this could be done to maximum effect.
This question totally non-plussed several of the candidates, who waffled. I gave my vote to the one who answered best – the one whom I thought best understood her/his role as senior officer to my party, rather than as my boss.
Neil is right. Local parties need to get their act together, but it must happen in the context of a party-wide realisation of how badly wrong we’ve gone with our idolisation of the PLP.
As part of that, local parties will set their MP’s terms and conditions as part of getting the right person for the job.
Of course, if those MPs want to join a union and bargain collectively, all well and good. We welcome engagement with the real world.
Told you so
I quite enjoyed this little turnaround.
Dave Semple (November 2009):
Power 2010 doesn’t give people any more power than they already have. In fact it still relies upon the consent of the political class and the co-operation of the mass media in order to achieve its objectives or even present itself forcefully…….Labour or Tory could simply ignore the motion, bury it under new legislation and then blatantly fib about it, or admit their failure to meet targets as soon as no one is looking.
Guy Aitchison of Power 2010 (Feb 2010):
With the general election in sight and power within his grasp, he [Cameron] has decided to stick to this formula promising vague and cosmetic changes alongside a few populist reforms that will do nothing to address the fundamental imbalances of power in our society.
It looks like the long debates we have here and here didn’t go entirely to waste, then.
Well done, Guy, on remembering what we talked about.
Stunning Republican attack on poor people
Former US congressman, Tom Tancredo, spoke on Thursday evening at a Tea Party meeting. The Tea Party groups, which we’ve discussed on this blog before, are supposed grassroots supporters of the view that Obama is a socialist and this his massive programme of deficit spending to bail out the US economy is on a par with the measures of Stalin and Hitler. Nuanced stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Speaking to six hundred delegates of what is supposedly the first national Tea Party conference, Tancredo declared his belief that “Barack Hussein Obama” (repeat foreign-sounding middle name ad nauseam) was elected because “we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.” A lot of commentators have since dwelled on how this echoes the Jim Crow laws which prevented black people voting.
The significance of this should not be lost, in a country which elected a black president. Nevertheless, I think it’s counterproductive to concentrate exclusively on the racial aspect. It is, in fact, an attack on all poor people, of all colours. Whilst black and latino people, and single mothers, are still disproportionately poor according to the last census, the connection of poverty to education is undeniable and transcends race and gender.
American socialists and Democrats should be hammering this message home, as it completely undermines the pretensions of the batshit crazy Tea Party movement to stick up for normal Americans, using rhetoric that portrays Americans as crushed under the jackboot of income tax. It offers the opportunity for radical socialists particularly to escape from the caricature of being addled Ivy League professors.
The Left has confidence in Americans to make up their own mind, without asserting prior conditions before they can have a vote. Moreover, through massive funding of the public school system and full democratic engagement with school boards, it’s the Left which has an answer to the problems of education and poverty.
Meanwhile a genuinely progressive coalition would give substance to our claims of defending the US working class by boosting redistribution – directly and through additional funds for areas of high poverty. Abolishing income tax and FICA tax for those earning under $30,000 and recouping the money through much more stringent corporate taxes, reversing the Bush-era tax cuts and then some, would be a start.
As someone once said, “Let’s hear that dirty word now…SOCIALISM!”
Young Fabians and the new Just War
I was quite perplexed to read an article from the Young Fabians the other day, which was supposed to outline the reasons fellow Fabians should support Tony Blair for his actions in Iraq. Instead of leaving the impression of a strong case for his defence, I was left rather confused, mainly at what seemed to be a list of questions (for all those lunatics who didn’t support the war), questions I would like to try and answer. The arguments used, seemed to me, to embody common tactics used by those who wish to justify the actions of Blair and Bush. The raison d’etre is usually to paint those voicing dissent as enemies of freedom, de facto supporters of a tyrannical dictator and of the continued oppression of an entire people. Liberal pacifists who are perfectly happy to defend their own freedoms but not so willing to support the same freedoms of those in far away lands.
There was a familiar methodology present here, employed during previous arguments on the subject. That is the distortion of the various, often complex, legal arguments involved. This usually results in vital questions being left unasked, instead following a line of questioning that can justify the pre prepared conclusion of the author. My main question in approach to this topic would be, how do we determine whether the invasion was justified? Are we essentially discussing a question of legality? Is it an issue of morality and humanitarian compassion? Should any analysis be based solely on the intentions of those involved? Potentially disregarding the erroneous actions of the imperfect human participants, who after all, had good intentions, so they say.
For me the legal and institutional aspects of this argument are of utmost importance. For all its faults, I am a true believer in the UN; it is there for a reason, a very good one at that. Perhaps the prevention of future atrocities and perpetual world peace was an over ambitious project for the founders of the UN, an idealistic endeavour that was bound to fail. Indeed, during debates over Iraq I have repeatedly been dismissed as a “dreamer”, of not taking account of the complex realities of the modern world. So is that it? Peace is difficult, so we’ll just fight our way to “justice” and “democracy”, forget the UN, that was a pipe dream, how can we be expected to bring democracy to the world whilst shackled with ridiculous principles such as crimes of aggression, and security council resolutions?!
My problem with this particular article, was that from the outset (as the title clearly implies) it seeks to justify Blair and his course of action, as if accusations of illegality aren’t even worthy of discussion. Instead it sets about detailing a set of rather pedantic arguments, quite like those a defence lawyer with a clearly guilty client would use. This is exactly how Blair himself operated, feeling no need to justify what he has done in any legal context, because he honestly believes what he is doing is right, that he is merely a pawn in the broader battle between good and evil.
It is in the spirit of open discussion that I wish to go over some of these points the author has raised. As seen as they have phrased the latter half of the piece as a set of questions it only seems fair to offer up some answers, as seen as I am one of those who staunchly opposed the war, one of the many critics to who the questions are aimed.
Q1, ”Had WMDs been discovered, would that have made the war legal, despite the lack of a second resolution?” - The answer to that would have to be no, not unless any military action was an act of defence against the deployment of these weapons and as seen as these weapons are hypothetical weapons, I think that pretty much disqualifies them being used in defence of Blair. We now know that the WMD claims were a ”sexed up” version of intelligence that was already flimsy at best.
Q2/3, “Had they been discovered, would the aftermath have been any less bloody? If the UN had passed a second resolution, would that have made the aftermath any less bloody?” - This I think, was one of the most pointless pieces of argument the author has used and I am still quite puzzled as to why it was employed, but it was and I wouldnt want to be rude and ignore it so here we go. The amount of violence, in this instance at least, depends on the wishes of the invading force, who very clearly had the upper hand militarily. The interim factors are of no interest, again we would be being distracted by a hypothetical possibility. The proper line of questioning should be, “is there any way the invasion could have been less bloody?” If this was indeed the question then we could have a lengthy discussion about the excessive use of force on civilian locations, the use of cluster bombs, the shooting of unarmed civilians. Again, all important parts of the discussion on legality, but it seems the author would rather try and focus on speculation rather than address any faults in the tactics of invasion. It is one of the key concerns of those who opposed the war, that the amount of force used was both indiscriminate and unnecessary.
Q4, “Had the aftermath not been as bloody, would the question of legality had been so important?” This one is easy, yes, your damn right it would! International law is about a little more than the body count at the end of it, though of course that is a contributing factor. This point basically seems to be heading towards the question, as long as nobody dies, is it ok to invade a sovereign state overthrow its government and steer it on the path towards your vision of Democracy? No it isn’t, and international law explicitly states that a State enforcing regime change within another is illegal. These are the vital points of the argument missed by those blinded by a black and white world of Blair’s moral crusade, “us and them”, “good and evil”.
Q5, “If Britain had not joined the war, would America have gone ahead regardless, and would the resulting aftermath have been any different?” Now this one really takes the biscuit, of course they would have! Bush was hell bent on war, as was Blair, is the author seriously trying to make the point that just because America was going to do it anyway that makes it ok? A comparison with a school yard bollocking would not be unjust, “but miss, the bigger boys made me do it”. Even if, through withdrawal of support, the UK couldn’t have prevented the war, then we would now be talking of the potential crimes of US President Bush, not of Bush and Prime Minister Blair. If you walked into a room where someone was pointing a gun at someone, and after some attempts at reason the person could not be dissuaded, should you just help them pull the trigger?
So what I would really like to ask is, have the writers over at the Young Fabians blog committed themselves to having a discussion on what many experts now view as an illegal war of aggression? Or have they, like the Anticipations editorial board seemed to, settled on cheer-leading for man and his movement who has openly professed his desire to flaunt international law in pursuance of his own political agenda? I would really like to think that it is not the latter, I have a lot of respect for most of the work done by those in the Fabian Society, and would not like to see defence of the indefensible become a common occurrence upon their pages.
On a blog roll
At the turn of this month there was a little spate of leftist blogs saying how well things were going. Phil at AVPS gave us an update on some steady growth, Left Outside told us it was going pretty well, and Sunny tweeted to reflect on the continued upward surge at Liberal Conspiracy, where hits now exceed an impressive 100,000 per month.
I was going to say something about the growing Though Cowards Flinch readership, but I forgot. However, Comrade Dave has now twittered to say we’ve gone up the wikio ratings to what he describes as ‘mid-table’, and that reminded me.
I don’t know how to copy the graphs across to make it look all nice, and I’ve no idea how people can tell the difference between single hits and repeat visits and that kind of stuff, but I can tell you that the total number of hits increased from around 6,000 in August, when I started blogging here with Dave, to near 17,000 in January.
While I’d like to think that the increase is partly because we’ve joined forces, Dave’s solo blogging was already gaining hit at more or less the same monthly, so it may be that my getting in the way has actually held him back. If it has, he’s been very courteous about it.
So what to make of this growth in left blog readership?
Well, in some respects, absolutely nothing at all. As I set out here, just getting a few, or even a lot more people, clicking on your blog might be gratifying but that doesn’t necessarily translate into any kind of worthwhile action. And, as has only happened on a couple of occasions here, the people who come to read do so not to engage with the discussion but to abuse you, it’s not even gratifying. That’s just dull.
On the other hand, perhaps there is something in the fact that a group of blogs like TCF, Left Outside and AVPS are growing their readership fairly quickly, despite not really making any ‘concessions’ just to make that happen. In addition, while I don’t have figures, I can be pretty confident that other new good ’serious’ blogs like Paul Sagar’s Bad Conscience and, from the centre-ground-with-sense, Giles Wilkes’ Freethinking Economist, are buiding decent readerships.
All of these blogs remain fairly serious in content (the odd lapse excepted), aren’t afraid to get stuck in for a couple of thousand words if the mood takes us and the subject demands it.
At TCF, we don’t generally just follow the story of the day, though we’ll pick it up if there’s a specific political/economic theory angle we want to take on it.
And in general, our growth hasn’t come from increased links from the bigger, better known blogs; to the best of my knowledge we’ve never had a link from Iain Dale, for example, and the posts that Sunny cross-posts from here to Liberal Conspiracy don’t have an automatic link back to here.
No, any growth we and our like(ish)-minded colleagues are generating comes down, mostly, to what we write and how we write it (though twitter links may have helped us, and our new TCF reader group may do some of the same.
Is our and our colleagues’ growth, then, an, indication that people are starting to look for blogs which offer more than Tom Harris-like tittle tattle and a feeling of ‘closeness’ to minor celebrity? Is the blogosphere maturing? Are there simple more people reading all blogs now, so that we’re getting a bit more overspill.
I’ve no idea really. I’m not even sure I’m interested in the question, never mind the answer, though you can tell he what it is if you can be arsed.
Come to think of it, this may be the most pointless post I’ve ever written. Maybe this is the beginning of the end.
Counter-intuitive counter-intuition and why it’s not logical to trust the Tories
Stephanie Flanders, of the BBC’s Stephanomics blog, said some very interesting things the other day in her reflections about Cameron’s speech in Davos, in which he said there wouldn’t be “swingeing cuts” in public spending in 2010.
In particular she drew a distinction between what she thinks Cameron’s and Osborne’s real views on deficit management are, and how they have been presented:
I’ve been wondering why Messrs Cameron and Osborne hadn’t made more effort to dispel the idea that they would put deficit reduction before economic growth.
Rightly or wrongly, both men believe that cutting the deficit quicker and deeper than Labour plans – starting in 2010 – could actually help the recovery, by preventing a costly run on government debt, and sharply higher long-term interest rates as a result. By and large, they’ve struggled to get this highly respectable – but deeply counter-intuitive – idea across to the British people. But yesterday, Mr Cameron had a bloomin’ good try.
This may be read as a “softening” of the Tory rhetoric around cuts. In some ways it is. But I don’t think the substance of the Conservatives’ post-election Budget plans has changed much in the last six months. What has changed is that they have finally decided to confront the “risking the recovery” argument head-on.
This is an interesting defence, but it is wrong in one important respect.
Cutting the deficit quickly and deeply may be counter-intuitive to Flanders, a trained economist with an understanding of currently widely accepted Keynesian logic.
But it is not counter-intuitive to a lot of people. To people untrained in counter-cyclical conceptions of economic management, it makes perfectly decent sense to cut the deficit as quickly as possible; for many people, there is a ‘commonsense’ link between household economics (where ‘you only spend what you have’) and macro-economic management.
That is, of course, precisely the problem that Labour has had in setting out its Keynesian case for continuing spending to ‘lock in growth’, and the reason why till now they have been the party to distrust. Stephanie and I might get Keynes. Iain Dale and his followers do not and do not want to.
Now, though, the boot is on the other foot. Everyone with a half-decent understanding of ‘real’ economics is advising Cameron and Osborne that they simply can’t cut the deficit as quickly as their political needs would have them, or they really do risk damaging the economy in the long-term. They know, at one level, that they should try to do the right thing.
Forced into this corner – where economists tell you one thing and your political strategist tell you another - Cameron has attempted to modulate his position, in a way which brings him much closer to Labour’s fiscal position. As Flanders says in a subsequent post:
Once you strip away the debate about timing and possible cuts in 2010-11 – which, as I have said many times, has always been about rhetoric more than a big difference of policy between the parties – once you strip away that debate, this election could end up being fought over a difference of around 1% of GDP in medium-term spending plans.
That’s all very well for Flanders to say, but Cameron and Osborne can’t simply “strip away the debate”, because it is a debate which is raging within their party and amongst their core vote. They have come too far with their appeal to their supporters’ “intuitive” belief in quick cuts – linked to a discourse about a wasteful public sector – to turn back now.
When they do try to modulate their position, as Cameron tried this weekend, all hell breaks loose in their ranks. Just look at the Telegraph reader reactions here, and take a look at Conservative Home if you dare. Cameron and Osborne are not even near the top jobs yet, and the ‘true believers’ are calling for their heads. The talk is of betrayal of core values. of vacillation in the face of the enemy. It is not talk of economic subtleties.
While Labour have been able, with reasonable effect, to turn the logic of Keynesian counter-cyclical spending to their advantage, by selling it to the public and their party as a move back to the needs of their core vote, the Conservative leadership has no such option in its attempt to come to terms with the economic realities they face.
As James Forsyth at the Spectator suggests, Cameron and Osborne are now hostage to a right of the party which cares little for the economic reality of what will happen if cuts come too quickly, either because they do not understand, or because they do not care:
They will come to regret this if (as polls suggest) a Conservative government is returned with a majority of less than 60. In these circumstances, a relatively small group of Conservative MPs — 30 or less — could cause the leadership real trouble. The Cornerstone group of traditionalist Tories MPs has more than 30 members and there is already talk of a ‘Cornerstone whip’, which could put pressure on the leadership on various issues.
The die is cast for Cameron and Osborne. Whatever their private misgivings, it is quite clear that they will be dragged towards economic stupidity by the right of their party; the furious reaction to Cameron’s ‘backsliding’ in Davos confirms just that.
And there’s the terrible logic for Cameron and Osborne.
By trying to come to terms with economic reality – by trying in some ways to the do the trustworthy thing - they have proved that they cannot be trusted.
They have made their bed. They must now lie on it.
Tories ignore public consultation
Dog bites man. Here in Canterbury, a number of residents groups and a significant chunk of the people who responded to a Tory public consultation on the proposed budget (of swingeing cuts) have been upset about plans to close several of Canterbury’s fine museums.
Bearing in mind that the city thrives on tourism, and that a related fixed capital project to improve and expand them might boost tourism income in the long term – while helping to boost employment in sectors hit by the recession – it seems mad to get rid of these museums.
Our local press sniffed blood in the water when the figures began to come out for the budget (that will be approved this month) talking about cuts of £3 million, half of what Canterbury City Council lost through investing in Icelandic financial derivatives.
Since then the Tory council ran a consultation exercise. The single largest block of votes (44.8%) flatly opposed the closure of the museums. Nevertheless the council executive has decided to close the museums and this will be approved on February 18th.
The importance of having a space, and professional staff, to show the many archaeological finds from Canterbury – which is a key area for Britain’s heritage – cannot be underestimated. This is precisely what the Tory plans strike at.
UNESCO declared a World Heritage Site in the city in 1988, including Christ Church Cathedral, St Augustine’s Abbey and several smaller churches in the location. The museums, including Westgate Towers and the Roman museum, are clustered around these important sites and form part of the itinerary of a large number of visitors’ groups.
Dr. Paul Bennet, of the Canterbury Archeological Trust, railed against the move. “It is the very combination of museums in different locations that with greater engagement ought to provide added value to the Canterbury experience. We should be exploiting Canterbury’s heritage assets more fully at this difficult time, not considering closure of the best of them for potential re-use as a retail outlet.”
These cuts form part of a wider attack on the services provided by the city council, including the demolition of Westgate Hall, a community centre which is one of the few centrally located indoor public spaces (which will be fewer still, once the museums go). Several sources have remarked that the area may be used for car parking, threatening a traffic control system that protects the centre of Canterbury.
What I really want to know is, is it justifiable to spend money ‘consulting’ the public when you are simply going to ignore the results?
Lib-Dem group leader on the Council, Alex Perkins, pointed out that, “At every opportunity every single liberal democrat cllr (18) has voted against the tory proposals to close the museums. And will be proposing an alternative budget on the 18th feb which provides adequate funding to keep them open.”
Of course one wonders what Mr Perkins would say if he was in the shoes of John Gilbey, Tory supremo. And what other necessary or commercially viable services he’s planning to cut to save the museums.
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