Our history at risk

You have to give the Tory-led coalition its due – when it comes to fighting for their values and principles they take no hostages.

From the mass sell-off of the NHS to their friends and donors to the callous bedroom tax, the politicians in this government are the true class warriors of our time. They look after their own – the few – while we – the many – face a constant barrage of attacks on our living standards.

There is also something quite spiteful about this government too: a vengeful, nasty streak seems to underpin almost everything they do. Take its decision to slash funding to the only museum in England dedicated to celebrating the history of working people.

The People’s History Museum in Manchester is facing a £200,000 shortfall in funding after the government slashed its grant.

Quite a few fundraising efforts – featuring a few famous faces – have taken place recently in a bid to keep this great working class institution alive.

Actor Maxine Peake (pictured) together with other celebrities, has been telling the story of Salford’s radical history, raising cash to keep the museum going.

Money raised will go towards the upkeep of the library, which houses one of the most important collections of historical material on working class organisations in the country.

Earlier this year, library trustee Ms Peake accused Salford’s Tories of deliberately misleading the public by claiming in an election leaflet that the library had been receiving tens of thousands of pounds of public money even though ‘people cannot walk in and read any material’ – despite it being taxpayer funded.

Salford’s Conservatives have campaigned to remove its council subsidy, which last year was £20,000. Because of grant reductions and the increasing popularity of the library, supporters say they have to raise an extra £80,000 to keep it alive.

Ms Peake said, “The library has one of the best archives in the world and it should not only be preserved, but nurtured as part of the cultural history of our country.”
The proposed funding cut for the museum is a blatant attempt by the Tory party to rewrite history in its own image, to stop future generations from learning what their great-grandfathers sacrificed in the name of their country.

In Tory history, brigadiers and colonels are worth more than barrow boys and coalminers.
When the trustees of the Manchester museum attempted to meet with culture minister, Ed Vaizey, the man responsible for funding our national museums, they received the terse reply, “I’m too busy.” Those three words sum up the attitude of the Tory party.

The People’s History Museum is a rare gem, dedicated to remembering the stories of working people and their contribution to building this country, in both war and peace.

It charts our movement’s history, from the deportation of the Tolpuddle martyrs to the stoic heroism of Lancashire’s mill workers during the American civil war, and the solidarity with the movement against apartheid in South Africa.

It is one museum out of approximately 2,500 in the country. If your thing is the history of lawnmowers then you’re well catered for, with several dedicated to the machinery.

If you’re a bit of a mustard aficionado then there are multiple museums devoted to telling you the difference between Dijon, English and wholegrain. Yet, when it comes to the history of working people, England boasts just one – and the government wants to shut it down.

History is not just about those who write it, but about those who live it. Working people and the labour movement have been at the forefront of all social and political changes this country has undergone over the past three centuries.

We must defend the People’s Museum from the Tory-led government’s malicious and politically motivated attack, and safeguard the one museum dedicated to telling the story of us all.