There is a danger if the arena for artistic
performance is permitted to become too centralised, with the regions required
to focus upon what is going on within the capital city to discover the
potential of their own individualistic excellence. The situation will become healthier if we can
revive the notion of there being a thriving local culture within each region,
proud of its own traditions, and of its aesthetic potential.
Government should therefore assume the responsibility
to promote the re-emergence of the English regions, so that they are encouraged
to create their own local artistic excellence in distinction from one another,
and in competition with one another to draw the maximum number of tourists to
come and be entertained in the significant regional manner. But this should involve the creation of
regional assemblies, whose main purpose will be to tailor the quality of life
within that territory, so that its true individualism can be perceived for what
it best might become…
Then finally there is the question of improved
display: a display at sites of easy access for the region as a whole. It should not be necessary for an aspirant
artist to visit the capital city to discover the inspiration for his native
art. The finest collections should be on
his very doorstep. And the regional
assemblies should be in a position to allot funds to transform existing museums
so that they can fulfil this required function – funds which should also be
used to put on arts festivals where the special character of the region can be
publicly proclaimed.
The artistic potential of the nation is thus
indirectly linked to the Government’s ability to enable the English regions to
re-emerge in a spirit of their most colourful individualism. So the most significant step which government
could take today, in the encouragement of the arts, will be in the creation of
our regional assemblies; and I urge that this step should be taken without
delay.”
Alexander Thynn, Marquess of
Bath, addressing the House of Lords, 18th March 1998
Not a lot to ask, you might
think. After all, the provincial cities
of Germany and Italy
are cultural powerhouses, attracting tourists in their millions. In contrast to France
or Spain,
theirs is the legacy of not being unified politically until late in the 19th
century and so continuing to benefit from particularistic patronage. In England, sadly, few listened to our
founder’s words, and today the curtain is coming down on culture in the provinces.
Nowhere more so than in Northumbria. Last month, we drew attention to a spate of
museum closures in Lancashire, contrasted with continued spending on a vacuous
vanity project designed to really ‘put London
on the map’. Lancashire
is not alone. Across the Pennines,
Bradford’s National Media Museum
is facing the asset-stripping of its photographic collection, to be removed to London. Cumbrian Melvyn Bragg has spoken out on radio
against the closure of small museums. In
Co Durham, closures planned, threatened or implemented include the Durham Light
Infantry Museum
at Durham, the Monkwearmouth
Station Museum
at Sunderland and Bede’s World at Jarrow. The last of these was an ambitious project to
regenerate the town through tourism. A
new museum was built to re-interpret the Golden Age of Northumbria for today,
complete with a reconstructed Anglo-Saxon settlement in the grounds. Whatever that blighted area has been promised
to make up for jobs lost in heavy industry – whether it was to be call centres,
hi-tech manufacturing, retailing or tourism – has been promptly ripped from
beneath its feet. It’s now being robbed
of the means to understand itself. ‘History’
will be owned by the victors of one inter-regional power struggle, making
another that much less likely to succeed.
Identity is inseparable from
continuity: a place without a past lacks the materials from which to build its
own future with confidence. According to
Historic England, 64% of folk in England value their local
heritage. Breaking this average down by Prescott zone, we find the figure rises to 71% in the
North East, 69% in the South West and 68% in both London and the South East. Four of the five below-average zones are
where the Danelaw used to be.
Coincidence? Maybe, but the fact
is that where Alfred was acknowledged as overlord there was continuity of
government and a physical survival of heritage on a scale that wasn’t true of
Viking-devastated areas. You value more
where there’s more to value.
Wessex hasn’t been exempt from closures. Bristol’s award-winning
Empire & Commonwealth Museum, housed in Brunel’s original terminus at Temple Meads,
was closed in 2008. This was done with
the specific intention of re-locating the collection to London, where, of course, ‘more people can
see it’. The logic is unassailable, at
least for those too lazy to get a train to Bristol and walk a hundred yards. Fortunately, the deal fell through. Most of the collection was donated to the
city of Bristol. But the museum never re-opened.
Wessex hasn’t been exempt from closures. Scotland
and Wales
have a choice. Their national museums
and galleries are devolved matters and they have devolved administrations to defend
them. We suffer from the affliction that
is England, not the England of us all that values all, but the
one-size-fits-all England
that in practice means London. All the key decisions are taken in London by those who live, work and play in London, who can grasp no
other perspective and who feel deeply offended by the idea that one can even exist. And, as Simon Jenkins pointed out last week, BIG
projects are protected while it’s the little folk who suffer.
It might be argued that, in
times of austerity, culture should take a back seat. We don’t need to argue back that austerity is
a posh word for corporate bailouts and tax evasion on an unimaginable
scale. Even if austerity had a credible
justification, it would still be unfair that we’re not exempt from it but London is. Loss-making museums in the provinces are
being shut. Throwing them a lifeline
would be subsidising failure, we’re told.
Yet as taxpayers we all pay to keep London’s ‘national’ museums and galleries
free to visit. Even though there are
national museums in Wessex
that are not. (For example, both the National Army
Museum and the RAF
Museum in London
are free, but not Portsmouth’s National Museum
of the Royal Navy. How fair is that?) Free admission to London’s attractions is somehow considered a
service to the whole nation. We’re even
treated to patronising half-truths: “Arts
Council funding for museums is lower per capita in London and the South East than in any other
part of the country.” We should hope
so, given the millions London’s
national museums receive as direct funding that bypasses the Arts Council pot. How can there ever be a level playing field
when money for London’s
pets is top-sliced and the rest are left to fight over the crumbs?
Shouldn’t we expect
this? Isn’t being kicked and punched by
the London
regime part of being English? Mustn’t
grumble, must we? Up north, regionalisation
has been an on-off issue for over a century.
That’s a century in which to organise a political party to achieve real,
lasting change. A century of votes cast instead
for the monkey with the red rosette. And
we’ve been as bad, even if our monkey’s rosette is blue, or sometimes yellow. He or she is still more interested in a
career in a London-obsessed system than in defying convention on our behalf.
Recent media coverage has been
sure to present the museums story as one aspect of a north-south divide. That’s a convenient narrative that can be
played around with, baiting northerners about deprivation in pockets of inner London being just as bad. It’s a narrative that actually helps to
obscure something much deeper – the London-rest divide that no amount of ‘benign’
centralism or ‘socialist’ redistribution will touch.
It’s inevitable then. Let’s move on to the ‘real’ issues instead. No, it isn’t inevitable. When Northumbria
and Wessex strode the stage, London
was on the periphery of events: Frank Musgrove’s The North of England: A History identifies no fewer than
four eras of northern pre-eminence. History
reminds us that there are alternatives.
That’s why the teaching of history is being so heavily discouraged.
Richard Carter, Leader of
Yorkshire First, commented on the museum closures as follows: "We are not against a strong capital,
but this has to change, for the good of the country and for London too." We’d go further. The capital’s strength is both the cause and the
effect of our weakness as it recirculates across the generations. If London
disappeared into a vast sink-hole tomorrow, Boris and all, we’d get by well
enough without it. There comes a point when
patience with pretty promises from on high should no longer be judged a virtue.
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