A lot of media speculation on the future of the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry, and The National Railway Museum in York, hit by spending cuts as part of George Osborne’s misguided austerity programme. Christian Wolmar writes in The Independent:
The fact that there is even the remotest possibility that the National Railway Museum in York, along with the two other less well-known museums in Manchester and Bradford, could be closed is a scandal that must be nipped in the bud.
Jonathan Schofield in Manchester Confidential:
Maybe in the end this news from the MEN is shock tactics by the Science Museum Group; a call-my-bluff tactic of pure brinkmanship. Maybe they want to force the government’s in to giving them more money, or an attempt to push the museum onto the city council’s hands. Since the latter can’t even keep open Heaton Hall that is a non- starter. What is certain is that proposing something as blatantly unfair and desperate as closing all the Science Museum Group’s northern properties while keeping on the equally struggling London one looks shocking.
They must know this, unless they are absolute idiots.
I find it difficult to believe that either museum will actually close, although the introduction of admission charges is probably highly likely.
But given the out of touch sociopathy of this government, more interested in preserving the bonus culture of their cronies in the city than with the quality of life of ordinary working people, anything is possible.
I remember a time when one had to pay to visit the Science Museum. It was a distinct disincentive to my parents taking me there.
I would not wish to see charges reintroduced, but, then again, if it is a choice between that and no Science Museum then we have to pay.
However, if such does happen then school trips have to be free, or at least funded from the DoE budget.
There is never enough money in the kitty to pay for everything we all want. Spending has to be limited to the revenue raised. One of the things this government should invest more in is better tax collection: more tax collectors, more revenue officers, more efficient ways of getting companies to pay tax.
But I’m wandering off the subject. How much is too much to pay to enter a national museum?