Caroline Lucas and John McDonnell fight to save People's History

The government has announced that funding will be cut to eight “non-national” museums. The North West will be particularly badly hit, with funding chopped from the People’s History Museum, the Museum of Science & Industry, and the National Football Museum.

We are particularly concerned that at a time when the government is already introducing a swathe of attacks on education, museums are also in the firing line. Museums traditionally have been a place where the poorest people in society could educate and inform themselves. This is particularly true of the People’s History Museum, which has a unique collection emphasising the role that ordinary people have played in the struggle for their rights.

We are constantly told that there is NO money. Yet there seems to be huge amounts available for bankers’ bonuses, nuclear weapons, and in uncollected corporation tax. Why is it that institutions used by ordinary people are the first for the chop?

We the undersigned call on the government to reverse this decision. We further hope that the people will rally behind the institutions under threat and campaign against this latest attack on our welfare state.

Yours faithfully,

John McDonnell MP;

Caroline Lucas MP;

Professor Ralph Darlington, Professor of Employment Relations, Salford University

Professor John Newsinger, author People's History of the British Empire

Professor Luke Martell, Professor of Political Sociology, Sussex University and Vice President of Sussex UCU;

Dr Ben Harker, Lecturer in English and Cultural Studies, Salford University

Dr Paul Keleme, Manchester University

Dr Jonathan Neale, Author and Historian

Mark O’Brien, Labour Historian & Author, Liverpool

Tony Barnsley, author Breaking the Chains

John Charlton, Labour Historian & Author

Colin Barker, Social Historian, Manchester

Maxine Peake, actor

Councillor Julie Reid, Manchester

Councillor Mike Cordingley, Trafford

Councillor Michael Lavellete, Preston

Councillor Alison Gwynne, Tameside

Martin Empson, Manchester Right to Work Campaign

Sue Bond, PCS National Vice President

Karen Reissman, Unison NEC (pc)

Kath Grant, Secretary, Manchester NUJ (pc)

Chris Sheehy, President, Salford Branch, UCU (pc)

Geoff Brown, Secretary, Sara Livesey, Vice-President, and Kate Richardson, Exec Member, Manchester Trades Council (pc)

Linda Holden, Branch Secretary & Andy Cunningham, Communications Officer, Rick Lighten, Young Members Officer, MMU Unison (all in pc)

Judith Orr, editor Socialist Review

Hilda Palmer, Co-ordinator, Greater Manchester Hazards Centre

Ian Allinson, UNITE EC member (pc)

Steve Kingston, editor Salford Star

Keith Flett, Convenor, London Socialist Historians Group;

Philip Lewis, Vice Chair, Camden Unison (pc)

Stephen Gibson, Lynne Hodge, Ben Ashdown, Mark Norman, UNITE Fujitsu Manchester (all in pc)

Celia Hutchinson, BECTU Rep, Manchester (pc)

Manchester Mule Editorial Collective

(pc – personal capacity)