20th March 2011, 03:49 PM
These are my general thoughts on the situation - very general but something I wanted to say a couple of days ago and couldn't.
I think we have to be aware of what is going on within the political discussions regarding cuts. They are not particularly targeted or, in many instances even politically motivated. They are simply a barrage of across-the-board reductions which put everyone under pressure to change the way they do things or get out of the way. The 38 Degrees campaign demonstrated something important. It didn't try to argue that there was an economic imperative to retain state ownership of woodland. It didn't compare the woodland resource to police officers or doctors – an incredibly crude political tactic when used by Mr Pickles and co that supplies no real justification for cuts, it simply acts to bully others out of the argument (which is probably why you won't here anyone really important or self-respecting using it). All the 38 Degrees campaign had to do was deliver the message that enough people were opposed to the act and that this represented a significant enough political risk to the Coalition (when combined with a few well aimed shots to undermine faith in the economic purpose of the sell-off).
Mobilise and knit together the mass of popular support for heritage and archaeology and we can defend the discipline from cuts, whatever our own professional insecurities and self-doubts. I wonder if there will already be doubts amongst politicians about such attacks on things which might fall under terms like 'popular' and community heritage as a result of the cross-societal opposition displayed through the 38 Degrees campaign on woodland and the evident strength of opposition still being carried through by the follow-on campaigns on 38 Degrees.
I agree that there needs to be a holistic defence of society and social values against and beyond the pure economic arguments given by some Tories and those conservatives (note small c). Society is not formed solely from pure economically beneficial and functional roles and to stop support for everything but the most essential services and roles is to remove the key linkages which hold society together and give it identity. It is to tear apart the fabric of society itself and leave it on life-support - still technically alive but with no means of existing beyond pure function.
As such, I support Prospect's approach to this by including heritage and refusing to separate it out from its wider CutStop campaign. That cause is right and the approach is in the interest of the wider campaign. BUT, I also fear that it would be far to late to wait for that argument to be had and hope that it prevails. We have to simultaneously support heritage and archaeology, mobilise their own support bases and demonstrate that it exists in depth and with passion and commitment - we need to demonstrate that the political parties will lose votes and gain vocal opposition if they do anything to attack it or allow anything to erode it.
I think we have to be aware of what is going on within the political discussions regarding cuts. They are not particularly targeted or, in many instances even politically motivated. They are simply a barrage of across-the-board reductions which put everyone under pressure to change the way they do things or get out of the way. The 38 Degrees campaign demonstrated something important. It didn't try to argue that there was an economic imperative to retain state ownership of woodland. It didn't compare the woodland resource to police officers or doctors – an incredibly crude political tactic when used by Mr Pickles and co that supplies no real justification for cuts, it simply acts to bully others out of the argument (which is probably why you won't here anyone really important or self-respecting using it). All the 38 Degrees campaign had to do was deliver the message that enough people were opposed to the act and that this represented a significant enough political risk to the Coalition (when combined with a few well aimed shots to undermine faith in the economic purpose of the sell-off).
Mobilise and knit together the mass of popular support for heritage and archaeology and we can defend the discipline from cuts, whatever our own professional insecurities and self-doubts. I wonder if there will already be doubts amongst politicians about such attacks on things which might fall under terms like 'popular' and community heritage as a result of the cross-societal opposition displayed through the 38 Degrees campaign on woodland and the evident strength of opposition still being carried through by the follow-on campaigns on 38 Degrees.
I agree that there needs to be a holistic defence of society and social values against and beyond the pure economic arguments given by some Tories and those conservatives (note small c). Society is not formed solely from pure economically beneficial and functional roles and to stop support for everything but the most essential services and roles is to remove the key linkages which hold society together and give it identity. It is to tear apart the fabric of society itself and leave it on life-support - still technically alive but with no means of existing beyond pure function.
As such, I support Prospect's approach to this by including heritage and refusing to separate it out from its wider CutStop campaign. That cause is right and the approach is in the interest of the wider campaign. BUT, I also fear that it would be far to late to wait for that argument to be had and hope that it prevails. We have to simultaneously support heritage and archaeology, mobilise their own support bases and demonstrate that it exists in depth and with passion and commitment - we need to demonstrate that the political parties will lose votes and gain vocal opposition if they do anything to attack it or allow anything to erode it.