question is they so soon no a jerk
George Galloway speaker I'm relieved up
to a point that I don't have to come
here this evening and savage as an enemy
of the people the minister opposite to
denounce him as Philistine and the
cultural vandamm I'm relieved both
because i have always myself considered
him rather an adornment to the
government of brutes in which he sits a
civilized man a kind of lipstick on the
pig but the second reason that I'm
relieved is because any meeting that he
graciously gave my colleagues and I just
a day or two ago up to a point he rather
shot my Fox because there I was with my
parliamentary colleagues there are four
parties represented in Parliament from
bradford district and we were absolutely
united and leading what looked like you
could become a mass campaign of the
entire city and district against a
proposed act of cultural vandalism which
the minister disarmed in the first line
of the meeting by telling us that the
bradford national media museum would not
close and we're grateful to him for that
though he'll forgive us if we want to
look the gift horse a little closer in
the mouth because there are more ways of
course of closing somewhere than simply
locking its doors but we're grateful
that the minister had the sense to
listen to the public led by the full
parliamentarians or the parliamentarians
from the four parties five of us in
total and the City Council and the local
newspaper the telegraph and argus there
was as I seeing a crescendo of
opposition to
this proposed closure and it's only
right to command a minister that listens
and I hope I don't spoil his chances in
the forthcoming reshuffle but I wish him
well and I'm grateful to him up to the
point that I must know part company from
him the national media museum is a
fundamental to Bradford it's a national
treasure but it's absolutely fundamental
to Bradford a city with a sea of
troubles with mass unemployment mass
poverty mass child poverty record infant
mortality rates record deaths in
hospitals and so on it is a place with
so many problems that it could not
afford another if this closure has
leaked and I'll come to that point in a
minute had gone ahead it could have been
a death blow to a great city which in
1903 was the richest city per capita in
England but which now in 2013 doesn't
have its troubles to seek particularly
in the city center where we have a hole
in the ground where Westfield was
supposed to be where when I arrived
there at least 15 months ago the Odeon
building iconic was crumbling and shrink
wrapped and looking like it was going to
fall down and if the national media
museum had closed on the back of this
desertification of the city center it
could have been a death blow so I'm
grateful that the government have
announced that it's not going to close
and that in part is because the public
expenditure cuts in this age of
austerity which the government are
imposing on the country have turned out
in the case of this department at least
not to be as severe as planned ten
percent were told in authoritative media
briefings
has been reduced to five percent but as
the late and lamented trade union leader
are and fish are once said five percent
of bugger all is burger oh and five
percent of a very shrunken budget is
going to be a serious blow nonetheless
and so my first question to the minister
Choi hope he will address is this the
museum is not going to close wonderful
but what's going to happen to the
capital program what's going to happen
to the capital expenditure on the
building is the building to be not
closed but allowed to crumble are the
vitally needed changes that are
physically needed in the building not
going to be possible because as my
colleagues and I will advance and did in
our meeting with the minister there are
many things that need to change about
the national media museum so that's the
first question the second question I
want to ask the minister is this that I
have real doubts as to whether this
national media museum belongs in the
science group of museum at all after all
media to me is an art rather than a
science of course the science of how
film radio television gets into your
living room or your cinema is
interesting but it's not as interesting
as the content of the film radio and
television the national media museum and
Bradford is the repository of the
National BBC archive but who knows about
it who can access who can see it I
believe that the whole question of this
National Science Museum's group should
be brought into question by this
referring too big of course multiple
friend I'm delighted grave tomorrow
friend forgiving wed but on the point of
the BBC the minister will know that
there was a radio station within the
National Museum that was supported by
BBC that left at March of this year
without any fight from the media museum
about it going and that's why we all
smell two rats if you like
an island friend may want to comment on
that that they allowed people at BBC to
leave without a fight and that surely
had an impact on the visitor numbers to
the museum undoubtedly it was one of the
most popular attractions mr. Deputy
Speaker interactive people getting
behind the desk make-believe interviews
and so on future politicians who are
being groomed in Bradford in that studio
now gone and no fight put up for it
indeed skipping ahead a moment to what I
was going to say I belong to that school
of socialists that belonged to the dunk
chopping school I don't care what of the
cat is black or white as long as it
catches mice so I want to in the few
minutes I have advanced this point of
course the state must be a major
stakeholder in museums and things like
free admission must are all course be
defended because we have half a million
visitors to the museum it's done from a
million it's true but it's not nothing
and I'm not half a million most of them
the overwhelming majority of them are
from yorkshire and humberside and most
of them very unusually for a museum are
from lower socioeconomic groups the
charging would be a death note for us
and the state must be there to guarantee
that that does not happen but the BBC is
a national institution deeply in need of
a new lick of paint to renovate its
tattered public reputation what isn't
the BBC help to pay for the national
media museum why can't the BBC logo that
used to be at White City be up on that
building their archive is there the
public pays for the BBC and have a nose
any money they spend on the national
media museum might save us from some
hours of tripe which is included in
their output I am sorry to say the BBC
or other media outlets I'm not arguing
for the rehabilitation of mr. Rupert
Murdoch here though I did write to his
Highness Prince Waleed bin Talal with
his great media interests and ask him to
sponsor the museum that's how desperate
I was mr. Dabney speaker perhaps I
glad to see he didn't reply yes can I
first of all commend the Honourable
gentleman my parliamentary neighbor for
not only securing this debate but for
the way he has worked with all the other
Bradford MPs in order to secure the
future of the museum and I a foursome
tribute to him for doing that would you
agree with me that it goes to show that
although we may disagree wildly on lots
of issues that we do all have the best
interest of the bradford district at
heart and that it shows that when we do
work together what we can achieve and
what are you join with me in saying to
the minister and the science group of
museum that we will continue to work as
Bradford MPs on a united front not just
to secure the short term future of the
museum but also to make sure it has a
long-term viable future as well I'm
grateful for that mr. deputy speaker and
it's absolutely true and it's quite a
real species a northern Tory MP and our
district has two of them and they turned
out both to be able and dedicated
parliamentarians and they were ready
without qualification to throw
themselves into a more obvious Popular
Front led by my my friend from Bradford
south and I and the Liberal Democrats
too in the case of the member for
Bradford each we all came together as
one hand and I think we we moved
mountains and I at least this leak of a
closure gave us the opportunity to show
what politics can do what public opinion
can do how governments can be influenced
and made to listen but thinking along
the lines I was just earlier describing
if the media should be paying something
towards the national media museum the
country gives a fortune to the train
operators the privatized train operators
why can't we force them to help my other
and wonderful friend from York to make
sure that the future of the Museum
National Railway Museum in York is
secured not just kept open this is a
point where all keen to make keeping
something open and letting it crumble
and die is no use
these are national treasures if our
country can strut around the world at
the g8 the g20 when we're not bugging
people telling them how I'm sorry the CD
notice on that telling them how
important our country we are then we can
certainly pay for the upkeep of these
national treasures equally the museum of
science and industry in Manchester which
I visited a week or so ago is another
national treasure imagine the idea of
Manchester the workshop of the workshop
of the world having its Museum of
Industry closed but why isn't industry
helping to pay for that museum after all
it's a showcase of British industry
indeed wires in the minister's
department at all the museum in
Manchester could more I think
satisfactorily fit into the department
of business or what used to be Trade and
Industry thus relieving the pressure on
the department in making the investment
that's necessary in our Museum I believe
some may say what's in a name but why is
our museum called the national media
museum indeed in the age of Leveson the
word media doesn't have immediately
attractive connotations why shouldn't we
call it the National Museum of film
radio and television then it would did
we do what it says on the tin and
everybody loves film radio and
television and moreover with the archive
there there's no reason why we couldn't
fill that museum every afternoon showing
some of the jewels in the crown of the
BBC National Archive we have been about
doing I also express my gratitude to the
remember from Bradford West cool and you
initiating this debate little early you
refer to the leaking of the state of the
the group as a whole but the media
museum in particular I'm particularly
annoyed about that being in that we
should have to rely on a
rather than a more mature approach which
would have been to have involved at a
much earlier stage the MPS a number of
suggestions have already been put
forward by tonight by the unremember
from bradford west but i believe
collectively we could have worked much
harder much sooner and all the hysteria
indeed the huge anxiety which was
created across the bradford district
could possibly have been avoided did so
and the Honourable member was right to
be cross about that in the meeting that
we had although being a half a glass
half full man I saw as having given us
an opportunity to shine but the
Honourable member is absolutely right
and this brings me to perhaps the only
discordant note I intend to make the
minister must listen to this please the
performance of the leadership of the
Science Museum's group has been sadly
lacking in this affair indeed we had the
spectacle of the leadership of the group
rubbishing the performance of museums
under their own purview apparently
oblivious to the obvious fact that if
these museums were underperforming they
themselves were being paid rather a lot
of public money to preside over there
under performance and I must say to the
minister