Thank you for highlighting the plight of regional art galleries (News), in particular the possible closure of Walsall’s New Art Gallery, which houses the world-class Garman-Ryan collection.
A 60% cut in its budget since 2010 means that Walsall council faces the prospect of being unable to fund not only the gallery but our leather museum, arts centre and all branch libraries across the borough, together with service cuts right across the board. Like countless other local authorities, we are desperately seeking to square the financial circle so as to prevent a total breakdown in services.
Twenty years ago, as then mayor of Walsall, I was delighted to receive a £16.5m cheque from the national lottery. That, at long last, enabled the construction of a fitting home for the collection bequeathed to us by Jacob Epstein’s widow, Kathleen Garman, and I hope against hope that the gallery can be saved. But how?
You quote artist Patrick Brill as saying of the threat of closure: “It’s just nuts. It’s a perfect storm of stupidity and a lack of balls.”
Words easily said, but were it simply “a lack of balls” on the part of councillors, I would rapidly don an extra pair, if in so doing I could save the gallery. This is desperation, not stupidity, Mr Brill: perhaps you’d like to give the soundbites a rest and put a shift in instead? Please give us the benefit of your wisdom and work with us to help save our gallery.
The harsh reality, which many voted for at the last general election, was the continuation of “austerity”, so that taxpayers’ money (our money!) previously returned to local authorities to provide adequate local services and facilities continues to be massively withheld by the government, so that we all end up paying more for much less service and sometimes none at all.
The moral is this: you get what you vote for.
Councillor Richard Worrall
Walsall
While one can expect politicians and polemicists to keep rerunning the arguments of the referendum campaign, rather than deal with the realities we now face, it’s a pity to see analysts and commentators doing the same.
I’ve long admired and respected William Keegan’s ability to analyse and present economic issues in an accessible way, but now he seems to be falling into the same trap (“Brexit is a case our conflicted PM shouldn’t have taken on”, Business). He may wish, quite reasonably, that the referendum result had gone the other way, or that it had never been held, but to write that “we know that 6% of those who voted leave now regret their decision”, and thereby imply that the result could be ignored, is disingenuous.
I can’t believe that Mr Keegan doesn’t know enough behavioural economics to be unaware of “buyer’s remorse” or, in this case, “winner’s regret”. I would have been amazed if there hadn’t been some reported regret, whatever the outcome. And, of course, strictly, we don’t “know” this at all – only that the “6%” was the result of a British Election Study panel survey, which, commenting on the figure, states “the level of regret is consistent with what we saw at the general election”.
Given where we are now, one shudders to think what the social and political consequences would be if Mrs May were to adopt Mr Keegan’s apparent advice and ignore the referendum result. His time would be better spent looking at the real options now available, rather than some steampunk version of what might have been.
John Old
Nuneaton
