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 Peoples 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 Peoples 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 peoplewill rally behind the institutions under threat and campaign against this latest attack on our welfare state.

John McDonnell MP; Ralph Darlington, Professor of Employment Relations, Salford University; Dr Ben Harker, Lecturer in English and Cultural Studies, Salford University; Mark OBrien, Labour Historian & Author, Liverpool; Tony Barnsley, author of Breaking the Chains; John Charlton, Labour Historian & Author; Maxine Peake, actress; Councillor Michael Lavellete, Preston; Martin Empson, Manchester Right to Work Campaign; Karen Reissman, Unison NEC (pc); Kath Grant, Secretary, Manchester NUJ; Geoff Brown, Secretary, Sara Livesey, Vice-President, and Kate Richardson, Exec Member, Manchester Trades Council; Linda Holden, Branch Secretary & Andy Cunningham, Communications Officer, Rick Lighten, Young Members Officer, MMU Unison (all in pc); Judith Orr, editor Socialist Review; Colin Barker, Social Historian, Manchester; Hilda Palmer, Co-ordinator, Greater Manchester Hazards Centre; Ian Allinson, UNITE EC member (pc); Luke Martell, Professor of Political Sociology, Sussex University, and Vice President of Sussex UCU; Steve Kingston, editor Salford Star; Keith Flett, Convenor, London Socialist Historians Group; Sue Bond, PCS National Vice President; 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; Alex Jackson