From Stansted to Bloomsbury
Twice this week- Parliament has found itself debating horrifying encroachments upon the decencies and safeguards with which public business has normally been conducted in this country. This is the clear link between the controversy •over London's third airport and that over the 'future of the British Museum. Each case displays in- difference to informed public opinion, an arrogant assumption of omniscience by ministers and their bureaucratic mentiors, a disregard of individual rights and even of courtesy, and a small-minded refusal to ad- mit a mistake. This is the, way such matters are dealt with in Britain now. It is a shocking tale of crumbling standards.
On Stansted the Government has now lost its case so overwhelmingly that if Parliament is to retain its self-respect it must force the Government's hand when the proposal comes up for the crucial decision early next year. If the Commons are too well whipped for this, the Lords still have the power. So far as the British Museum is concerned the matter may have gone beyond any such simple hygienic operation. The careful plan to house the ex- panded Library on a patiently-acquired site next to the Museum has evidently been sen- tenced to death without hope of reprieve; the committee rushed into being to advise the Government on the question has had this site specifically excluded from its consideration.
It is possible to make a case for moving the Library from Bloomsbury to an entirely new building in central London; however, the overwhelming weight of- expert opinion is against such a move and for the Blooms- bury site. And it is this refusal to listen to authoritative opinion, together with the dis- graceful treatment of the Museum trustees (who have declared themselves 'outraged' at the Government's dealings with them) which has poisoned the whole issue.
A government which has failed in its aim of arresting the drain of educated people overseas might profitably examine the rele- vance of its contemptuous attitude towards the academic world as revealed in this tran- saction (as in others). If it wished to Swell the departure of talent to disastrous propor- &ins it could hardly find 'a better policy. The greatest casualty of this episode, and of Stansted, however, is the quality of public decision-making. This is something which affects -everyone the country cannot afford any more such monstrous lapses.
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