When I first wrote these blogs on the relatively new History Reclaimed and Restore Trust, with their overlapping memberships, I focused on their hypocrisy but underestimated their persistence and influence. The former protested that it was defending honest, accurate historical research, when its intention was to attack any research that was insufficiently conservative and nationalistic. The latter claimed it wished to protect the @nationaltrust from political interference when it was itself right wing political interference. Since then, both have become privately funded vehicles for the culture war sponsored by the pernicious nexus of right wing newspapers, climate change-denying and Liz Truss mini-budget-drafting, billionaire-funded ‘think tanks’ and the most disruptive and racist of the Tory MPs in the ‘Common Sense’ group. History Reclaimed supply a clique of retired Oxbridge historians to slam research and researchers who work far beyond the limits of their own expertise. In @Telegraph have an historian of France and an historian of the early modern Mediterranean ranting against historians of colonialism, while politicians like Jacob Rees Mogg and professional culture warriors like Zewditu Gebreyohanes dismiss the work of historians they don’t like on GB TV. Every autumn Restore Trust propagandises against the very organisation it claims to support, in another effort to hijack it. Together these groups and their insidious financial and political backers now constitute the greatest threat to our History and heritage in generations. alanlester.co.uk/category/blog/…
@aljhlester @mrjamesob It’s really depressing that people can become Oxbridge dons and then get involved in this kind of bullshit. I guess emotion trumps intellect most days of the week. Tombs sounds particularly mad. I consider Cipolla’s second law of stupidity proven.
@aljhlester @mrjamesob Having two overlapping vehicles also gives them ‘plausible deniability’ wriggle room, as seen in the the two parallel ‘Vote Leave’ campaigns. When one was criticised, the other would pop up and say ‘we never said that’. Two wings linked to the same nerve centre.
@aljhlester @mrjamesob Absolutely. All an attempt by expensively funded far right organisations to push the UK into becoming a more conservative, right wing and bigoted place. Trying to bias popular historical understanding towards a right wing narrative is all part of the plan.
@aljhlester @mrjamesob One good thing is that we've been v successful so far at mobilizing the sensible members to keep this lot off the board.
@aljhlester @mrjamesob Apart from anything else, these people, who remind me more and more of cross between Briers’ character in Ever Decreasing Circles & Reggie Perrin’s Uncle Jimmy, are forcing the Trust to waste resources in dealing with their nonsense.
@aljhlester @mrjamesob I do not understand why this is happening. What do they hope to get out of it? Sickening.
@aljhlester @SimonPease1 @mrjamesob "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past," as the always astute George O. wrote