I thought I should maybe repost some pictures I took on my last visit to the Gladstone Pottery Museum (https://charlessaumarezsmith.com/2017/05/14/gladstone-pottery-museum/) in the light of the likely decision by the conservative-run council to close it for most of the winter, at the same time as losing the majority of the curators in the wonderful Stoke Museum, one of the greatest places to see a comprehensive collection of English pottery.

A government should be judged by its actions. In spite of so much protest about the loss of history and the need to protect and preserve a true version of the past, as well as an election platform in favour of levelling up, its record so far in protecting history is not impressive: it has allowed the destruction of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry; its economic policy will now require Stoke-on-Trent to lose the expertise which enables a creative and scholarly interpretation of its past.