The government of Italy have acted, linking up geography, history, cultural management, civic bills for maintenance and repair, the link between governance and its jurisdiction, public safety, self respect, common sense, and Logic.
2 euros is not a lot of money. Folks who now traverse the world in search of experience have many costs. Travelling to an airport maybe £30, an air ticket anywhere from a cheap budget ‘UK’ airline of maybe also £30 to £500 maybe if coming from afar (this writer stopped taking to the air 10 years ago and now only train, ferry, bus and foot so is a little out of touch). A hotel possibly £50 upwards from the real budget to £350 maybe, a meal with drinks maybe £25 if you’re lucky and upwards from there, each, and the once daily coffees of equivalent of 75p or £1 in the franc or the lira of the Mediterranean which so many of us knew before mass tourism and the digital age, watching the Mediterranean world go by, possibly now 4 or 5E for the tourists who don’t read the menu before buying that coffee. So 2 euros is not a lot of money, something like just £1.70 in British pounds.
The Italian government acted. BBC Radio 4 quickly aired opinions, comment, discussion, with the undertone of ‘is this fair? is this right?’ Action such as this at the Trevi Fountain put into stark relief the difference in how a society aligns under Helios, human society, onto geography, and relief in that sense is not breathe a sigh of relief but relief as in making something visible, and not just visible but sharply visible, highly focused, and from that perspective it is possible to view the wider societal picture.
Italy has a strong leader. Yes Italy is in the EU and for this decision on the Trevi Fountain the culture guardians of Italy did not go through any lengthy process of consultation, data collection, scrutiny of possibilities, public opinion polls, either at EU level or within Italy or down to Rome civic level. It was not a national political issue, just a practical civic issue, and it has just been done. Enacted. Acted upon. Fact. Practicality. Now the mass of tourists have no option but to pay 2 euros to stand close to the Fountain, which is a wonderful sight, this writer has been there several times itself, and to throw the coin in for the time honoured honouring of time and place. Those tourists who choose not to pay 2E can still see it from a little distance. By making that distinction, and at the tiny amount of money of 2E, the Italian government have made a masterful statement and which puts a comparison onto all other overcrowded and under-respected tourists attractions all over Europe and all over Earth (the spinning mass of rock held in orbit by Helios).
Italian governmental culture does not have the same philosophy as the ‘UK’ government in how much ‘the world loves us.’ Italian police are able to do their job, different regions protect their food and drink, and from top down this action of a mere 2 euros for the tourists who have already spent a lot of money for the Rome experience shows that stark relief of different in outcome when an alignment is present and when it is not.
The Tony Blair government of New Labour in 2001 made all national museums free. A long time ago they were free entry, but that was a long time ago when society was very different, demography was very different, and the population was very much smaller. Visits to museums were once educational, and school children visiting would have a lot of hard work to do on projects and discussions, so back then, somewhere in the mists of political time, a free museum which was balanced in every way in society, the economy and the government was useful all round. In 2001, along with the destruction of higher education, Tony Blair opened the doors of the national museums for anybody to enter without paying even 1p.
Fast forward two decades, and even more recently to the post covid expansion (explosion) of locked down humans seeking experiences, thrills, travel, and there are a zillion people shoulder to shoulder in places where once upon a time not so very long ago the out of season months were very, very quiet and just for the locals, with the regular business and activity over tourist months, before everything settled back into local life again.
If the Labour government of Westminster at the present time wanted to raise income without crippling and destroying the vast swathes of industrial, tradesmen, small scale manufacturing, catering, pubs, restaurants, and all the other sectors it is bringing to their knees (leaving the public sector comfortable and complaining the wage rises aren’t high enough) then Rachel Reeves and Lisa Nandy could look to follow Rome’s example. They could reverse Tony Blair’s catastrophic public policy of those ‘free museums’ and mandate – not impose – mandate a £2 entry fee for all adults, with children free. Mandating is the sign of a healthy government, impose is the word used by humans led to believe by the Labour party that everything should be free.
The queues of tourists waiting to enter the British Museum go round the block and the annual total is about 6.5 million people. Double that is 13 million, so a £2 entry fee would raise £13 million a year. With the general dismantling of cultural institutions over the time since the New Labour it’s a general pattern of a major museum subcontracted out its cafe and bookshop, with the now fixation of humans on expensive coffees and cake now bringing in much money for the cafe contractors, while the BM and the other once honoured museums get nothing but huge bills for electricity, water and heating. 6.5 million people use the loos, hand basins, electric operated doors, wish the building to be warm, clean, light. The British Museum lays off its experience staff as it just can’t afford them, takes on younger and younger staff, temp contracts, cuts its costs in every possible way, worries over what is going to happen, while the 6.5 million visitors come in, don’t have much space to do anything, see a few things, have an expensive coffee and cake, and leave for the next free attraction on London’s Must See list, before flying off somewhere at the cost of £100s or probably £1,000s of pounds.
The BM has the most visitors of any site in the ‘UK’, and this writer is also familiar with WC1 libraries and museums for reasons of study over a long period. But it is not about one place, and the 2E enacted so clearly in Rome is about something much more than 2E and the Trevi Fountain. Those smaller and specific independent museums, of which there are very many, have to charge an entry fee, usually only a few pounds, and for that payment the experience and learning is focused and memorable. The large national, and historic, museums, yet which are operated by the State, they are the ones stuck in the middle of this awful impasse in the ‘UK’. This writer was talking to an electrician in Birmingham New Street last week, just one of those random chats, and that small company owner said the imposition of taxes and raising of minimum wage is costing him £40,000 a year. Making not a lot more than that anyway, how long before it is just not possible to operate anymore. And same for thousands and thousands of people who have no secure backup other than their own hard work, and who are being literally crushed by the combine harvester of this Labour government.
If Rachel Reeves and Lisa Nandy took matters in hand, observed the collapse of cultural and public life in the ‘UK’, didn’t take a fact finding tour to Rome but did a quick doodle on the back of an envelope listing all the national museums in the ‘UK’, a rough adult visitor numbers for all of them, times that by two, got a figure of many, many millions of pounds, and started to rebalance the economy by requiring a level of respect for buildings and collections, how would that shift a little of the despair in the heart of the citizen of 2026? Lisa Nandy is the Culture Secretary, so presumably it would be a case of announcing on the Monday morning meeting that from next week, that’s how it will be, £2 for every adult visitor. Contrary to what the Labour government believe, it creates more respect and more interest and more concentration when in a museum, morale for staff, and a sense that the government has at least one foot in the real world.