Why politicians need historians
To me this article expostulates a truism. I think we need historians in local government as well. The history of local authorities, redolent with much that is instructive to a whole range of policy makers and psephologists should be studies and thought through. It holds the key to better service delivery. This article goes on to tell us:
History should not be just affirmation, like Michael Gove’s myth of a single “national past”. Nor should it be entertainment: merely something “people enjoy”. It is a critical science for questioning short-term views, complicating simple stories about causes and consequences, and discovering roads not taken. History can upset the established consensus, expand narrow horizons and, in Simon Schama’s words, “keep the powerful awake at night”. In that mission lies the public future of the past.