Blair urged to act on Gospels

Feb 21 2007 By William Green, The Journal

The Prime Minister will today be asked to back the campaign to bring the Lindisfarne Gospels home to the North-East.

Sharon Hodgson, MP for Gateshead East and Washington West, is set to ask Tony Blair during Prime Minister's Questions for his support to return the celebrated Seventh Century manuscript back to its birthplace.

The Gospels were taken from Durham Cathedral in 1537 by Henry VIII, and the British Library in London said last year it would never allow them to permanently return to the North-East.

Mrs Hodgson will remind Mr Blair of the thousands of people who queued to see the Gospels during their last visit to the region - at the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle in 2000.

She will ask him to lend his support to the popular campaign to bring them home so the people of the North-East can see the manuscripts for themselves, and whether Mr Blair might like to go along with her to see them on their return.

Mrs Hodgson said: "I have been working very hard with other North-East MPs on this issue and I firmly believe that the return of the Gospels is a matter of social justice for the people of the North-East.

"Many people in the North-East cannot afford a 600-mile round trip to London.

"These gospels are icons of North-East heritage." She added the Gospels were quite literally a part of the North-East with the colours used to create them extracted from local plants and minerals nearly 1,500 years ago in what was then the Kingdom of Northumbria.

"The last time they were in the North-East people queued for half a mile to see them. I cannot imagine such queues forming at the British Library," said Mrs Hodgson.

The Labour MP also revealed she and Durham City MP Roberta Blackman-Woods will be going to the British Library at the end of the month to try to persuade it to do "the right thing" and send the manuscripts home.