Metal detecting: Angela Merkel’s wise words

by Nigel Swift

This week Angela Merkel made the obvious point that “You cannot fight the pandemic with lies and disinformation…the limits of Populism are being laid bare.” Doesn’t that also apply to British metal detecting: a pandemic of knowledge theft hidden by lies and disinformation?

Angela: not a fan of populism

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We had hoped the Government would delay the return of the biggest source of knowledge theft – mass detecting rallies – until the law could be amended. But no, they’re back, with every participant waving the NCMD or FID notorious banner of false responsibility at the farmer, to whom PAS has neglected to tell the truth.

Pity the country’s farmers, the crucial gatekeepers of all our buried history: detectorists lie to them and PAS doesn’t tell them that the “responsibility code” they wave is one long, convenient falsehood – which doesn’t require any detectorist to follow the official one!

One of the first will be at Boxted –  the 11th held there since 2010! Both the organisers and attendees boast massively about how much is found there yet PAS recorded only 23 artefacts from the first 9 rallies! Britain’s policy of unlimited populism and unlimited damage won’t end any time soon.

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More Heritage Journal views on artefact collecting
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