It’s liberating to sense how a government whose primary concern is not fighting culture wars might return a grown-up freedom to public debate. A discussion at the British Museum last week, “Who owns the past?”, could not, in this sense, have been more timely. The debate, which marked the arrival at the museum of Nicholas Cullinan, its new director, featured contributions from Mary Beard, David Olusoga, Rory Stewart and Munira Mirza about the issues faced by museums as they incorporate discussion of colonial history into their collections, and examine questions of ownership.

Olusoga framed this debate by suggesting that “what we’re dealing with now is a backlog of discussions that we didn’t want to have in the past”. Cullinan, who oversaw the recent fabulous transformation of the National Portrait Gallery, loved the idea that “this universal museum is not [yet] universal enough”. Beard suggested that, in order to overcome........

© The Guardian