Society

Henry Cole, the first director of what would become the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), could never have imagined that in his place would follow a man who seems determined to rail against the safeguards that have helped keep the museum’s collection intact. But this, sadly, appears to be the task Tristram Hunt is committed to. Hunt knew the law before he took the job Hunt, director of the V&A since 2017, has declared the 1983 National Heritage Act which prevents him from returning artefacts to their country of origin, to be ‘outdated and infantilising’. In fact, it is a key reason why collections, including the V&A’s, have been maintained. Britain is

Supermarket staff in London are now serving customers from inside glass and metal cages. The unveiling of such desperate security measures, including at a Sainsbury’s store in Battersea, should shock us. Yet in Britain, we’ve become so accustomed to shoplifting and crime on our streets that its introduction generates barely a murmur. Our supermarkets and shops have morphed from places where customers can be trusted, to environments where they are watched like hawks and treated with suspicion Sainsbury’s says the crackdown has been implemented to ‘protect’ staff serving vape bars, tobacco and alcohol to customers. It’s hard to blame the supermarket for its logic. But that doesn’t mean we should

If at first you don’t succeed; deny, deflect, attack. This is apparently the mantra of Sadiq Khan and his Transport for London (TfL) Commissioner, Andy Lord. This week both men hit out at volunteers like me and my friends at the Looking for Growth (LfG) movement, who in recent weeks have taken it upon ourselves to make the state of certain Tube lines ever so slightly less terrible. Anyone who has travelled on the Bakerloo or Central line in London over the last six months will have seen the state of the rolling stock. The clear deterioration of standards, and surging sea of graffiti tags. Astonishing. Sadiq Khan says @lfg_uk