Fair Play, Honest Brokerage

Never let it be thought that Tristram Hunt, in giving up his pied-à-terre on the rightmost wing of the Labour Party, has become any the less a firebrand for the rights of the oppressed. In his present capacity as director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, Hunt is magnanimously prepared to loan the Ethiopian natives some bits of their heritage which were stolen by Victoria's troops a hundred and fifty years ago. Ethiopia lodged a formal claim for restitution a decade ago, which was duly shrugged off by Hunt's New Labour colleagues; the British Museum holds thirteen tabots, which are so sacred that they cannot be displayed, but at the same time so British that they also cannot be returned. Hunt had a bit of a burble about the "philosophical case for cosmopolitanism in museum collections", although it remains as yet unclear how much of the Victoria and Albert Museum's native British stock he is prepared to contribute towards the philosophy of cosmopolitanism in Africa. He also suggested that we stop wasting development aid money on fripperies like food, water and medicine, and start handing more of it over for management by people like Tristram Hunt.