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Museums are must be about history, not trendy woke claptrap  Credit: Dan Kitwood /Getty Images Europe  Since 2007 the International Council of Museums (Icom) has offered – as if it were necessary – a definition of a museum. Few reasonable people would disagree with it: platitudes about a non-profit institution serving society and the public by acquiring, conserving and exhibiting examples of heritage, and conducting research. Its purposes, again universally agreed, are that it should exist for “education, study and enjoyment”. Education and study, if undertaken in a spirit of enlig...

National Trust members have launched a campaign against the charity's 'woke agenda' as it was today accused of 'lecturing' the public and 'demonising' history.  Restore Trust was established following furious criticism of a report detailing links between 93 of the Trust's properties and historic slavery and colonialism. The group, described as a forum where members can 'discuss their concerns about the future of the charity', says visitors should not leave venues feeling their history has been 'demonised'.         They say there has been a 'relentless diminution of standards' at the...

Labour’s pledge to put No 10’s planned 1 per cent pay rise for nurses at the heart of its local election campaign could mean that one well-heeled minister’s nonchalant dismissal of the nurses’ case will come back to haunt the Government. ‘There are many people in this country who look upon professional jobs in the NHS with some envy,’ Health Minister Lord Bethell said last week.  ‘Nurses are well paid for the job. They have a secure job and they have other benefits.’ Is Bethell, a hereditary peer, the right man to talk about nurses’ pay? He lives with his venture capitalist...

The abdication crisis – seen through the eyes of Britain's meekest clergyman 2/5 As chaplain to king and Commons, Alan Don had a ringside seat to the abdication – yet rather than juicy gossip he gives us accidental laughs The Duke and Duchess of Windsor in France, 1955 Credit: The LIFE Picture Collection  Alan Don was a Scottish clergyman who found himself at a fascinating junction in English society at a remarkable period in English history. He became chaplain to Cosmo Lang, the archbishop of Canterbury, in 1931, and soon collected chaplaincies to the king and the Speaker of the House o...

Henry ‘Chips’ Channon review – the celebrated diaries, unredacted Sex, scandal, kinks and queens … edited by Simon Heffer, these interwar diaries by the Tory MP are a masterpiece of storytelling and character assassination Wallis Simpson ... ‘A good kindly woman who has had an excellent influence on the young monarch.’ Photograph: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy Wallis Simpson ... ‘A good kindly woman who has had an excellent influence on the young monarch.’ Photograph: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy Sat 13 Mar 2021 02.30 EST “What is more dull than ...