V&A director says museum trustees ‘infantilised’ amid row over Parthenon marbles

Some of the Parthenon marbles on display at the British Museum, over which a diplomatic row with Greece re-erupted this week. Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

Museum trustees should be able to “make the case” whether items in their collections should be retained or returned to their countries of origin, but instead were being “infantilised” and “hidebound” by legislation, Tristram Hunt, the director of the V&A, has said.

He was speaking as a diplomatic row between the UK and Greece over the future of the Parthenon marbles, held at the British Museum, blew up this week after Rishi Sunak abruptly cancelled a meeting with the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis.