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Tristram Hunt

Tristram Hunt is director of the Victoria & Albert Museum. He is a former Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central and a former shadow education secretary. 

January 2024

  • Part of the Asante gold collection on its way back to Ghana.

    V&A’s ‘return’ of looted Ghana gold is a new way to tackle Britain’s painful past

    Tristram Hunt
    A loan deal for the Asante treasures offers a golden opportunity for cultural exchange, argues the museum’s director

June 2023

  • The Imagine gallery at Young V&A.

    Move over, stuffed teddies. Museums today need more to stimulate young minds

    Tristram Hunt
    An old childhood favourite reopens its doors this week. A revamp was long overdue, says its director

April 2021

  • A ‘Hector’ handbag by Thom Browne will feature in one of the V&A’s reopening exhibitions: Bags: Inside Out.

    Enough with the imperial nostalgia and identity politics. Let museums live

    Tristram Hunt
    As cultural spaces are set to open again, critics from left and right need to get out of the way

November 2020

  • Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and daughters Jenny, Eleanor and Laura Marx, 1864.

    Engels comes of age: the socialist who wanted a joyous life for everyone

    Two centuries after his birth, Karl Marx’s ‘second fiddle’ is at last being recognised as the visionary he was, writes his biographer

May 2020

  • Treasures of the V&A.

    The V&A in 10 objects: from Brexit vases to Beyoncé's butterfly ring

    With London’s Victoria & Albert Museum in lockdown, its director shares his favourite artefacts

June 2019

  • Some of the Benin bronzes at the British Museum in London.

    Should museums return their colonial artefacts?

    Europe’s museums serve a nuanced purpose and shouldn’t automatically bow to calls to return artworks plundered by 19th-century colonisers, writes V&A director Tristram Hunt

January 2019

  • Daniel Barenboim conducts the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra

    Leonardo was a man of the Renaissance, not narrow nationhood

    Tristram Hunt
    The row over Italy’s paintings is a disturbing example of politicians trying to harness art to nationalism

January 2018

  • Part of the Bayeux tapestry, which will be loaned to Britain after President Macron agreed to let it leave France for the first time in 950 years.

    France gave us the Bayeux tapestry. What can we give the world? | Tristram Hunt

    Rhinos, DVDs, pandas and the Bayeux tapestry – political presents and loans have a long history, says the V&A’s director

November 2017

  • Louvre Abu Dhabi , designed by Jean Nouvel: ‘What the French and Emirati curators have built is a thing of great beauty.’

    Once Britain’s culture wielded global power. Now France shows us the way

    Tristram Hunt
    The new ‘Louvre in the Sand’, opening in Abu Dhabi, marks a shift in the European balance of cultural influence

December 2016

  • Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel said he refused to entrap undocumented children in the city.

    Cities can provide a sanctuary against Trump – and Brexit

    Tristram Hunt
    Cosmopolitanism is not a dirty word – it can provide a vital bulwark against intolerance in both Britain and the US

November 2016

  • Kensington townhouses.

    End London’s role as a clearing-house for dirty money

    Tristram Hunt
    A modern-day Sherlock Holmes must unravel the flows of cash that skew the London property market at the expense of school and hospital-building in Kinshasa

September 2016

  • James Keir Hardie

    This boundary gerrymandering is grotesque. What’s next, abolish Labour seats?

    Tristram Hunt
    Labour MPs will be pitted against each other as constituencies such as mine are carved up. Our leadership must fight for democracy

June 2016

  • ‘Corbyn has proved utterly ineffectual.’

    Labour members need to do something about Jeremy Corbyn

    Tristram Hunt
    To protect Labour values in the Tory renegotiation, we need someone with insight and nous. That’s not Jeremy Corbyn

May 2016

  • Beach hut in Southend

    There’ll always be an England … and Labour must learn to love it

    Tristram Hunt
    The party has alienated its traditional white working class voters. A new book of essays from all wings of the party shows that it needs a dose of radical patriotism

March 2016

  • Sense and Sensibility (2007)

    From Jane Austen to Zadie Smith – the city v the country in literature

    Englishness, empire and anti-capitalist protest – 40 years after it was first published, Raymond Williams’s classic work The Country and the City still helps explain England’s complicated national identity

February 2016

  • Celebrations And Flag Flying On St George's Day<br>The St George flag is seen flying above 10 Downing St on April 23, 2008 in London, England. This is the first time the St George flag has been raised in Downing St since 1996. (Photo by Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)

    Labour must embrace Englishness – and be proud of it

    Tristram Hunt
    Squeamishness about English patriotism speaks to a widening culture gap between Labour and the people it seeks to represent

January 2016

  • Child running down alley

    Inequality is a problem schools alone can’t fix

    Tristram Hunt
    In the Tories’ austerity era a new approach is needed to ensure disadvantaged pupils are not left behind

October 2015

  • David Cameron at the Conservative party conference

    Did David Cameron’s conference speech manage to capture the centre ground?

    The prime minister stood up before his party in Manchester and attempted to reset British politics. Will his move succeed?

September 2015

  • Jeremy Corbyn at the Labour party conference

    Come on, Labour, get over the 90s and join in Jeremy Corbyn’s debate

    Tristram Hunt
    We need to stop obsessing about Blair’s legacy, acknowledge the limits of markets, and admit our economic model is bust

June 2015

  • Ed Miliband visit to Michael Faraday School London

    Tristram Hunt: how Labour lost the plot on education – and the election

    Ed Miliband appeared uninterested in schools policy and muddled his priorities with the tuition fees cut, writes shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt
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