The report also demands that institutions stick to their “core stated functions”. A museum that was founded to ensure the “transmission of knowledge… maintenance of public heritage… or the display of national history” should stick to that, and not “exceed its custodial function”. Finally, the report argues that any change should take into account “key stakeholders” – ie. the tax-paying public – before sending off for a big shipment of new plaques confessing all its benefactors’ sins.

Phillips and his researchers are to be commended for highlighting how undemocratic and unaccountable some of the pushes for institutional change have been. (Galleries and councils have whipped away pieces after a whiff of Twitter controversy.) But we need more than technical measures to deal with the new war on history. 

The report rightly highlights the danger of setting precedents off the back of political pressure: if we can change the wishes of benefactors because we don’t agree with their morals or choices, why would any rich person fork out for a new wing to the Tate today, if they imagine their name might only last until the next culture war? But more bureaucratic handwringing will not answer the question of why some are so obsessed with erasing history in the first place. 

The reason why many of our institutions are having trouble with their history is not because society is in the midst of a mid-life crisis, hoping to rid itself of its dodgy past and start afresh. Instead, we’re living through a period of exceptional intolerance and cowardice, in which authoritative bodies feel unable to argue in defence of the importance of protecting all history – both the honourable and the shameful.