Politicians, not curators, are to blame for the British Museum's woes Charlotte Higgins

I can't help thinking of the title of that old David Lodge novel, The British Museum is Falling Down

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The much-beloved institution is teetering beneath the weight of scandal.

The museum's chair has been forced to admit that as many as 2,000 objects have gone missing from the collection over the past decade. Public attention has turned towards an ex-curator allegedly removed from his post last year (his son has said he has done no wrong).

The director of the museum, Hartwig Fischer, has resigned, and his deputy, Jonathan Williams, has stepped aside pending an independent review. An antiques dealer-turned-whistleblower has given interviews about the museum's apparent complacency when he alerted managers to the fact that items he had seen listed on eBay seemed to have originated from the BM's collection. A police investigation is under way.

Inside the museum, the mood is despairing, in an institution in which morale was already desperately low. Researchers have been turning their skills towards painstakingly tracking down and recovering missing objects apparently sold on the auction site.

Outside, a storm rages. The museum has opened itself up to fury from both sides of the political divide in the UK, and internationally. In Beijing, a state-backed newspaper is demanding the return of Chinese artefacts; there have been calls from everywhere from Athens to north Wales to repatriate objects.