Museums are caught in the crossfire of our increasingly toxic political debates around Empire, race and the past. Writer at Large Neil Mackay talks to Professor Christopher Breward, the director of National Museums Scotland, as he charts a path through rage towards reason YOU’VE got to hand it to Professor Christopher Breward. While just about every part of society and public figure has been engulfed in endless, often pointless, culture war battles, he’s determined to keep Scotland’s museums above the fray. As director of National Museums Scotland (NMS), Breward has no time for the performative grandstanding of either the left or right. Politicisation of culture by both progressives and traditionalists leaves him cold. All he wants is to concentrate on the work: the role museums play in Scottish life.