If the prevailing feeling is that Latin and Greek are for toffs, then Boris [Johnson], frankly, is not the man to dispel that notion. - Charlotte Higgins

The wording chills me slightly, with its suggestion of a regular consignment of Eton scholars as if by a law of nature.

I love the British Museum, despite everything. I have had my eyes opened, my imagination set on fire, my intellect challenged by it too many times to mention. ... A fortnight ago, I stopped by to admire the beauty of the Parthenon sculptures, the galloping horsemen and reclining gods innocent of their role in a diplomatic feud. The museum was full of schoolchildren. The place was vibrating with the energy and excitement that comes from the encounter with glorious, awe-inspiring objects. But taking £50m from a polluter? It fills my heart with dread that the museum should take so wrong a turn.

The classics and class have always been ­uncomfortably linked. In this country's education system, knowledge of the classics was traditionally the gatekeeper of privilege. If you ­acquired the classics (even as a humble stonemason's son, like Thomas Hardy) you gained a passport to the establishment. Fail (like Hardy's character Jude) and the corridors of power remained out of reach.