As you know, Oliver Dowden laments threats to all British statues – indeed, this week found the Conservative chairman in Washington DC, making a speech about such things to an American thinktank. As a keen student of his joined-up theories, I’ve always looked forward to the day Oliver feels ready to give us his speech on the disgraceful 2012 removal of the Jimmy Savile statue from Glasgow’s Scotstoun leisure centre. Have we not got to live with our history? Debate it, yes, question it, yes – but ultimately preserve every handcarved wooden statue of a paedo in whatever family setting happens to boast one.
In the meantime, according to Dowden, woke ideology is putting the west at risk from countries such as Russia, even though Russians are so woke they have whole parks of torn-down statuary, featuring figures whose historical legacy they didn’t feel particularly minded to debate or live with when they were yanking them off the plinths. Absolute snowflakes.
