Fairly obviously, that Robert Jenrick article about statues turns out not to have been a very fair representation of the issues it purported to tackle. https://twitter.com/sundersays/status/1350584333720047626

As a person obsessed with history, I am cautious about the Must Fall stuff and the risks of erasing that which we ought to talk much more about. But equally, does having (to give an eg live in my neighbourhood right now) a main road called “Black Boy Lane” actually constitute

Irretrievable historical memory? Since no one actually knows why it was called that in the first place, renaming it after a prominent black activist in a borough with a diverse population seems like a nice idea to me.

I grew up in a New Town where there were streets named after the Beatles and all sorts. Naming a road “Humanity Lane” or whatever is nowhere near the daftest thing to happen (ask the inhabitants of “Stalin Road”)

Colston’s statue in Bristol has been the subject of local controversy for years & whilst I don’t approve of extra-legal activity, was its pulling down any less democratic than the veto on adding a contextual sign the Colston Society seemed to have?

Statues aren’t put up and roads & buildings aren’t named at random, they tell us what we value or what we think people ought to value. (No one complained when St Stephen’s Tower became Elizabeth Tower did they, even tho everything in Britain now seems to be named after her).

Often remembering that we used to value certain things that we don’t more is a useful connection to our history, but it is hardly the only consideration. I’d not tear Nelson from his column but George IV has a statue in Traf Sq and he was an utter tool.

Some of the Must Fall stuff smacks of a desire to annihilate valid alternative readings of the past—we shld resist that. But you can’t fight it with mindless ancestor worship which makes no concession to the genuine history we all share as the children of a post-Imperial nation.