The Rest Is History - 78. Statues: Parliament Square

Episode Date: July 22, 2021

Statues: Parliament Square In the final part of their epic trilogy, Tom and Dominic arrive at Parliament Square to explore the statues of world leaders including Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi.  A Goalhanger Films & Left Peg Media production Produced by Jack Davenport Exec Producer Tony Pastor *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory. History special on the statues of central London. And Dominic, we've really been kind of working our way towards where we are standing now, haven't we? Right from the very beginning, because we're now in Parliament Square and we're in front of the statue that triggered the whole statue debate which is the image of Winston Churchill. Yeah this great hulking image. Great hulking image which essentially has become a kind of lightning rod in the culture wars. So we've come on the one day when it's not covered with scaffolding or daubed with is a racist or Chelseaelsea fc yes or any of the other

things that it's actually you know in the last um so yes so on the edge of parliament square he's he's facing big ben he's this incredibly imposing sort of heroic figure um so supposedly tom churchill ringed 20 years before he died he ringed this area of parliament square for himself on a map and said that is where my statue will go and they the guy the sculptor did it and apparently had to redo it because it looked too much like mussolini um well he does look his head there to make churchill's head smaller because otherwise he would look like mussolini but anyway here he is the great old man of 20th century british politics and the sort, you know, for so long seen as the incarnation of the Dunkirk spirit, the British bulldog, all the cliches that we grew up with, I suppose, didn't we? And he is the reason, to some extent, he's the reason we're having this, we're doing these podcasts at all.

Because his statue has become so controversial um what do you think about it well i i i think in a way it it's the the debate around the statue has become divorced from from any historical debate about church himself yeah i think essentially people come here and put mohicans on it or door bit or whatever simply because it's a fun way to annoy people who will be annoyed by people doing it's sort of edible isn't it i mean it's kind of i don't think it's even that i don't think they even people even care about churchill particularly i think it's just i think if you're if you're on if you're on a demo and you want to annoy the people that you're on a demo protesting against you know that defacing

churchill will get a rise out of them i think it's more it's a way it's a way of pissing off the gammon and on the topic of gammon i should just mention yeah the single funniest fact in our first episode um we did we uh we looked at the statue of of um general napier and i forgot to mention that he the statue of uh sir charles james napier uh was actually sculpted by somebody called george gammon adams so see if i was a more cynical man i would think that you've spent the first few moments of this podcast just waiting for an opportunity to bring out your napier gammon joke that you forgot to mention two podcasts ago um churchill that but it's interesting that he's he's just got the one name hasn't he i mean well he's got the one they want stupid thing to say

he's just got the one word on his plinth so there's no winston there's interesting that he's just got the one name, hasn't he? I mean, well, he's got the one name, what stupid thing to say. He's just got the one word on his plinth. So there's no Winston, there's no dates, there's just Churchill. No explaining who he was. No, but I suppose the assumption was you wouldn't need it. I mean, Churchill was just a titanic figure. And actually, I will say this. He's one of the, you do see people looking at it as they walk past. There are people right now looking at it,

and they're actually about to take a photo, which is not true of most of the statues we covered in the previous podcast so it's still a statue that clearly well it matters i know that's a weird thing to say the statue of a man who died in 1965 but it does matter to people for good or real so i think on the issue of statues a huge issue is why why is the been put up? And as we have kind of clearly realised over the course of the previous two podcasts, every figure has a kind of ambivalent record. You can always find a dark side. You can always find complications. We haven't had any saints yet, have we? We haven't had any saints. And so it matters why he's put up was was it is this statue commemorating uh churchill's

racism is it commemorating his attitudes to india is it commemorating his record in in the general strike i don't think it's it's in this poll position for any of those reasons this statue is here because he is the man who ensured that britain stayed independent in 1940 against the worst tyranny that the world has ever faced on is great keep it coming and and for that reason if there has to be statues i'm happy for there to be a statue here of churchill if anybody i just want to say this if anyone's listening to this from the daily mail tom holland is not available to write yeah but there's a but dominic dominic there's but, which is that in general, I find the, this kind of class. Oh, I'm about to be arrested.

What a shame that you're being silent. I'm about to be arrested. I don't like this kind of galaxy of political luminaries. Oh, I love this. I love a pantheon. No, I don't. Because, because to be honest, I'm happy for Churchill to be here. See, I would come here with my son and walk around and say, he's him. This is so-and-so. I think this is a great educative square, this space. So this is Parliament Square.

So in a sense, this is the kind of figurative representation of our democracy. Yeah. So it matters hugely who is here. Well, that's why you have Churchill, because he defended British democracy in 1940 when it was in battle. I'm happy for Churchill to be here if we have to have statues. But I do think that there is a case for saying in Parliament Square that we, rather as with the cenotaph, which symbolises the war dead, without reference to generals, without reference to even to kind of representative figures of the soldiers who fought in the war. And I think therefore is all the more moving for it.

I think that there would be a way of summoning up the traditions of British democracy here that didn't rely on hugely... A massive stone ballot box. Is that what you want? Well, I'm not a sculptor. So I, you know... I think nations need heroes.

And I think elected Democratic representatives are as good as any. But politicians, by their definition, kind of aren't heroes and are, by definition, divisive figure. So if Churchill, who saved the country, who did as much as anyone to defeat fascism is a is a controversial figure then so is everyone else so we're now standing in front of a man who who i know you you have you have said let's one point about churchill churchill was divisive when he died in 1965 his former sworn political adversaries so people like clement atlee said he was a great man atlee said you know the great extinguishment of our time nobody opposed his statue nobody opposed his state funeral so i think but they do now don't they they do now and that's the point that's the point is that he's now become a divisive figure

okay right i'm i'm i don't want to get cross so i don't start crying which would be uh which would be worse so but we're now in front of david lloyd george who i know you you absolutely you essentially wanted to cancel yeah it's a terrible statue it's a it looks like a melting ice lolly it's from 2007 he's got his cloak like he's doing an enormous great yeah breaking wind it's a tremendous effect he's got this sort of billowing cloak behind him he's wearing a bow tie isn't he um so ll Lloyd George, I suppose, the argument for him is, you know, reforming Liberal Chancellor, one of the founding fathers of the welfare state,

ultimately the man who won the war, so-called, in World War I. The argument against him is unbelievably corrupt, even by 21st century standards. You know, flogged peerages for money, stabbed all his colleagues in their back and didn't get off with his daughter-in-law a hideous womanizer cuckolded his own son which i think is pretty bad form at any moment in history i don't there's ever been a time when that's been regarded as and yeah sort of i just couldn't be trusted around women. I mean, in a Me Too age,

to me, Lloyd George is a bit vulnerable, actually. Now, this will raise hackles among our Welsh listeners because he's the only Welshman, I think, we've had in these three podcasts, and they would want him. And, of course, liberals. He's a great liberal hero. Well, the thing is, I think the argument is either

you have everybody, which is effectively what we've got, so in which case don't cancel any of them i wouldn't really cancel them or get rid of the lot now well all that said tom i said i wouldn't really cancel him and now we're on to a very very very interesting candidate so this is somebody we're now in front of jan christian smuts 1870 to 1950. So this is a fascinating one. The most visitors to this square will not recognize the name, and they won't know why he's here. He's a Boer War general who fought against the British, then is kind of reconciled to Britain.

He fights in World War I, and he is the South African prime minister during World War II. And I'm sure people who listen to our sister podcast, We Have Ways, about the Second World War, will know that there were contingency plans that if Churchill died in World War II, Smuts would become prime minister of the United Kingdom. So in his day, a colossal figure, now kind of forgotten in Britain at least. But of course, because he was a white south african there is baggage i mean he wasn't you know fully pro-apartheid he wasn't part of the

apartheid regime but he was pro-segregation and he had views about race that would be unpalatable to us now so actually if you're going to do the keep and cancel game, he is very vulnerable. Do you not think? Well, so he is one of a number of statues here that aren't British. Yes. I think there's an issue with that because I actually think it's a kind of imperial hangover. Of course it is in his case, yeah. But I think we're going to come to the statue of Gandhi and of Mandela as well.

I think in a sense, you may say we're paying respect to the traditions that they represent, but in a way we're also kind of appropriating them. And it's like we're treating them as though they're still subjects of the British Empire. But he was part of a global British empire. Yes, I know. But so essentially, this is a very very imperial space yeah precisely not just because

we've got smuts here but because we've got mandela and gandhi as well agreed and i think so i think we are we are appropriating you know the great figures of india and and of south africa well they were part i mean smuts was part of Britain's story. So Smuts, I agree. So Mandela and Gann are slightly different. But the Smuts, I mean, also, it's a very odd statue because he looks like

he's ice skating. He does. He's got his hands behind his back. Yeah, he does. Like he's kind of gliding across the ice. Striding forth.

Now, one of my favourite historical characters, we've talked about him in the podcast before. The World Cup of Prime Ministers, didn't we? The World Cup of Prime Ministers. He's Viscount Palmerston. Yes. Supposed yes supposedly though apocryphally i think died while deflowering a

maid on a billiard table at the age of 80 yes um uh what your brother would call diplomacy what my brother would call a massive lad i think it's fair to say gunboat diplomacy smiting foreigners um he he was an he was an abolitionist actually so slavery is the yardstick he's got he passes he's got bonus points but then he's got debits because he um wanted to support the confederacy because he hated america so he thought this is our way to smash america so we should have supported the confederacy um he's he's the model of a victorian imperialist imperialist yeah he is he is. He's unashamed. If he were here now, I mean, he would absolutely be on...

But again, to apply the standard that we have actually rather inconsistently been applying, you could say that statues are a gallery of history. It's a kind of Madame Tussauds. Well, that's what Parliament Square is. I mean, we're surrounded by a gallery of history. It's a kind of Madame Tussauds. Well, that's what Parliament Square is. I mean, we're surrounded by a line of... So my argument is veering all over the place here, like a shopping trolley. I like Palmerston.

I like the fact he's there. I think it's a bit of Victorian history. It's a dashing statue. It's a very good statue, isn't it? He looks like a classic Victorian statesman. He does. As does the next person, who is the Earl of earl of derby

oh everyone loves derby i mean actually he wants to cancel the earl of derby i'm gonna fight through these crowds here crowds of pilgrims are genuflecting a lot of foreign tourists come specifically to look at the and there's a lovely um relief at the bottom the house of commons 1833 there's the old darby doing his stuff at the dispatch box so he was a tory leader for 22 years he was prime minister three times but i think sort of for a period of about a week on each occasion um i'm exaggerating uh here he is as the chancellor of the university of oxford what a man on the other side he's the central executive cotton famine relief committee committee oh it's kind uh and uh cabinet council 1867 so again a massive lad so um disraeli put this up 1874 you know what disraeli said no we have raised this statue to him not only as a memorial

but as an example not merely to commemorate, but to inspire. So that's why there are crowds of foreign tourists. Yeah, they've come to be inspired. Genuflecting before him. Now, I think our producer, Tony, has been haranguing me throughout these three episodes about relevance. And I think the Earl of Derby is a hard one for me to justify because whatever his achievements whatever his political

importance in the 19th century if relevance is your yardstick which I absolutely don't think it should be but if it is the Earl of Derby

is relevant to nobody he does have magnificent whiskers to the city of Derby yeah I don't know that he had any great

you know affection for Derby as a place. So he's not batting for Derbyshire? He's not a ram till I die. When he thinks of Brian Clough. Sorry, that's a reference to be lost on some of our non-football fancying listeners. But he's got great whiskers so yeah he does a great one for the mutton chop it's one for the barbers well not for the barbers obviously no

okay now now we've got to a more progressive one tom yeah so we all we've done all men except for your buddhica um although she was last time wasn't she i've actually lost track this walk has been going on for so long. Very recent statue. Do you want to tell us about it? So this is Millicent Fawcett, the great suffragette leader, which went up 2018, was it? 2019? After a lengthy campaign.

2018, you're right. I was just looking at my notes. 2018. Caroline Criado. Yeah. And I think it's great all in favor of that although you know what the guardian ran columns saying she shouldn't have a statue they said she wasn't a radical uh suffragette um they do have pictures all around the side well you see that that's you

see that's why i like it is is because one of you know kind of saying that one of the problems with um the argument that individuals can sum up entire movements is that it does very much focus attention on the individual. But here they've got photographs of people, mostly women, but not exclusively, who contributed to the suffragette. So I think they're all women, actually. No, I don't think so. Who's a man there?

There's a chap. George Lansbury. Okay, so there is a man. Leader of the Labour Party. Yeah, we've got a couple of men. We've got the Pankhurst a man. Leader of the Labour Party. Yeah, we've got a couple of men. We've got the Pankhursts. So they're the more radical. I thought Tom was just being disobliging about the woman on the memorial, but no.

And it has this message. She's actually carrying, you know, this flag, I guess. Courage calls to courage everywhere. Very nice. Very moving. I think it actually is a lovely bit of public art. It is. And the fabric of her dress.

You can almost... You can almost touch it. You can always touch it. You can touch it. In fact is and the fabric of her dress you can almost you can always touch it you can always touch it in fact i'm going to but tom do you know what yeah she again is everybody's cancelable she was opposed to very violently opposed to home rule for ireland he left the liberal party over the issue of home rule to join the liberal unionists so you know visitors from dublin she's not going to be first stop on their list and i suppose that reinforces the point that everybody that none of them are saints that if you are in this sort of cancellation game you can find a reason for any historical character and talking of no one being saints our next one is um benjamin disraeli benjamin disraeli boris johnson of the victorian

world yeah i mean dizzy is the ultimate imperialist right i mean he's the man who made queen victoria Benjamin Disraeli. Benjamin Disraeli. The Boris Johnson of the Victorian world. Yeah, I mean, Dissey is the ultimate imperialist, right? I mean, he's the man who made Queen Victoria Empress of India. He's a charming shyster, isn't he? He's a mountebank. He's a mountebank. He's a charming shyster. He and Palmerston are kind of Boris-esque.

Boris figures, yeah. Yeah. But here he's not Dissey, he's not Disraeli, he's Beckensfield. Yeah, the Earl of Beckensfield. Is the title he took. Yeah, because he's all about the pageantry and the pomp. And he looks very serious. He looks statesmanlike. dizzy, he's not Disraeli, he's Beckensfield. Yeah, the Earl of Beckensfield. Is the title he took. Yeah, because he's all about the pageantry and the pomp. And he looks very serious. He looks statesmanlike.

Yeah, he does. Yeah. Why is Gladstone not here? That is an excellent question to which I don't know the answer. Maybe Gladstone because of his sort of, you know, he's a great commoner and all that sort of stuff. But you feel if Disraeli's here, then Gladstone should be here as well. Yeah. Because otherwise it makes more sense. Because the Tories have got a good run with the Earl of Derby as well sort of stuff. But you feel, if Disraeli's here, then Gladstone should be here as well. Yeah. Because otherwise,

it makes more sense. Because the Tories have got a good run with the Earl of Derby as well, of course. Yeah. The punter's favourite. And also, there isn't a Labour politician here.

No. No, Atlee, So again, I think that's a lack. So we should put up more statues, which is... I think we should have a statue of Atlee.

I think we should have a statue of Gladstone. I think we should have a statue of Jim Callaghan. Definitely. Definitely. And on that note, I'll tell you what we should have. We should have a break. Yeah, we should.

So we shall reconvene after the break and we should be looking at more statues. Goodbye. Statues, we've got them. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news,

reviews, splash of showbiz gossip, and on our Q&A we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have launched our members club if you want ad-free listening bonus episodes and early access to live tickets head to the rest of the entertainment.com that's the rest is entertainment.com hello welcome back to the statue fest that is the third episode of our tour of central london we're in parliament square and we are now standing in front of another statue um someone who was a

subject of the british empire yes um but is an icon of another country mahatma gandhi mahatma gandhi yeah of course a half-naked fakir, as Churchill called him. So I was saying earlier that I think that this is an act of cultural appropriation. But Gandhi is a kind of reckoning with empire, isn't he? He is. The fact that his statue is there. So it went up in 2015. But that's ostensibly what it is.

Yeah. But I think it's kind of implicitly serving as a reminder of the british empire having a cake eating it well it's it's it's a it's it's a kind of imperial it's a kind of post-imperial morality so it's it's objectively saying we're against the empire but hey look you know we're in the center of what was the imperial capital and we're still i think that's a bit harsh i think it's i i think he's there as a saint actually he's india's saint he's not ours yeah but you i think it's a good statement that britain has a statue of gandhi for some for listeners who don't know what give us a quick pricey of gandhi's life in 15 seconds so i suppose

gandhi i mean he's he's um uh an indian who comes to study law actually in london yeah so in that sense he could count as a londoner so perhaps on that level, he deserves a statue here. He goes to South Africa, he goes back to India, he leads the fight for independence from the British Raj, gets to see independence and then gets shot by a Hindu nationalist and dies. So a kind of heroic figure. But as with Smuts, he's part of the British story. He is part of our story.

Yes, he is. But I think his existence here, I don't know, it just kind of slightly feels like we are kind of claiming him as our own when we don't really have the right to do that. I don't agree with that. I think you're basically saying the square should be full of

what kind of progressive people would call baddies i'm not saying that at all i'm not saying that at all what i'm saying is that i think that there is a sense in which appropriating gandhi appropriating mandela and putting them in in the middle of um parliament square is saying that you know these are kind of british figures i don't think it's saying that at all i think it's saying that i know objectively that's not that's not. I think it's saying that... I know, objectively, that's not... They're part of the... And I know that's not the rationale. But I think that there is a kind of implicit assumption

of moral superiority here. So I often think these things, you know, you bring a load of kids here, primary school children or something, and this is a statue that a lot of them will stop at, even if they don't know the story, because they'll be intrigued by the figure, you know, who's in his kind of

robes and stuff and it's so obviously so different from all the others and it's a great i mean it's actually if nothing else it's a great educative space i mean you can tell the story i suppose also what's interesting about it yeah and and look at and if you look at the left arm of both statues they're almost identical yeah so disraeli has the robes of a peer of the realm and Gandhi has the kind of the rough homespun of... Well, isn't that a lovely image? I mean, now just behind... I mean, so much of this is about empire, isn't it? And about race and all these kinds of things.

And just over Gandhi's shoulder is in the distance is Abraham Lincoln. And Abraham Lincoln, I suppose, is almost part of the same story to the extent that it's about justice between sort of black and white. That's why I mean, Lincoln is there because he's I think it's he's America's greatest president. It's also about kind of English speaking peoples, isn't it? I mean, again, it's kind of claiming it Lincoln for our own. I just I think I just think that it's... I utterly disagree with that. I utterly refute this.

So the Lincoln, right? The Lincoln is a gift. The Lincoln is a gift from America. Like the Washington. And it was unveiled by Lloyd George. So it's on the other side. It's over the traffic so I can't be bothered to walk all the way over there. But you can see it from within Parliament Square.

It was unveiled by one of the other people in this square, Lloyd George, in 1920, at the end of the First World War. But of course, Lincoln statues, some of Lincoln's statues have been taken down in America now. Because Lincoln famously, although he was an abolitionist, and he led the North during the American Civil War, he didn't believe that white and black people could ever be equal. He argued that there would always be differences and the white race should always be superior um so by 21st century to some people by 21st century standards lincoln is on the wrong side of history um it seems an

extraordinary thing to me to say about the man who emancipated um slaves and the emancipation proclamation at the end of the american civil war but um but there you go you'd keep lincoln wouldn't you tom i tell you we've appropriated him he's a present he's a gift yeah i suppose i don't feel strongly about it either way but i'm now again we have to fight our way past hordes of tourists for this next one well we've had a lot of police cars going by haven't we yeah And basically that's this man's fault. Robert Peel. Robert Peel, founder of the police.

Yeah. Tamworth's most beloved son. Pride of Tamworth. Yeah, the pride of Tamworth. He spent the statue of Peel in Tamworth along with Athelfland, Lady of the Mercians, the founding mother of England, who I...

You would like to see here. I'd like to see here, yeah. Did you have to tolerate Robert Peel? Yeah. I mean, you know, Robert Peel is a great early 19th century prime minister, very consequential, repeals the Corn Laws. The producer's looking sceptical

because of his relevant arguments and, you know... No, he's an important figure, but I mean, he's quite boring. Tony's the producer who is the... You know, he's my important figure but i mean he's quite boring he's uh tony's tony the producer who is the you know he's my sort of common man that i um that we bring on the podcast to be the the voice of the nation he's not sure what about nelson mandela i actually think this is a terrible i mean this is an awful thing to say i actually think it's a bad statue why do you think it's a bad statue because it doesn't look like him i don't think it looks quite right i think the legs are a bit too short.

I quite like the shirt. Did Nelson Mandela have very short legs? Well, you see, family, small girl's gone up and hugged him. Hugged him, that's nice. But I'm not sure if she's hugging him because she knows he's Nelson Mandela or she's hugging him because it's... Now there's a boy going up to join. I think there must be a part of that. Great scenes.

They're not doing that to Robert Peel. Mind you, he deals with all four of them. He's on a doing that to Robert Peel. Mind you, he did it for them. He's got a massive plinth. Robert Peel's like a six-foot plinth. Fair enough. That's a health and safety hazard. I think surely the youthful Sandbrook would have risked health and safety

to hug the legs of Sir Robert Peel. No, Dominic, come down. And climb up the Isle of Derby. Mamma, mamma, I must hug. I must hug. I must hug Sir Robert Peel. No, Dominic, come down. And climb up the Earl of Derby. Mama, mama, I must hug. I must hug. I must hug Sir Robert Peel. Well, anyway, Nelson's here. Now, I suppose, Tom, this is your, you're going to, you know.

Well, I've already said what I've got to say about that. I've already said what I've got to say. I mean, to be fair, you've said what you've got to say about 62 podcasts ago, but I don't hold that against you. I have, to be fair, you've said what you've got to say about 62 podcasts ago, but I don't hold that against you. I have. I have. I think it's great that the statues of Nelson Mandela, you know, ANC had London was kind of their second home. Yes, it was. You know, it's crucially important. There is a statue of the bust of Nelson Mandela on the South Bank. You know, I think that's great. I just think that Parliament Square, the hub of the imperial capital,

it just feels slightly dodgy to me. It closes the circle. It has the people like, you know, Disraeli, who were absolutely emblematic of empire. I mean, it was Disraeli who gave Victoria the title Empress of India. And then I think you chronologically, you close the story with Gandhi. Maybe, maybe.

Who fought for Indian independence. With Mandela who came to, you know, to embody reconciliation between black and white and a kind of post-colonial future. I think that is a nice story. Okay, I'm going to accept that you've thought more deeply about this than I have. This is, the producers are here with us now

please excerpt this clip and put it as a special one-off broadcast no i'm just i yeah i okay i'm convinced tom has been very generous but i have to say tom has also been very gentleman and not mentioning it throughout this these three episodes i've been wearing a tom holland benefit year cap a tom holland themed baseball cap a tom holland themed baseball cap yeah it's been utterly humiliating because i forgot to bring it's very it's a beautiful sunny day unusually yeah i'm worried about getting sunburned and so i'm wearing a tom holland i mean it's even got your face on the front it's your face modeled as a lion's face it's backed against rajasthan where i bowled the prince of yudai purr um so that's what this is

all commemorating and it's wonderful that you've been broadcasting this to the uh to the people of central london i've seen a lot of people it's a shame actually shaking their head sadly when they see the cap it's a shame that this is um this is only audio because it would be a wonderful site for people and lots of people come up to me and say god you must love spider-man dominic i i can't believe that you pulled that low trick after the cap i mean come on okay so we've done parliament square there's two more statues that we do need to look at one of them is the statue of cromwell which we talked about in the episode with paul lay the other is the statue of richard i so we'll come to them but before we do that yeah standing next to parliament square we've got westminster abbey yeah and we've talked a lot actually um our very first podcast

we were talking about ideas of greatness and then of saintliness we were and we've talked about martyrs and there are literal martyrs um above the great west door of westminster abbey so i think we should go and have a look at them because I think that they're a fascinating counterpoint to the array of kind of secular power that we get in Parliament Square. Any excuse to do church mongering. Yeah, so let's cross the road and we'll join there. So, Tom, you've dragged me to the front of Westminster Abbey.

Very nice, of course, lovely abbey but i want to know why i'm here what have you got for me okay so we're looking at the the west doorway um and above the west doorway there were vacant niches for um presumably biblical figures or biblical kings or saints or whatever would have gone up and they were empty so um beginning of the 21st century they they put up statues of people who'd been martyred for Christian faith over the course of the 20th century. And they are of international scope. So we were just talking in Parliament Square about the international character of commemoration. Here, it's absolutely Catholic in the small C sense, kind of universal church.

So in the middle, you have Martin Luther King is one of them. You've got Oscar Romero, who was the Archbishop of El Salvador, who was shot celebrating mass. You've got a guy with the beard on the left is Maximilian Kolbe, who was a Polish priest who sacrificed himself, I think, in Auschwitz. He died in concentration camp. And you've got one of the Grand Duchesses in Russia who was thrown down a coal mine by the communists. You've got people from China. So you've got people

from across the world. But the thing is that they, you know, we've been talking about how most of the statues that we've been looking at are people who have killed. These are people who are here because they were killed.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Yeah, so Bonhoeffer, yes. So I suppose they're a bit like Edith Cavellll who was in our first episode she was um but so these are martyrs but Tom I mean this you were arguing before about appropriation you don't think this is kind of Britain I mean you have all these international figures don't you if you sort of think you're the center of the world and you want to no because because this is a church and it was built as a Catholic church and it has always celebrated saints from across the world.

It claims a universal jurisdiction, which, of course, the British state does not. And do you distinguish between these statues, which are on the facade of the church, as so many statues have been through history, but they're of real people, Martin Luther King. Do you think there's a difference between them and the Parliament Square secular statues? Yes, completely. Even though Martin Luther King, he's the same kind of figure as Nelson Mandela and Gandhi, isn't he? Why is he different just because he's on the facade of a church?

Well, Martin Luther King is being celebrated as a Christian here. Okay. Who is being, you know, implication is that he was shot as a martyr for for his faith which i suppose in a sense he was i mean i agree that's controversial but it's from the ideological point of view yeah it's an interesting counterpoint to the traditions of heroism that we were talking about in the first episode that we ever did from the rest of the greatness yeah we talked about greatness well even in that episode we sort of trod a line between greatness and sainthood didn't we

people are more interested you know that the idea of heroism really has become one with which we're embarrassed yeah whereas the idea of of uh of martyrdom i think is one that that we're more comfortable with yeah i think there's a lot of truth in that so uh because we're more i think to embrace the victim now maybe than the so yeah and the conqueror if you like so i think i think there's a lot of truth in that so uh because we're more keen to embrace the victim now maybe than the so yeah and the conqueror if you like so i think i think that that's um you know it's it's an interesting counterpoint that yeah you know those statues are obviously not nearly as well known as the statues in parliament square uh and often people can go in westminster abbey and not look up and see them at all. Yeah. But, you know, Westminster Abbey is the, you know,

it's the religious equivalent of Westminster. It's the religious heart of the country. But, Tom, in the very first episode that we did about statues, which probably for our listeners seems about a lifetime ago. Yeah. You were talking about the Greeks and the Romans, particularly the Romans and their influence on statuary. And I'm surprised you didn't talk about medieval saints and people of that kind because

surely they're they're also obvious precursors because i think that's the tradition that the 17th century resurrection of um of roman sculpture kind of supersedes okay um because celebrating saints with statues is obviously a catholic thing which then gets erased with the reformation so in a sense perhaps you could say that um starting to to put up statues of kings dressed in in roman costume yeah is a way of replacing that hunger for sculptures of of human individuals that Protestantism had effectively destroyed when they closed down the monasteries. See, I think there's a huge issue, which we talked about in our Culture Wars podcast,

of people's anxiety about images. Yeah. Which is, we've talked about Garyary young's article in the in the guardian yeah which said that all statues should be pulled down i think that that is that is a kind of enduring anxiety and i think that um a lot of the anxiety around all the political figures here so people have targeted churchill who you know basically saved britain and the world from fascism and but they also targeted Gandhi. Yes, they did.

The man who won independence for India, but was accused of racism. See, I think there's a human impulse to tear down heroes, to create heroes, but also there's an enduring desire to tear them down. And that's why attacking Churchill and Gandhi, probably of all the, apart from Mandela, of all the people we've talked about, the most loved, the most associated with virtue of various kinds. I think that's why they were targeted. Well, I think also they were

targeted because they were racists. I think that's an important part of it. I mean, if you're going to be as reductive as that, surely that is true of all the people on par. I mean, was the Earl of Derby, were they Israeli? Did they not have prejudices that would seem alien to us now? I think it's a tension between the idea of a hero and the idea of a saint. And with a saint, you accept that they're fallen. They're human. So the fact that they're sinners is kind of factored in theologically. With heroes, it becomes more complicated because we don't have the… Right, yeah. I'm talking of saints and sinners.

And heroes. One of my absolute all-time… We have now arrived outside the Palace of Westminster. The star of my favourite figures in all history. The Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell. I love this statue. So, Dominic, you're winning us all kinds of listeners in Ireland. Of course, of course.

So every time I walk past this with my son, who's half Irish, I always say, oh, let's pay homage to the great man. And my wife kind of sighs and rolls her eyes. So this was very controversial, Tom, even at the time. It's brought up in 1899 by Hanno Thornycroft. A Liberal MP at the time, John George Fillimore, Tom, even at the time. It's put up in 1899 by Hanno Thornycroft. A liberal MP at the time, John George Fillimore, said, any man who could object to a statue of Cromwell must be imbued with bigotry and party spirit in the highest degree.

Goodness. Well, that's Ireland told. Yeah, exactly. So, of course, the Irish nationalists. Who were the Irish nationalists who were sitting in this building at the time, because they were part of the House of commons they all voted against and the tories voted against because you know the man who killed a king but the liberals got it through we we so in in the first episode we opened at the statue of charles the first yeah and i said then

that i liked the fact that he's looking down we commemorate the civil war by having statue of charles first at one end of white hall and a statue of cromwell at the other um i would feel uncomfortable having a statue of cromwell if it wasn't balanced by a statue of charles the first and i don't i don't think the irish listeners will say oh now that i hear there's a statue of charles thei i feel a lot better well the war in ireland was a war over you know it was a civil war in which the two proponents were you know cromwell was there to fight royalists yeah um so actually having having those two figures is a way of paying honor to people who fought in very committed ways on both sides i think that's a

very elaborate way of putting what's basically an accident. It is an accident. Absolutely it is an accident. It wasn't deliberate. But it is a way of solving the kind of inevitable tensions and conflicts that you have. Just like, you know, we took Parliament Square, I think that Churchill should be balanced by Attlee and I think that Disraeli

should be balanced by Gladstone. He's all about balance. I think it is important. In a public space like this, you need balance. There are all kinds of ironies, aren't there, with the Cromwell statue. I mean, Cromwell's here as a champion of parliamentary democracy, but he, of course, is the man who kicked out Parliament. Yeah, closed it down. Also, I mean, the other thing that this bears witness to is the fact that Cromwell, in a

sense, and we talked about this with Paul Leigh, is a 19th century creation. So the Cromwell who is idolized and the Cromwell who is hated, people who enshrine him as the great founder of parliamentary liberty and the people who condemn him as a kind of genocidal precursor of Hitler. Both of them are indulging in creative anachronism yes and i suppose in a sense an awful lot of what we've been talking about is creative and of course it is and that's true of a lot of the statues and talking of creative anachronism yeah we've got one last one last statue magnificent display you wouldn't forgive me if i didn't point out that he's behind that cromwell is behind bars which i think tony you see as some sort of metaphor do you but but obviously the reason for that is that Parliament is a terrorist threat.

And the two groups of people who have committed terrorist attacks in Westminster over the past few decades, first Irish Republicans, for whom the statue of Cromwell is a standing provocation. Yes, that's true. The other are Islamist terrorists, for whom our final statue, likewise, it might be thought, is a standing provocation. Because our final statue is an equestrian image of Richard Coeur de Lion, Richard I, the 12th century king who led the Third Crusade to recapture Jerusalem. And there's a nice parallel here, Tom, a nice bit of symmetry. We started this trilogy seven years ago with the statue of Charles I, another equestrian statue, another king of England,

Charles I, king of England, Scotland. And here we are with another mounted king on a horse, a rather more impressive figure, I have to say, than Charles I, who's basically a bit of a fop um richard the first but a controversial figure i suppose i mean he basically spent most of his reign out of england fighting saracens didn't he yeah and so kind of in this you know a standing provocation i thought to anyone who wants to see the establishment of a caliphate um it's kind of you know bring it on

but but the other the other thing about him is that um rather like uh buddhica he was no friend of london because he famously said that that he would cheerfully have sold london if it would raise him enough money oh my god to pay for his crusade like me uh yes it has my my take on london um so uh but he was never here i mean he was endlessly off in the holy land or fighting in france so this is another statue with interesting history an amusing history so um it was designed originally for the great exhibition by a man called baron maro ketty and you know what the newspapers called him something offensive count maro fatty did? Was that in the Daily Mail?

Probably. Well, Daily Mail didn't exist then, but I'm sure they would have called him that. So he did this. And a lot of people said it was awful because actually, if you look closely, the chain mail that he's wearing

is skin tight. So it clings to his muscles in a way that's utterly implausible. I quite like that. The poetry anthologist, Francis Turner Paulgrave, this is my final quote of this trilogy, said, it was an essentially vulgar and low-class work, precisely on the grounds, Tom, that call forth the wonder of uncultivated spectators.

Well, I'm an uncultivated spectator because I quite like it. I quite like it. Didn't it get hit by a bomb in the Second World War and they had to repair the sword? A bomb exploded nearby. I think just missed it. And the sword got broken and they had to replace it. Exactly. I think that's the story. Yes. So it's a weird one that is here, isn't it?

Because he was a king who was absent for most of the time. Yeah, so all the kings. The statues of the kings. We've got Rich I, who wanted to sell London and was never here. We've got Charles I, who was so useless they chopped his head off. We've got James II, who got driven into exile. And George IV, who was just a basic fat sausage. They're all

hopeless. But in a way, I kind of like that. Oh, and then opposite, we've got George V. Stamp collecting. Led the world in stamp collecting. But also led Britain through the First World War. Jolly good king, generally, I would say say I called the current Queen Lilibet

thereby inspiring the name of Harry and Meghan's new daughter oh it's so nice that they brought it back to Meghan it's what she would want

isn't it so there's a link yeah so it all connects it all joins up so we began with Charles I and we've ended

with Princess Meghan Princess Meghan Princess Meghan one day one day she'll have a statue here yeah you think

I think we don't know how we've solved the whole statue dilemma well I think One day she'll have a statue here. Yeah. You think? I think we've solved the whole statue dilemma. Well, I think, have we not decided they should all stay and we should just build more? No, I think we've decided we should keep them all. We should get rid of the lot. Really? Yeah. I don't recall us coming to that conclusion.

Well, I think I said that about the statues in Parliament Square. I was quite afraid of getting rid of the lot. That was a mad thesis. Anyway, we've had a very jolly walk. It's been very sunny. We've done three episodes. Also, you've changed my mind. Yes.

Now, that does not happen often. I don't think that's ever happened. Even as we speak, the producers are thinking about ways to animate that, put it on Twitter as a clip. I'm still wearing my Tom Holland baseball cap, which is a cheap one. So, in a way, I've been humiliated, but you've been even more humiliated. That's what I like to do. This podcast is all about.

So we've evened out. On that note, to our remaining listener, we say thank you for staying with us. And we will see you next time when we will be back in the studio, at least our own homes, and talking about something else. That's not about statues. Yeah. Bye-bye. All right. Goodbye.

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