Gary Younge, a former Guardian columnist, argues that all statues should be removed, describing them as 'lazy, ugly and distorting history'. Writing in the wake of the UK's ongoing debate over contested monuments, he contends that from Cecil Rhodes to Rosa Parks, no figure deserves permanent commemoration in bronze or stone.
Younge recounts his experience on the Fourth Plinth Commission, which oversaw the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square. After the death of the Queen Mother in 2002, the Daily Mail launched a campaign for a statue of her on the plinth. The newspaper attacked Younge and the committee, accusing them of being a 'metropolitan elite' out of touch with 'ordinary people'. However, the campaign fizzled when few readers wrote in support.
Younge notes that over the years, proposals for the plinth have included David Beckham, Mary Seacole, and Benny Hill, among others. He would challenge petitioners to name the figures on the other three plinths—Maj Gen Sir Henry Havelock and Gen Sir Charles Napier, both involved in colonial conflicts—knowing they could not. This, he says, illustrates how statues obscure history rather than preserve it.
He concludes that the debate over statues is not about erasing history but about engaging with it honestly. Removing statues, he argues, forces us to confront the past rather than revere it uncritically. The Fourth Plinth's rotating contemporary art, he suggests, offers a more dynamic and democratic alternative to permanent monuments.
