DAILY MAIL COMMENT: ‘A nation that forgets its past has no future’: Confronted by the Nazi threat, Churchill led this country through its darkest hour
Confronted by the Nazi threat on our doorstep, Winston Churchill led this country through its darkest hour.
For his tenacity, resolve and courage in successfully defeating the evil regime, he is rightly – and widely – revered as the greatest ever Briton. But today, he is shrouded in darkness. The war leader’s statue, in the heart of London, is miserably boarded up. So, shockingly, is the Cenotaph.
Why? To protect these treasured national monuments from a violent mob linked to Black Lives Matter.
Confronted by the Nazi threat on our doorstep, Winston Churchill led this country through its darkest hour. The war leader’s statue, in the heart of London, is miserably boarded up (pictured)
Instead of a peaceful protest today to highlight racial injustices in law, education and employment, this campaign has been hijacked by the stentorian and aggressive Left. Intolerant of anything that fails to conform to their ascetic purview, these modern-day puritans are hell-bent on a Taliban-esque cultural cleansing.
First, sculptures. Then, BBC comedies. What next? Book burnings?
In these zealots’ eyes, Churchill is an unforgivable ‘racist’. Therefore, they shriek, his statue must be destroyed.
Certainly by 21st century standards, he was flawed. But who wasn’t – or, indeed, isn’t? To many decent, law-abiding Britons, hiding Churchill’s statue is an appalling humiliation. The law applies to all in this country. Vandals should be deterred from targeting sensitive monuments by proper robust policing, not because they’re concealed with tarpaulin and boards.
Workers erect a protective barrier around the Cenotaph in central London in anticipation of protests
Unfortunately, these Left-wing agitators are spurred on by the egregious failure of the authorities last week to tackle wanton destruction. Too few police or senior politicians (with the impressive and honourable exception of Home Secretary Priti Patel) had the backbone to condemn the disorder unequivocally.
In an interview in today’s Mail, Mrs Patel accuses virtue-signalling London Mayor Sadiq Khan of capitulating to the mob by boarding up the statue. ‘We should free Churchill,’ she says. We wholeheartedly agree. Yes, it was welcome that Boris Johnson yesterday branded the move ‘absurd and shameful’. But why not speak out so vehemently earlier in the week?
Now, far-Right activists have vowed to defend Churchill’s sculpture. Violent clashes between rival demonstrators are not improbable. One reason the Tories won December’s election was because their defence of our history and values provided an alternative to the Left’s nonsensical obsession with igniting culture wars.
The Prime Minister would do very well to remember that. As his hero Churchill once said: ‘A nation that forgets its past has no future.’