Lord Soames, who is Churchill’s grandson and a Conservative peer, said he was “deeply upset” that the statue had been defaced, while his granddaughter suggested it should perhaps be placed in a museum for protection. Activists pointed to Sir Winston’s reported comments that he “did not really believe that blacks were as capable or as efficient as whites” and that whites were “a stronger race [and] a match of the highest order.” He has also been criticized for his support of European imperialism.
“Greatest Brit of All Time”
In a 2002 BBC poll, the British public voted the former prime minister “the greatest Briton of all time”, ahead of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Princess Diana, Charles Darwin and William Shakespeare. Policy Exchange runs a ‘History Matters’ project, which the organization says is designed “to address widespread national concern about the growing trend of changing public history and heritage without due process.” Sir Trevor Phillips, who leads his work, said the public reaction to such moves was that officials should “explain the matter better by all means, but please leave it alone”. In the British Empire, the largest group of respondents (26 per cent) said that, overall, it had done more good than harm, while 39 per cent of Conservative voters said the same. Among Labor voters, the most popular view was that the empire had done “far more harm than good”, with 29 per cent of respondents reporting this opinion. The poll also found that just 19 per cent of the public believe that children today are being taught about British history in a balanced way. Thirty-one percent of voters said they strongly or somewhat disagreed that the curriculum was balanced, while 34 percent did not know.
