Latest news with #BaronessDebbonaire
Daily Mail
15 hours ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Labour peer wants Clive of India statue outside Foreign Office torn down because it's 'not helpful' for diplomacy
A Labour peer has called for a statue of Clive of India outside the Foreign Office to be torn down because it is 'not helpful' for diplomacy. Baroness Debbonaire insisted the bronze sculpture was historically inaccurate and risked souring Britain's relationship with India. But Downing Street distanced itself from her remarks, suggesting the removal of the statue would not achieve anything. Robert Clive was hailed by some contemporaries for securing 200 years of British rule in India, but his personal enrichment made from plundering the region made him a controversial figure even in his lifetime. Critics also blame his punishing taxation and land reforms while he was governor of Bengal for the Bengal Famine, which killed ten million in 1770. Baroness Debbonaire, who served as shadow culture secretary before losing her seat at the last general election, made her remarks at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. She told a panel: 'I'm not sure that a statue of Clive should really have any place outside the Foreign Office. 'I walk past it and the frieze shows happy, smiling people really delighted to see him. And that's just not historically accurate. It's not helpful for our current relationship with India and it is deeply unhelpful to see India as a country that Britain civilised.' Baroness Debbonaire dismissed the statue as a 'shocking piece of sculpture'. Describing India's 'thriving' engineering industry, she added in comments first reported by The Times: 'It knew about free trade before free trade rules were ever written. That was closed down by an extractive colonising force. 'But what is pictured on that statue is tiny, tiny little Indians who are subservient and incidental to their own national story, and then a great big Clive.' Asked about her call to take down the statue, the Prime Minister's official spokesman said: 'I'm not sure I've seen that. I'm not sure you achieve very much by going round taking statues down, but I haven't seen that.' Clive's statue was erected more than 130 years after his suicide in 1774. Despite having no military training, the Shropshire-born clerk rose up the ranks of the East India Company after a series of stunning strategic victories over the Siraj-ud-Daulah, the last independent Nawab of Bengal. Facing 50,000 men in 1757, Clive's 3,000-strong private army was woefully outnumbered, but through tactical cunning and by bribing the Nawab's cavalry commander, he routed the Bengalis, leading directly to British dominance across India. With Clive as Governor, historian William Dalrymple wrote how: 'Bengal's wealth rapidly drained into Britain, while its prosperous weavers and artisans were coerced ''like so many slaves'' by their new masters, and its markets flooded with British products. A proportion of the loot of Bengal went directly into Clive's pocket.' Clive eventually returned to Britain and served as MP and Mayor of Shrewsbury, rich but deeply depressed. Never accepted by aristocratic circles, he was eventually brought up on corruption charges. Despite seeing these off, he took his own life in 1774 and was buried in an unmarked grave. In 2021, Clive's name was taken off the name of a boarding house at his old school, Merchant Taylor's School for Boys in Hertfordshire. The school's headmaster Simon Everson wrote a letter to its old boys reading: 'Robert Clive has always been a controversial figure. 'His actions in India were the foundations of the empire, but were also questioned by his own contemporaries. From this moment on Clive House will be renamed.' The house was renamed after former pupil and Surrey cricketer John Raphael, who was capped playing rugby for England and later died a war hero in 1917. The decision was criticised by historians. Professor Robert Tombs, a Cambridge historian, said there was a 'craven and mindless attitude being taken towards the British Empire by many public institutions'. And former pupil and ex-Tory MP Lord Robathen said school chiefs should be 'ashamed' of themselves for 'cancelling' Clive. The debate over statues was sparked by the toppling of a statue of slave trader Edward Colston in the midst of Black Lives Matter protests in Bristol in June 2020. After it was retrieved from the river, the city's M Shed museum put it on display in order to 'start a city-wide conversation about its future', next to some of the signs waved by protesters on the day the sculpture was pulled down. It has been kept in storage for over two years; in the interim, a city-wide survey commissioned by the We Are Bristol History Commission found that four-fifths of locals supported keeping it in a museum rather than putting it back on its plinth.
The Sun
a day ago
- Politics
- The Sun
Sir Keir Starmer slaps down Labour peer after she calls for controversial Foreign Office statue to be torn down
A LABOUR peer has been slapped down by Sir Keir Starmer after calling for the Clive of India statue outside the Foreign Office to be torn down. Baroness Debbonaire branded the 1912 bronze 'a shocking piece of sculpture' and said it was 'not helpful' for Britain's relationship with India. Clive of India was an East India Company clerk who became Governor of Bengal and led Britain's expansion in the subcontinent. But he is also blamed for mismanaging the Bengal famine, which killed millions. His name was stripped from a house at his former private school in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement. The former shadow culture secretary and Bristol MP told a book festival: 'I'm not sure that a statue of Clive should really have any place outside the Foreign Office. 'I walk past it and the frieze shows happy, smiling people really delighted to see him. "And that's just not historically accurate. "It's not helpful for our current relationship with India and it is deeply unhelpful to see India as a country that Britain civilised.' But the PM's spokesman distanced himself from her comments yesterday, saying: 'I'm not sure you achieve very much by going round taking statues down, but I haven't seen that.' Baroness Debonnaire has previously campaigned against monuments, demanding slave trader Edward Colston's statue be removed two years before it was toppled in Bristol in 2020. At the time she said: 'Having statues of people who oppressed us is not a good thing to be saying to black people in this city.' 2 Statue of Edward Colston is thrown into river after being pulled down in Bristol
Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- Times
Tear down Clive of India statue outside Foreign Office, peer says
A prominent Labour peer has called for the statue of Robert Clive to be pulled down from outside the Foreign Office, claiming its depiction of 'subservient Indians' was damaging international relations. Baroness Debbonaire said the statue commemorating Clive's establishment of British rule in India was historically inaccurate and unhelpful to Britain's attempts to build relations with the country. Clive, who became the 1st Baron Clive of Plassey but who history knows as Clive of India, is one of the most controversial figures from Britain's colonial past. While employed by the East India Company in the 18th century, Shropshire-born Clive led the victorious British forces at the Battle of Plassey against indigenous fighters and was later held liable for the Bengal famine, which is thought to have killed up to ten million people. The historian William Dalrymple has called him an 'unstable sociopath'. Debbonaire, who was in line to be Labour's culture secretary before surprisingly losing her Bristol seat to the Green Party in last year's general election, said the Whitehall statue designed by John Tweed in 1912 was 'a shocking piece of sculpture'. • Zareer Masani: Why Clive of India's statue must not fall 'I'm not sure that a statue of Clive should really have any place outside the Foreign Office,' she told the Edinburgh International Book Festival. 'I walk past it and the frieze shows happy smiling people really delighted to see him. And that's just not historically accurate. 'It's not helpful for our current relationship with India and it is deeply unhelpful to see India as a country that Britain civilised. 'India had a thriving engineering industry in the 17th century. It knew about mineral extraction, there had been incredible technological advances, it knew about free trade before free trade rules were ever written. That was closed down by an extractive colonising force. But what is pictured on that statue is tiny, tiny little Indians who are subservient and incidental to their own national story and then a great big Clive.' Debbonaire was a Bristol MP in 2020 when the city was convulsed with the Black Lives Matter protests. These culminated in the toppling into the harbour of a listed statue of Edward Colston, the merchant who made his wealth by playing a key role in the transatlantic slave trade. • Tomiwa Owolade: Edward Colston's safe in a museum, but in future let's talk before we topple There were calls at that time for the Clive statue in London, and another dedicated to him in Shrewsbury, to be pulled down. However, the Conservative government at the time rejected all demands to remove commemorations of colonial figures that were in the public arena and instead introduced a 'retain and explain' policy on 'contested heritage'. Debbonaire also questioned the British Museum's treatment of artefacts that came into its collection after, in some instances being taken in contentious circumstances during the colonial era. She said she knew of works of art that had come from 'a temple that is still alive' that was presented by the museum as simply a 12th-century sculpture 'which is saying nothing about what it means'. 'There is this silencing of stories that has a continued damaging effect on relationships between countries particularly those between the former colonisers and the former colonised,' she said. Debbonaire said it was 'pointless' talking about financial reparations to previously colonised countries, adding: 'A better form of reparation is truthfulness, which doesn't have to require an acknowledgement of guilt because people right now are not guilty of doing those things.'
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Thangam Debbonaire's virtue signalling is already outdated
It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall of Keir Starmer's holiday villa as he reads about the latest attempt by one of his own appointees to the House of Lords to resurrect the culture wars back home. Will the Prime Minister welcome the intervention by the Baroness Debbonaire of De Beauvoir Town in the London Borough of Hackney, who has called for the statue of Clive of India to be removed from its plinth outside the Foreign Office? Or will he have the political nous to recognise that the last thing this Government needs is a rehashing of the interminable and pointless arguments about statues that characterised the very weird summer of 2020? Baroness Debbonaire is a former MP for Bristol, where Black Lives Matter protesters physically removed a statue of Edward Colston, the slave trader, and dumped it into the city's harbour. The same Left-wing people removed Debbonaire herself from elected office at last year's general election, though she at least managed to avoid being similarly dumped into the sea. Instead she was elevated to the Lords, from where she now pontificates. Debbonaire has more of a stake in the fate of the Clive statue than most: she has Indian heritage on her father's side, and her claim that the statue's removal would improve relations with India cannot be immediately dismissed. On the other hand, with a historic trade agreement between Britain and India just agreed, relations don't seem to be being undermined by Clive's continuing presence in Whitehall. The whole debate about statues, like so many divisive culture war topics in the UK, began in the United States, where the legacy of slavery and the civil war continues to reverberate across American society. But British activists simply could not have allowed the Black Lives Matter bandwagon to pass by without some vigorous attempts to jump aboard. This has come with illogical, though entertaining, consequences for the English language. Protesters in London took to the streets demanding 'Defund the police!' and 'Hands up, don't shoot!' These phrases were relevant in America but utterly absurd in a British context. Now safely ensconced in the Lords, from whence she cannot be evicted by the displeasure of voters, Baroness Debbonaire wants to step back in time to resurrect old battles about which very few people still care. Like many who abhor even the memory of the British Empire, she risks pretending that individuals like Clive played no part in Britain's activities on the sub-continent, or at least allowing the current generation not to have to face the reality of the historical record. Once we have removed the statues and portraits of everyone who had a questionable role in the British Empire, it will become harder, not easier, to point an accusing finger at what was done to foreign peoples in our name. 'Clive who?' Alas, this looks suspiciously like virtue signalling on Baroness Debbonaire's part. Which raises a question over the whole point of appointments for life to the Lords: isn't a life in ermine supposed to relieve its denizens of having to suck up to voters?
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Pull down Clive of India statue, says Labour peer
A Labour peer has called on the Government to pull down a statue of Clive of India outside the Foreign Office. Baroness Debbonaire claimed the bronze sculpture in Whitehall is historically inaccurate and 'not helpful' for British relations with India. Clive of India was a clerk with the East India Company who rose to become a wealthy military leader and lead British expansion on the subcontinent. He has been blamed for presiding over the Bengal Famine and in 2021 his name was stripped from a house at his former private school in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement. Baroness Debonnaire, who was Sir Keir Starmer's shadow culture secretary before losing her seat at the last general election, told a panel event that the statue should be taken down. Speaking at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, the Labour peer said: 'I'm not sure that a statue of Clive should really have any place outside the Foreign Office. 'I walk past it and the frieze shows happy, smiling people really delighted to see him. And that's just not historically accurate. It's not helpful for our current relationship with India and it is deeply unhelpful to see India as a country that Britain civilised. 'India had a thriving engineering industry in the 17th century – it knew about mineral extraction, there had been incredible technological advances, it knew about free trade before free trade rules were ever written. That was closed down by an extractive colonising force. 'But what is pictured on that statue is tiny, tiny little Indians who are subservient and incidental to their own national story, and then a great big Clive.' Baroness Debonnaire also referred to the statue as 'a shocking piece of sculpture' in comments that were first reported by The Times. Clive the Great defeated Mughal forces with company troops at the Battle of Plassey, which prompted British expansion into Bengal, and went on to a huge amount of wealth. However, he would later be accused of causing starvation by mismanagement as the Bengal Famine killed as many as 10 million people. He purportedly took his own life aged 49. The Grade II-listed statue of the first British Governor of Bengal was first unveiled in 1912. It was then moved to its current location outside the Foreign Office four years later. The artwork on the side of the plinth that was criticised by Baroness Debonnaire includes a depiction of the Mughal emperor granting Clive the Great the right to collect revenue for the East India Company in 1865. The politics of the past Statues of historical figures with links to the empire came under threat after the Black Lives Matter protests that followed the murder of George Floyd in the United States in 2020. A 125-year-old statue of the slave trader Edward Colston was toppled by a mob in Bristol in June of that year, with activists going on to dump it in the city's harbour. Baroness Debonnaire was an MP in the city at the time and had called for the statue to be taken down two years earlier. Addressing a Black History Month event in 2018, she said: 'Having statues of people who oppressed us is not a good thing to be saying to black people in this city. 'Edward Colston did many things, but he was not completely defined by that, and it's an important part of saying to black people in the city 'you are welcome'.' Sir Keir said at the time that the statue of Colston should have been removed 'a long, long time ago' but also argued that the manner of its removal by protesters was 'completely wrong'. The now-Prime Minister said: 'That statue should have been brought down properly, with consent, and put, I would say, in a museum. 'This was a man who was responsible for 100,000 people being moved from Africa to the Caribbean as slaves, including women and children, who were branded on their chests with the name of the company that he ran. 'Of the 100,000, 20,000 died en route and they were chucked in the sea. He should not be on a statue in Bristol, or anywhere else.'
