Latest news with #ThangamDebbonaire
The Guardian
a day ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Clive of India isn't welcome in Shrewsbury either
Thangam Debbonaire is concerned about visiting Indian citizens and dignitaries having to walk past a statue of Robert Clive in London (Labour peer calls for removal of Clive of India statue from outside Foreign Office, 11 August). I'm sure the people of Shrewsbury are equally concerned about having to walk past the Clive statue on our high street and main square. Five years ago, a petition on the subject was signed by 9,000 people. The council responded by keeping the statue and taking three years to produce a small interpretation board. The people of Shrewsbury do not want to be associated with this 'unstable sociopath' (as William Dalrymple called him), and look forward to Debbonaire's support for its GarnerMinsterley, Shropshire Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
Spectator
6 days ago
- Politics
- Spectator
Clive of India must not fall
The only MP I have ever really wanted to marry is Thangam Debbonaire. The former Labour MP for Bristol West and I have little in common. But it has sometimes been a desire of mine to marry her and take her surname, so becoming Mr Debbonaire. Marital relations would doubtless be fraught, but on the plus side there would be the thrill of friends being able to say things like 'Darling, you know the Debbonaires are coming for dinner?' Which would more than make up for it. Since being booted out by the voters at last year's general election, Debbonaire has been elevated to the House of Lords, where she still attracts my attention. In an interview on the BBC's Newsnight at the end of last month, shewas so fantastically aloof towards the concerns of the public – and any viewers – that it seemed becoming Baroness Debbonaire had rather gone to her head. As indeed it would to mine. Anyhow, the noble Baroness was back in the news in a small way this week when she used the Edinburgh book festival to call for the removal of the statue of Clive of India from its magnificent position outside the Foreign Office. Clive appears to be guilty of that most common of modern crimes: being found to have lived in the past. As a result, he can now be added to the 'Wanted' list of statuary which, by my reckoning, has in recent years included almost every figure honoured in Trafalgar Square and indeed everywhere else in the country. Debbonaire must know where this type of talk can lead. She was an MP for Bristol when the locals of that city – and a few outsiders – decided to take things into their own hands and tear down the statue of the local slaver and philanthropist Edward Colston. You get the strong impression from such people that if they had their way they would follow the example of American cities such as Portland, Oregon and Richmond, Virginia. After the great outburst of iconoclasm during the past decade, Portland has become a terrific city to visit if you have a deep interest in empty plinths. Monument Avenue in Richmond now has only one monument on it – a statue of the late tennis player Arthur Ashe. That was erected in 1996, but doubtless it too could come down some day, not least because it gives off the unfortunate impression that the child kneeling at Ashe's feet is about to be harshly beaten by him with his raised tennis racket. Those who call for the removal of historical monuments always do so for the same reason: the figures being honoured should not be honoured because they did something dishonourable. The people telling us this insist that we should teach a different version of our history. When pressed, they generate a distinct suspicion that the version of our history they would like us all to imbibe is their own version. Nonetheless, they are winning the argument. A YouGov poll published earlier this year found that young Britons are the group most likely to take a negative attitude towards the British Empire as a whole. Indeed they were the only cohort of voters whose most common answer regarding their attitude was that the Empire should be 'a source of shame'. This, incidentally, was an increase of almost 10 per cent since the question was asked just six years ago. So Baroness Debbonaire and others should probably be happier than they are. They are getting their way. But I do wonder what sort of people will be created in this new iconoclastic era. Personally, I prefer the sort that we used to produce. I used some downtime this week to read the recently published diaries of Peter Kemmis Betty (Half a Banana, Charlcombe Books). Kemmis Betty was a Gurkha officer imprisoned in the Japanese Changi prisoner-of-war camp between 1942 and 1945. Having written and kept the diaries at considerable risk to himself, he relates plenty of the horrors that he and his fellow prisoners went through – including their discovery of what had happened to their fellow PoWs a little way up the road on the Burma railway. The thing that really stands out about the diaries are the accounts of how the British prisoners manage to get through their time in the camp. They arrange a series of talks to keep each other entertained and educated. They set up a choir. They put on theatrical productions of plays by George Bernard Shaw and Noël Coward. One inmate, who was previously a violinist in the London Philharmonic, gives a performance of Beet-hoven's Violin Concerto in D. The days are long and the suffering terrible. The prisoners try to supplement their food by arranging a system of gardening. Makeshift sheds in the camp are used as chapels, with one padre internee saying afterwards how many of the PoWs stated it was 'the sacraments and services of their churches which kept them sane, when everything men hold dear was lost'. If the phrase 'mustn't grumble' could be summed up in a diary, it is here. But it got me thinking again about those attitudes, manners and characteristics we used to take for granted as being distinctly British. They are the sort of traits that some of us grew up with. And it seems to me that they are among the less tangible things to be lost when you wage war on everything in your past so gleefully. The eagerness to condemn our past seems particularly acute at the moment. Yet all attempts to replace that past are so thin that nobody can even define them except in the most anodyne and meaningless fashion. Britishness is now said to be about kindness and tolerance. Fine things, but they only get you so far. The question of whether they would get us through the sort of trials our forebears went through is a question I suppose only time will answer.
Indian Express
6 days ago
- Politics
- Indian Express
Indian-origin Labour politician Thangam Debbonaire calls for removal of a Robert Clive statue in London
Prominent Labour peer Thangam Debbonaire has called for the removal of a bronze statue of Robert Clive currently located near the Foreign Office in London. The East India Company official was a controversial figure in British colonial history in India. 'That statue continues to promote him in a victorious mode and as a symbol of something that had universal good… I don't think it's helpful for any visitor to the Foreign Office, particularly those of us from Indian origins in the diaspora, but also visiting Indian people, Indian dignitaries, ambassadors, trade ministers, to walk into the Foreign Office past that statue. I don't think that presents Britain in a particularly good light in the 21st century,' Debbonaire reportedly stated. The Indian-origin former shadow culture secretary was speaking at the Edinburgh International book festival. She added, 'It's not helpful for our current relationship with India and it is deeply unhelpful to see India as a country that Britain civilised. The bronze statue designed by Scottish sculptor John Tweed was completed in 1912 and has Clive in a formal dress with one hand resting on a sword. Known to be a ruthless military commander, Clive rose through the ranks of the East India Company and is often credited with expanding its presence in the subcontinent. He has been accused of plundering India and acquiring personal treasures. In his book The Anarchy: The relentless rise of the East India Company, historian William Dalrymple refers to Clive as an 'unstable sociopath'. He describes him as 'violent, utterly ruthless and intermittently mentally unstable corporate predator.' In 2020 — when statues of historical figures with links to the British Empire came under threat during the Black Lives Matter protests — a public campaign had also demanded the removal of another Clive statue at Shrewsbury.
The Guardian
11-08-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Labour peer calls for removal of Clive of India statue from outside Foreign Office
A prominent Labour peer has called for a statue of Clive of India to be removed from its high-profile spot outside the Foreign Office in London, arguing that visiting Indian citizens and dignitaries should not be forced to walk past it. Thangam Debbonaire said the statue commemorating Robert Clive's bloody establishment of British rule presented the UK in a poor light and was historically inaccurate. 'That statue continues to promote him in a victorious mode and as a symbol of something that had universal good,' she said. 'I don't think it's helpful for any visitor to the Foreign Office, particularly those of us from Indian origins in the diaspora, but also visiting Indian people, Indian dignitaries, ambassadors, trade ministers, to walk into the Foreign Office past that statue. I don't think that presents Britain in a particularly good light in the 21st century.' Clive is one of the most controversial figures from Britain's colonial past. The historian William Dalrymple has called him an 'unstable sociopath' and a violent asset stripper. The bronze statue, by the sculptor John Tweed was completed in 1912. It shows him in formal dress with one hand resting on the pommel of his sword, the other clutching papers. The inscription on the statue's pedestal declares him simply as Clive. Lady Debonnaire, a former shadow culture secretary, said statue and the panels around its plinth gave a false impression. 'What it doesn't do is contextualise or indeed give any honesty about what his presence in India actually did. He extracted a vast fortune. His former home, Powis Castle in Wales, contains hundreds if not thousands of objects that he took. 'What the statue doesn't do is give any honesty about the impact of colonial rule on India. There is still a popular view held publicly across the UK of empire as beneficial to its recipients.' Debbonaire described this as 'wholly inaccurate'. 'Before colonial rule, India was a very developed country. It understood free trade, it was trading with its neighbours – something the East India Company and the other colonising forces successfully crushed. 'Since independence, India has grown economically, scientifically, in engineering terms, in computing terms, artistic, and so on and so forth.' Debbonaire was a Bristol MP when Black Lives Matter campaigners toppled the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston into the harbour in 2020. The statue was placed in a Bristol museum last year, along with explanations of who Colston was and what happened to his memorial. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Of the Colston statue, Debbonaire said: 'It still lives but in a different form, which gives it context. I don't think the British are harmed by being more honest about the figures of our past. 'The current presentation of Clive in its current form and place do not achieve that.' Debbonaire made comments at the weekend about the Clive statue at an appearance at the Edinburgh international book festival during a session on freedom of expression. Explaining why she brought up the Clive statue during that session, she said: 'One of the things that really matters in freedom of expression is an understanding of power and whose stories get to be told and how and whose stories do not get to be told.'
BBC News
21-05-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
The former West MPs with new roles in the House of Lords
To MPs in the Commons it is known as "the other place".But being elevated to the House of Lords has provided a way back to the political fray for two former West Country Conservative Transport Secretary Mark Harper and ex-Shadow Culture Secretary Thangam Debbonaire were awarded life peerages following their respective defeats at last year's general said: "I'm hoping to be working hard. I'm going to be a working peer, so I shall be here as much as I can when the House is sitting and I'll get stuck in." The new role marks a return to politics for Harper, who lost his Forest of Dean constituency in Gloucestershire by less than 300 votes in July added that in his new position he hoped to contribute to internal Conservative party debates around how to be competitive again and "hopefully win the next general election".Labour's Debbonaire, defeated by the Green Party in Bristol Central, expressed a similar desire to immerse herself in her new role, calling it an "incredible privilege"."It wasn't a hard decision, primarily because I went into politics because I believe in public service, like most politicians of all parties," she said. "It was a new way to serve the public, which is your first and primary duty." She added: "Bringing my skills to work on a daily basis is really, I think, of benefit to my service to the public and the country."Critics have pointed to Debbonaire's previous criticism of the honours system and Labour's former committal to abolishing the House of Debbonaire said that a second chamber was necessary, and the government was following through on commitments to remove hereditary and Debbonaire join another familiar face who has recently taken his seat in the chamber, Bristol's former Mayor, Marvin known as Lord Rees of Easton, the new Labour peer made his maiden speech on 3 are all back in the political fray, spending time in the House debating and voting, but also having other roles elsewhere.
