‘HEROES’ and statues are much in the news at the moment.

It has taken me to reach my twilight years in order to adopt the mantra ‘No More Heroes’. I did have heroes once – George Best, O J Simpson, Jimmy Savile, Winston Churchill etc.,but one by one they all bit the dust.

Churchill is an egregious example. William Rees-Mogg has claimed that being instrumental in winning the war against the evil Nazis far outweighs Churchill’s few flaws. Of course, he didn’t win the war, he sat in Whitehall making some (admittedly) astute judgements while the army, navy and RAF won the war.

As for his “few flaws”, since we seem to be entering a phase of revisionist teaching of history, here is a reminder of some of those flaws:

n He wrote a memo to British forces in Africa telling them that, should they come across any wild tribes, they should gas them.

n He told the police to lock up the suffragettes and throw away the key.

If we accept Rees-Mogg’s argument, then there should be a giant statute to Jimmy Savile as he was Britain’s greatest fundraiser for charitable causes, which surely far outweighs his ‘few flaws’.

But I have a problem with people going from town to town and pulling down the odd statue of a colonialist. I read last week that neither the Bank of England nor the Church of England has clean hands as far as complicity in the slave trade is concerned.

So where do we stop?

Brushing out past foul deeds would be like trying to clean the Eiffel Tower with a toothbrush.

I am in the camp of those who favour education over destruction.

MR M TRAVERS