Should old statues still stand?
Updated on 30 August 2007
As a statue of Nelson Mandela is unveiled in London, More4 News asks whether monuments to former heroes should be pulled down.
The statue of Mandela stands in Parliament Square, facing that of Jan Smuts, the South African prime minister at the inception of white rule.
And another Parliament Square resident, Winston Churchill helped to draw that deal up.
"Statues that are put up now will be thought of differently in 50 years."Jo Darke
A statue of Bomber Harris stands on The Strand but the words 'shame' and 'war crimes' were daubed on the monument in red paint soon after its unveiling in 1992 by protesters angry at his part in the bombing of Dresden during the Second World War.
Outside the Foreign Office, Clive of India stands on a plinth. But he was a key figure in securing British rule in south Asia.
He was responsible for much of the wealth of the Bengal slipping away, a lot of it into his bank account.
Jo Darke, of the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association, said: "We should keep our statues. When they were put up, that was people's taste.
"So they show us the history of taste and fashion.
"Statues that are put up now will be thought of differently in 50 years."
