Horatio Nelson and Yvette Cooper

Submitted by Alan Marsden on Wed, 05/03/2025 - 00:00

Lauran O'Toole in the Daily Express reports:

Lord Nelson portraits replaced by Yvette Cooper in Parliament in purge of historic figures

Sure enough, two portraits of Lord Nelson, the man who helped save us from Napoleonic naval domination two centuries ago, have been removed, while a picture of Yvette Cooper, the current Home Secretary, has been installed. This is part of a drive to ‘modernise’ Westminster and make it more diverse…yawn. Instead, it actually makes it more divisive. Yvette Cooper has done little so far to assure the nation of her fame and greatness (though we must not rule it out) while Nelson is a tried and tested hero. What prompted her to accept the erection of her own portrait while Nelson's was removed seems to have been a dreadful act of hubris. Similarly, ex-Culture Secretary Margaret Hodge, who was always a rather mediocre character from the Blair years with a questionable record during a former role at Islington Council, has replaced Sir Francis Drake, who helped defeat the Spanish Armada. Time will tell if Lady Hodge will be judged as highly as the old Elizabethan seadog. I suspect that she will be forgotten within ten years, but he will still be remembered.

My modest, terraced home in a northern mill town will scarcely compete with the Palace of Westminster in terms of scale and significance, but here British national heroes receive a warmer welcome. Apart from the inevitable occurrences of Oliver Cromwell (which must surely baffle the parliamentary left: a Republican ('yea!') but a puritan ('nay!'), one will find Sir Winston Churchill (x3), the Duke of Wellington, Queen Victoria, King George V and Queen Mary, the late Queen Mother, and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. From the Christian world, once more discounting the great Cromwell, one will find John and Charles Wesley, Martin Luther, Major General Charles Worsley, and the Reformers in general. It is not diversity I wish to celebrate, but greatness.

A civilization is doomed when it neglects and then forgets the great men and women who forged it; a nation is ruined when it replaces them with nonentities, unknowns and mediocrities. May we Christians never become the latter; in the Age to come, it is the modest believer of today who shall inspire the curious angels of tomorrow.