Cock-cleaning

…The Fourth Plinth, Trafalgar Square

Some politicians think The Fourth Plinth would be a good place for a statue of Margaret Thatcher. No surprise there: no-one thinks more highly of politicians than politicians. There may be a case for a statue honouring this country’s first elected female leader - but not on The Fourth Plinth: ‘No! No! No!’

The question is not whether The Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square should be permanently occupied but whether any plinth anywhere should be permanently occupied. Most statues are of white men, born to wealth and privilege, connected with monarchy or the military, mostly forgotten, mostly now unknown. Cocks on every plinth would be better than the current occupiers. They would transform London.

But there’s more to England than cocks and conquest. The Olympic opening ceremony made us feel good about ourselves in a way that *Charles James Napier never could, yet there’s almost no reference on the streets, squares and open spaces of England’s capital city to the things that ceremony celebrated.

Let’s have more achievers, achievements and art on all plinths and nothing permanent.

*Charles who? Charles James Napier was a 19th century military man born into privilege. He is one of three permanent occupiers of Trafalgar Square’s four plinths. There is no reason he should stand there until The Apocalypse. There is the perfect place to relocate him and his ilk: a large green area on the embankment side of the Ministry of Defence.