Speaking after yesterday afternoon’s unsuccessful ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ Rally in Oxford – insofar as the statue remains standing this morning – the university’s chancellor Lord Patten gave a strong performance on the Today programme, not only defending the statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oxford – pointing out his scholarship pays in full for 20 African students to study a year – as well as defending so-called ‘offensive’ statues more broadly from his position as the last colonial governor of Hong Kong. He claims a statue of him is being erected in Beijing soon, though for how long it will stand is a different matter…

His assured defence of Britain’s history stood in stark contrast to other university leaders’ kowtowing of the radical, history-erasing movement seen this week; with Liverpool University last night agreeing to erase Gladstone’s name from one of its student halls after a small cohort of students demanded it apparently because his father owned slaves. Slave traders yesterday, Gladstone today, book burning tomorrow…