In his weekly Takimag column, Theodore Dalrymple explores the sinister and self-serving motivations of the lefty London School of Economics apparatchiks, who have decided to expunge all references to Christian holidays from the university’s calendar. The revolution marches on.

That is why those who want to manage the whole of society love the kind of history that sees no grandeur, beauty, or achievement in it, but only a record of injustice and misery (which, of course, really existed, and all of which they, and only they, will put right). The real reason for the enthusiasm for pulling down statues is to destroy any idea of the past as having been anything other than a vast chamber of horrors, and since everyone has feet of clay, and the heroes of the past always had skeletons in their cupboard (to change the metaphor), reasons for destroying statues, even of the greatest men, can always be found.