A guide to renaming London’s landmarks

Yesterday, London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced that he was forming a new commission to investigate the landmarks, street names and statues of the capital, to see if they should be knocked down or renamed because of their racist past or links to the slave trade. The announcement came after a statue of the slave trader Edward Colston was pulled down in Bristol by Black Lives Matter protestors this weekend.

Khan’s ‘Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm’ will examine various sites across London to see if they reflect the diversity of its population, and the mayor has indicated that it is not appropriate for certain figures to be memorialised in future. Already, the Commission has gained its first statue scalp, after a likeness of the slaveholder Robert Milligan was removed from outside the Museum of London Docklands.

Mr Steerpike yesterday suggested at least one statue that could be pulled down by Khan – the figure of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square which he unveiled in 2018.