The Stepford students’ latest target is a step too far

Stepford students have been busy in recent years picking off targets from the past to vent their fury at. Cecil Rhodes in Oxford and Edward Colston in Bristol are the most high-profile victims of this attempt to wipe parts of posterity from the face of university campuses. Now, there is a new target: William Gladstone, the only man to have served as Britain’s Prime Minister on four separate occasions. Students at the University of Liverpool are demanding that Gladstone’s name is removed from a hall of residence. His crime? According to a petition, he is guilty of having benefited from the proceeds of slavery:

‘William Gladstone is known to have fought for reparations for slave traders like his father during the abolition of the trade, as well as not being in favour of the abolition.’

So although Gladstone didn’t own slaves himself – and indeed renounced his views on slavery later in life – the fact that his father did is enough to make him persona non grata in the eyes of some of today’s students.