Captain Sir Tom Moore - put him on that plinth in Trafalgar Square

From my time as an MP in the 1990s, I don’t have many claims to fame - but I do have one. And you can see it in the middle of London, in Trafalgar Square.

In the 1994, when I was a parliamentary private secretary to the Secretary of State for National Heritage, walking through Trafalgar Square to the office one day, I noticed an empty plinth in the northwest corner of the square. When I got to work, at the morning team meeting, I asked the department’s Permanent Secretary about it. He made enquiries and reported back. The plinth was originally intended to hold an equestrian statue of William IV, but had been left bare when the square was designed due to insufficient funds.

‘Let’s find the funds and put something on it now,’ I said.

‘Excellent idea,’ said the Permanent Secretary. ‘Do you have anything in mind.’

‘How about Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh?’ I suggested, quite seriously. ‘Britain’s contribution to children’s literature is greater than that of any other country in the world. And Trafalgar Square is probably the best-known square in London.’

‘Oh,’ murmured the Permanent Secretary, ‘I’m not sure about that. I think it needs to be a major historical figure.’

‘Margaret Thatcher then?’

‘It’s Trafalgar Square,’ he said, ‘named after the Battle of Trafalgar. There are Nelson and two generals there already. I think it needs to be a military figure . . .’

‘Margaret Thatcher in her tank on the Falkland Islands?’ I suggested, smiling.

‘It shouldn’t be anything too controversial,’ he said, a little nervously. ‘Let’s think about it.’

We did.

In the end, we came up with a happy compromise and invited the Royal Society of Arts and Manufactures to explore the possibilities – and the rotating, interesting, arresting and remarkable works of art that have adorned the plinth ever since are the result.

Those rotating sculptures were always intended as a temporary way of using the fourth plinth - until the right subject came along for a permanent statue of a figure with military connections that would not be controversial and would command universal respect.

I think we now know who that is: Captain Sir Tom Moore. Let’s put him - and his wheeler - on display on that empty plinth in Trafalgar Square. He represents ‘the best of British’. Trafalgar Square, at the heart of the capital, is where he belongs.