Voyage of Discovery

There would only be a case for taking down statues of Captain Cook in Australia if the Aborigines had defeated him, but statues of him had nevertheless been put up to make political points between 55 and 110 years after that event.

Confederate monuments would be comparable to Second World War ones only if there had been scarcely any Second World War monuments until around the year 2000, and we were still waiting for most of them to go up from around 2040 onwards.

Oh, and only if they were statues, not even of Mosley, but of Hitler. And no, that is not because Hitler was nasty in general, although of course he was. It is because Hitler waged war on the United Kingdom.

In view of the German declaration of war against the United States on 11th December 1941, there is exactly as much reason for statues of Hitler to stand on the soil of the American Republic as there is for statues of Confederate politicians and military commanders to do so.

Of course, the United States defeated the Confederacy, and it played no small part in defeating the Third Reich. It is no coincidence that those who would march under the flag of one would also march under the flag of the other.

But it is absolutely hilarious, not only that they regard themselves as the most patriotic of Americans, but also that they regard their banners as the badges of invincibility. Confederates and Nazis are no more invincible than Hillary Clinton.

Whether in 2016, in 1945, or as long ago as 1865, "You lost, get over it."