A plaque commemorating the centenary of Winston Churchill’s election as MP for Dundee has been vandalised in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests.
The bronze plaque, which adorns the side of Meadowside St Paul’s Church on the Nethergate, has been daubed with cream-coloured paint.
Underneath, vandals have written a four-letter swear word directed at the ex-PM.
The plaque was erected in 2008 to mark 100 years since Churchill was elected MP for Dundee.
Initially well-liked, his popularity dipped in the post-war years and he left the city, as he wrote, “without an office, without a seat, without a party and without an appendix”.
In London, the statue of Churchill was marked with slogans calling him racist by BLM activists. Similar motivations are thought to be behind the graffiti on the Nethergate.
Critics say that, despite being on the right side of history, Churchill believed in racial supremacy, telling a commission in 1937 that he saw nothing wrong with “a stronger race, a higher-grade race” moving in and replacing native populations in America and Australia.
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The wartime prime minister has also been criticised for his perceived inaction to prevent millions of deaths in India’s 1943 Bengal Famine.
Local Chloe Mitchell, who spotted the graffiti and sent the photos in, said she could understand why someone had scrawled on the plate.
“It may appear as vandalism to some people but it is highlighting a very important question in our society: why do we have memorials of genocidal dictators?
“It is not the job of local citizens to expose statues that highlight the racism the British empire was built on.
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“However until our councils listen and take permanent action to have these monuments removed, spray paint and tomato passata will do.”
BLM protesters across the UK and abroad have been calling for monuments to problematic historical figures to be removed in the wake of George Floyd’s death in the US last month.
Locals in Bristol pulled down the statue of slave trader Edward Colston following years of debate over whether he should be honoured, while London has removed a statue of slaver Robert Milligan following a review commissioned by the mayor Sadiq Khan.
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