Footage of Clive of India statue near Foreign Office as Labour peer calls for its removal

Labour peer Baroness Debbonaire called for a statue of the colonial administrator Robert Clive in a street next to the Foreign Office should be removed. The former culture secretary said the Clive of India statue misrepresents the history of colonial-era India by portraying Inidan people as "incidental to their own national story". Lord Clive was governor of Bengal in the early stages of British colonial rule, and has been blamed for tax policies that contributed to a major famine in 1770. Speaking at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Lady Debbonaire said the statue wrongly suggests Britain "civilised" India, despite Indian prowess in trade and technology before colonial rule.