Ideology
The Generals in Trafalgar Square

Jane Davison, 19, an art and design student from Surrey, was in favour of more statues but felt the current occupants should be allowed to stay.

"They're in keeping with the rest of the square, although they do look a bit confused, like they've been plonked in the middle of nowhere," she said.

"I think they should keep it the way it is. They may be statues of people who nobody knows but they are in keeping with the rest of the area. Everywhere you look round here there's a statue of some bloke on a horse."

"I imagine that not one person in 10,000 going through Trafalgar Square knows any details about the lives of those two generals. It might be that it is time to look at moving them and having figures on those plinths that ordinary Londoners would know."

If Mr Livingstone was more familiar with the generals' contribution to the nation's heritage, it is unlikely he would be better disposed towards them. Both were prominent in the Victorian imperial march across Asia. Havelock served in Burma, Afghanistan and India before dysentry brought his conquests, and his life, to an end in 1857. Four years later his statue was erected by public subscription.

Napier, meanwhile, was responsible for quelling the Chartist uprising in the north of England, suppressing calls for such subversive reforms as universal male suffrage and the reform of parliament. He ended his career by leading the conquest of the hill tribes of Sindh, now part of Pakistan.

Responding to a question about statuary in the square, Mr Livingstone said he did not know who the generals were or what they had done to deserve their prime positions alongside George IV and Nelson.

"I think that the people on the plinths in the main square in our capital city should be identifiable to the generality of the population. I have not a clue who two of the generals there are or what they did," he said.

"I do not know whether you should put them up before we are all dead," he said.

But he is serious about moving them to a site closer to the Thames. "I have already investigated the possibility, and it has been indicated to me that we could move the two generals that no one has ever heard of by the river," he said.

Few Londoners brave the tourist legions and squadrons of pigeons in Trafalgar Square, but those that did yesterday afternoon bore out Mr Livingstone's contention. All were ignorant of the generals and their achievements.

"I don't know who he [Havelock] is but I'm sure he has some historical relevance," said Judith Aguma, who works at the nearby British Council.

"What these men did in the past, whether it was good or bad, has shaped our present. If the mayor wants to put different statues up why not just build extra plinths, or have a plinth which you use to rotate figures?

"These men should probably stay - they are part of our history."

Regardless of the outcome, Mr Livingstone's contentious suggestion has reopened a debate about statuary in the square which for years focused on who or what should occupy the empty fourth plinth in the north-eastern corner.

The mayor presumably would approve of the title of the modern sculpture by Bill Woodrow that currently occupies the spot. It's called Regardless of History.

Major General Sir Henry Havelock looks like a man at ease with his legacy. Standing four and a half metres up on a plinth in Trafalgar Square, his right thumb hooked casually into his belt, this veteran of the first Indian mutiny manages to retain his imperial dignity, even with a pigeon on his head.

If Ken Livingstone gets his way, however, Havelock may not be enjoying his view of Admiralty Arch for much longer. At a Greater London Authority meeting on Wednesday, Mayor Livingstone suggested that Havelock - who once told his troops: "Soldiers, your valour will not be forgotten by a grateful country" - and another veteran of the Raj, General Sir Charles Napier, be moved from their plinths to make way for more recognisable figures.

The suggestion that the generals be moved brought a predictably outraged reaction from the Conservative party and military groups. "What business of his is it to remove statues?" asked Colonel Alastair Cumming, the regimental secretary of Havelock's regiment, the 78th Highlanders.

"And where do we stop? Are they planning to rip Nelson off his column? This really is indicative of where we are going as a country isn't it - consigning our history to oblivion."

Bernard Jenkin, the shadow minister for London, saw it as yet more Britain-bashing from the left. "Last week the politically correct left accused the word 'British' of being racially coded. This week Livingstone is trying to erase a fundamental part of our nation's heritage from the heart of our capital city," he said.