Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden writes a letter to Conservative councillors, MPs, and peers setting out the Government's response to the toppling of statues by members of the public. He says that Conservatives shouldn’t support those who ‘desecrate public monuments’ and that ‘if one wants to change the urban landscape, this should be done through the democratic system’, as ‘removing statues and renaming streets does harm rather than good’. The final sentence of his letter reads: ‘Progress does not need to be an enemy of our collective heritage.’