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Richard Madeley labels Oxford students ‘really thick’ for voting to remove ‘colonial’ portrait of Queen
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Richard Madeley blasted Oxford University students as ‘thick’ for allegedly voting to remove a portrait of the Queen from their common room because it ‘represents recent colonial history’.
Graduate members of the Middle Common Room committee at Magdalen College came under fire for ‘cancelling’ the royal after reportedly voting overwhelmingly for its removal.
The college’s president Dinah Rose, a barrister, moved to distance the institution itself from the students involved.
She said they were not representative of the college, but supported their right to ‘free speech and political debate’.
Richard and co-host Susanna Reid debated the issue on Wednesday’s episode of Good Morning Britain, with the host declaring that the vote was a ‘wind up’ to troll people.
Wafting a £10 note, Richard asked: ‘If you’re watching at Magdalen – you won’t be as you won’t be awake until 9-10 – but assuming that you are, would you rip this up? It’s got a picture of the Queen on it, bit of colonial culture going on there. So would you stop using cash?
‘I can’t help but think that this is a wind-up, because it’s so stupid. It’s really thick.’
He went on: ‘Have they not heard of the commonwealth? Do they not know what the commonwealth is? That the commonwealth, one of the jewels of the crown that she has resided over, is actually the exit from colonialism? Do they not get that?
‘I thought these guys were meant to amongst the brightest in the land. It’s Magdalen College.’
However he later agreed that they were exercising their free speech with the reported vote and they were doing their ‘job’ as students by ‘winding us up’.
‘I think it’s ridiculous and they’re opening themselves up to scorn,’ he said, ‘but it’s so unintelligent but that’s what students do, it’s their job, to wind us up.’
Susanna noted: ‘I don’t think there are many 18-year-olds that have a picture of the queen, do we accuse all teenagers of cancelling the queen because they haven’t got one?’
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays from 6am on ITV.
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