Plans submitted for George Orwell statue deemed 'too Left-wing' by BBC bosses

Plans for a statue of George Orwell outside Broadcasting House have been submitted four years after BBC bosses reportedly branded it “too Left-wing”.

The 2.5 metre-tall bronze statue of the writer will be made by sculptor Martin Jennings, who created the statue of John Betjeman at St Pancras Station.

The proposal being submitted to Westminster council includes an inscription on the wall behind, bearing Orwell’s words: “If Liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

Orwell, who worked at the BBC during the Second World War, is best known for his political novels Animal Farm and 1984, which warned of the dangers of dictatorship and were based on his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, which he wrote about in Homage to Catalonia.

Mr Jennings said: “Orwell not only worked for the BBC but is widely regarded as the “patron saint” of political journalism. To this day he continues to be celebrated for his advocacy of plain speaking in politics, journalism and broadcasting.

"As the home of BBC News, Broadcasting House is the ideal site for commemoration of this great man.”

Broadcaster Joan Bakewell, who has backed calls for the statue to be installed, claimed in 2012 the BBC’s then director general Mark Thompson had said Orwell “would be perceived as too Left-wing a figure for the BBC to honour”.

The campaign was begun by former Hampstead MP Ben Whitaker.

His widow, Janet, who is a member of the George Orwell Memorial Trust, said the writer had been her husband's hero.

She said:"I think because of his fearless attitude to truth, his intellectual honesty and his clear and simple writing as a witness to what really happened.

"Homage to Catalonia is perhaps one of the best known examples and Animal Farm the most accessible. So Ben took it on himself to raise all the money to commemorate our most distinguished journalist.