The US Embassy in London has waded into the bust-up over Joe Biden’s decision to remove a Winston Churchill sculpture from the Oval Office.
“We’ve seen some discussion about the Churchill Bust, so we just wanted to remind everyone what the Special Relationship is truly about,” the embassy tweeted.
The video defines the UK/US relationship as one based on shared economies, military co-operation, and historic summits between of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, Tony Blair and George W Bush and even Churchill with Franklin D Roosevelt during war time.
It juxtaposes these images with “Just a bust of Winston Churchill” over light hearted soundtrack.
But the video didn’t stop Twitter arguments breaking out all over the replies.
Daniel Cremin tweeted: “‘Just a bust’. Yet more casual disrespect towards a work of historic art on long-term loan from the British to the White House as a mark of friendship, respect, and shared history between two allies who faced down true evil in the 1940s. If Biden doesn't want it, return it.”
Another countered: “Honestly it makes no difference, it's Joe Biden's office he is free to have whatever art he wants as long as tasteful. It does not change US-UK relationship at all.”
Whilst Dave Thomas Tweeted: “You can fire the damn thing into the sun if it’ll put an end to this nonsense once and for all.”
This week Downing Street to smooth over Joe Biden’s decision to remove the bust despite Boris Johnson branding it “a snub to Britain” when Barack Obama did the same thing.
Mr Johnson’s official spokesman denied any ill-feeling, saying: “The Oval Office is the President's private office, and it's up to the President to decorate it as he wishes.”
The Jacob Epstein-made bust of the war-time Prime Minister was not on display in pictures released of the newly revamped inner sanctum of the White House. Mr Biden chose instead images of his personal inspirations, including Dr Martin Luther King.
The Churchill bust was first gifted to George W Bush by Tony Blair but was moved out by President Obama. It was handed back on loan to Donald Trump who gave it a prominent position in the room.
Boris Johnson, who was Mayor of London when President Obama rejected the bust, wrote at the time in The Sun: "Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan president's ancestral dislike of the British Empire - of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender."
The reference to Mr Obama’s Kenyan ancestry prompted some accusations of racism and was branded "deplorable" and "completely idiotic" by Churchill’s grandson, Conservative grandee Nicholas Soames.
At the time Mr Obama responded: “There are only so many tables where you can put busts otherwise it starts looking a little cluttered.”
