I AM sorry that Councillor Nigel Knowles appears to be fixed in a historical view from 1939 (I say no statue to divisive PM, Shuttle Opinion, July 4).

Stanley Baldwin under Ramsay MacDonald set rearmament in train in 1934. In 1935 he fought an early election to get a clear national mandate for rearmament, which became massive with the development of Hurricanes and Spitfires, radar and shadow factories.

This has been recognised by leading historians since the 1970s, and the 2004 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, representing current historical opinion, sets the seal on Baldwin’s rehabilitation from the partial accounts of earlier years in its statement that “all that [Churchill] built rested on the strong and enduring foundations laid down by Baldwin.”

Anyone who doubts the wide scale of Baldwin’s accomplishments need only read the opening paragraphs of the acclaimed 1999 biography Stanley Baldwin by the leading Baldwin scholar, Prof Philip Williamson.

The first sentence reads: “Few British political leaders have been so successful and significant as Stanley Baldwin.”

Would Bewdley not do well to commemorate with a unique statue such a distinguished son of Worcester-shire, local MP, and international statesman?

EARL BALDWIN OF BEWDLEY Parliamentarian Cumnor Hill Oxford