PROFESSOR Sir Tom Devine has expressed concerns over Neil Oliver representing Scottish history in the media after what he claims are a string of “bizarre and crass public statements”.
Devine, one of Scotland’s leading historians, told The National of his discomfort over Oliver “pontificating” on the country’s past after the TV historian suggested there are efforts under way to “take down” a statue of David Livingstone in Glasgow due to his connections to the slave trade, despite his work on abolition.
In an eight-minute monologue on GB News, former NTS president Oliver used the incident as an example of how there’s an agenda to “run down Britain” and “tear the old place down in its entirety”. In reality, there appeared to be no “bid” to remove the statue.
There was a report commissioned by Glasgow City Council and written by academic Dr Stephen Mullen published in March 2022, which gave detailed examples of the city’s physical links to the slave trade.
In the 119-page document, there is one mention of Livingstone’s statue, explaining how he was connected to the trade.
“David Livingstone, famous missionary explorer, was employed in Blantyre Mill, owned by Henry Monteith, who was in a partnership with two Glasgow-West India merchants in the 1810s,” Mullen writes. “Blantyre Mill paid relatively high wages to its workforce; including Livingstone from 1823 and especially after 1832 when he was promoted to a cotton-spinner which funded his education.”
The council has said it has no proposals to remove any monuments on the basis of the report. Despite this, Oliver made the claim and a number of right-wing news outlets suggested Livingstone’s memorial faced removal.
Devine had praised the report and even suggested that its contents could be used as a basis for a Glasgow Museum of Slavery and Empire. Following Oliver’s latest GB News appearance, plus the Coast presenter’s recent controversial tweets – including stating he will “never accept a microchip tag” and claim that the SNP have a “preoccupation” with children – Devine expressed his fears over Oliver being seen as a face of Scottish history, including on Glasgow tour buses and Loch Lomond cruises.
“This individual has no formal historical training either at the undergraduate or postgraduate level but persists in being asked to pontificate on issues of Scottish history when there are so many excellent experts on the nation’s past working in our universities,” Devine told The National.
“He also has a track record of making bizarre and crass public statements on a whole series of other topics in which he really cannot claim any authority or expertise. I know that his interventions irritate many people.”
However, Devine stressed that “today’s media culture” is to blame rather than Oliver as an individual.
“For much of the present media so-called ‘celebrity’ status usually trumps knowledge and understanding, especially in the spheres of culture, history and the humanities, when seeking interviewees,” he went on. “The sciences and medicine are more insulated from this practice but even they are not entirely exempt from it. “Some sections of the print and TV media obviously think their readers and viewers still find Mr Oliver of interest. When that assumption changes, his public profile will vanish without trace.”
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GB News has been contacted for comment. Dr Mullen, a history research associate at Glasgow University and author of The Glasgow Sugar Aristocracy, defended his report against media “misrepresentations”.
“I was commissioned by the Glasgow City Council to author an independent audit in my area of academic expertise: Scotland and Atlantic slavery,” he told The National. “I was, and remain, independent from the political process. I made no recommendations: that is up to Glasgow’s politicians and citizens. “It is sad to see the conversation remains centred on misrepresentations of the audit rather than the history and legacies of Scotland and Atlantic slavery.”
Oliver has long been a controversial figure in Scotland, having famously compared the possibility of indyref2 to a “cancerous presence” in society. The keen Unionist has even suggested that Scottish independence could infringe on his human rights as it may risk his British citizenship. In 2020, he stepped down from the NTS president role after saying he “loves” David Starkey. Shortly afterwards, Starkey said in interview that slavery “was not genocide otherwise there wouldn’t be so many damn blacks in Africa or Britain”.
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