In 1965, Winston Churchill’s coffin was brought to Westminster Hall, where for 3 days his coffin rested on a catafalque surrounded by candles.  As a schoolboy I queued for several hours, with hundreds of thousands of others as we paid our respects. It was the  first time I went to Parliament.   I remember being struck that, regardless of political allegiances, a nation was united in honouring the man who led Britain to victory over the Nazis. By contrast, yesterday’s disgraceful vandalising of Churchill’s  statue in Parliament Square demonstrates a woeful lack of respect. It also displays an extraordinary ignorance of how easily our liberties - the right to protest, to vote, to think for ourselves - would have been replaced by Hitler’s dictatorship if Churchill hadn’t succeeded in preserving our freedoms and democracy.