The British Empire is fundamentally important to understanding modern Britain and the contemporary world.

“I mean I don't think you can understand modern Britain or the modern world without understanding the British Empire.”

British history should be retold to be more honest about past trespasses while retaining hope and enchantment.

“can we can we can we find the middle ground? Can we have a story that is honest about our trespasses, that is not afraid to shy away from the darkness of our past and our present, but that can also hold the hope and the magic and the enchantment at the same time.”

He claims the British Empire was once viewed through a romantic lens but is now undergoing a necessary critical evaluation.

“This is a period that that where what was, I think, looked at very romantically through rose-tinted spectacles, through Merchant Ivory films and so on, is coming up for critical evaluation.”

Judging historical figures like Churchill by contemporary standards of morality is ahistorical and unconstructive.

“but I think to uh to Blacken his memory because of something that was considered a scientific fact at the time uh that he was living is is pretty strange it's a it's a sort of unhistorical way ahistorical way really of uh of approaching um people in the past in my”

The British Empire evolved into an anti-slavery force after 1807, utilizing its power to suppress the slave trade globally for over a century.

“for 1807 uh onwards and then he's 33 first the slave trade then slavery itself were abolished by the British and for the rest of the Empire's existence for another 150 years roughly the British were involved in anti-slavery”