The Cenotaph in London – arguably Britain’s greatest public sculpture – reinvented the war memorial when it was erected in 1920. It is shocking now to look at 18th- and 19th-century military memorials and find they only list the names of officers, as if these losses counted more than the deaths of men in other ranks.

Top Gear: Chris Evans apologises for 'disrespectful' Cenotaph stunt Read more

It took the mass slaughter of the first world war to democratise death and one result is Edwin Lutyens’s restrained rectangle of grief, which takes its inspiration from the ancient Greek idea of a cenotaph (or “empty tomb”), dedicated equally, and anonymously, to all the war dead.

This stern sentinel is a mighty container of memory. It is not, however, a place of hushed reverence – except on Remembrance Sunday. How can it be, located as it is on a busy street in the heart of a capital city? If the Cenotaph were in a military cemetery or on a battlefield site, it might be possible to preserve decorum around it. Instead, it stands on Whitehall. This white sepulchre is there to remind us of the lost as we go about our business – a stopped heartbeat in the hubbub.

But that’s not enough to stop the wave of complaint that led broadcaster Chris Evans to apologise for a stunt filmed for Top Gear on his radio show on Monday morning. Evans unequivocally said he was sorry for a scene in which Matt LeBlanc drives a fast car near the monument. “Retrospectively, it was unwise to be anywhere near the Cenotaph with this motor car,” said Evans.

It makes no sense to complain that someone has driven a car in central London

How long did he have to rehearse those words to be able to say them without laughing? Top Gear can’t possibly have intended this offence, which surely exists only in the imaginations of a few excessively sensitive souls. It makes no sense to complain, in effect, that someone has driven a car in central London.

Whitehall is not just the location of the Cenotaph. It’s the centre of ceremonial and government business with Horse Guards Parade, Downing Street, ministries, the Banqueting House … and lots of people walking by. Is this thoroughfare now to become a no-man’s land, where pedestrians must be hushed and all traffic banned? Are tourists to be prevented from taking pictures of the Horse Guards lest they “disrespect” the nearby Cenotaph?

So, Top Gear used Whitehall as a Bond-style backdrop for one of its stunts. Why not? No one complained a few months ago when political commentator Dan Hodges streaked down Whitehall for a bet. I suppose if someone had circulated pictures online of him passing the Cenotaph nude, it might have caused a similar fuss. But it’s not insulting the war dead to do wacky stuff on Whitehall.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Chris Evans, Top Gear presenter. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

Liberty means taking liberties. Whitehall needs to be desecrated from time to time precisely because it is the heart of government. Top Gear didn’t actually desecrate anything – but the demand for an apology for what was clearly just a bit of TV fun, and the prompt, fawning way it has been given, is a sad day for British freedom. Satire, protest and lèse majesté are part and parcel of democracy. So is making light of national treasures.

The centre of London cannot become sacred space. Only authoritarian regimes turn their capital cities into reverent, militarised no-go areas. London’s war memorial is powerful and chilling to contemplate, as if this one spot were for ever frozen in time at the moment of an unknown soldier’s death. But life goes on around it. That’s a victory to be cherished, not denied. Drive your car over the bones of the dead, as William Blake so nearly put it.



