A statue of Winston Churchill may have to be put in a museum to protect it if demonstrations continue, his granddaughter has said.
Emma Soames told the BBC the war-time prime minister was a “complex man” but he was considered a hero by millions.
She said she was “shocked” to see the monument in London’s Parliament Square boarded up, although she understood why it was necessary to do so.
It came after protesters daubed “was a racist” on the statue last weekend.
Ms Soames said it was “extraordinarily sad that my grandfather, who was such a unifying figure in this country, appears to have become a sort of icon through being controversial.”
“We’ve come to this place where history is viewed only entirely through the prism of the present,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Ms Soames acknowledged her grandfather had often held views which “particularly now are regarded as unacceptable but weren’t necessarily then”.
However, she added: “He was a powerful, complex man, with infinitely more good than bad in the ledger of his life.”
She said if people were “so infuriated” by seeing the statue it may be “safer” in a museum.
“But I think Parliament Square would be a poorer place without him,” she added.
Churchill’s grandson Sir Nicholas Soames said he was “deeply upset” after the statue was vandalised and then boarded up.
“I find it extraordinary that millions and millions of people all over the world who look up to Britain will be astonished that a statue of Churchill and the Cenotaph, our national war memorial, could have been defaced in this disgusting way,” he told the Daily Telegraph.
However, author Shrabani Basu, who has written books about the British Empire, said there were “two sides of Churchill” and “we need to know his darkest hour as well as his finest hour”.
She argued that in India, Churchill is not seen as a hero, citing his role in the 1943 Bengal famine, during which at least three million people are believed to have died.
While Ms Basu said she did not want to see the statue removed from Parliament Square, she said people should be taught “the whole story” about the war-time figure.
Black Lives Matter activist Imarn Ayton said statues of slave traders and people who had spoken negatively towards black people were “extremely offensive” and should be moved to museums.
“I think it’s a win-win to everyone so we no longer offend the black nation and we also get to keep our history,” she told the BBC.
On Friday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson branded the boarding up of the statue to protect it from potential vandalism as “absurd and shameful”.
Mr Johnson said the former prime minister had expressed opinions which were “unacceptable to us today” but remained a hero for saving the country from “fascist and racist tyranny”.
“We cannot try to edit or censor our past,” he wrote of moves to remove tributes to historical figures. “We cannot pretend to have a different history.”