London ought to be ashamed of its statues. I make no complaint about their quality - even though President de Gaulle seems to be wearing Eric Morecambe's comedy riding breeches and Nelson Mandela appears to be illustrating the size of a recently caught fish. Nor do I object to the number of politicians and generals who stare down upon us. The fault is the failure, on the part of whichever body of worthy citizens decides these things, to pay proper homage to England's writers and composers.

There is, in particular, a deplorable absence of William Shakespeare - the man whose work defines our country and enables us to feel that, whatever else may go wrong, we are a special people because he was born among us. The best memorial on offer in London - the city in which he wrote and acted - is a crude likeness in Leicester Square. It is currently surrounded by the whirligigs of a travelling fair. There ought to a proper statue on what estate agents call a prime site. Fortunately, one is available. It is known as the “empty plinth” in Trafalgar Square.

I confess, at once, that I would rather keep the plinth empty than have it occupied by some of the entries for the competition that will decide what adorns it for the next 12 months. Their fatuity was admirably illustrated by Jeremy Deller whose submission - a burnt-out motor car - is called The Spoils of War and is subtitled Memorial for an Unknown Civilian. A sculpture that needs a subtitle (not to mention its creator explaining on television what message he means to convey) might be said to lack visual impact.

At least Tracy Emin's Something for the Future is instantly recognisable as four bronze meerkats - and as preposterously inappropriate for anywhere except the entrance to a safari park. But the real scandal is the sheer stupidity of having an empty plinth and even considering filling it with anything except the man who was not of an age but for all time.

Letters in newspapers keep demanding that we take pride in our history. Generals Napier and Havelock, on two of the Trafalgar Square plinths, recall our colonisation of India. George IV, on a third, reminds us that the monarchy can survive even the most deplorable of monarchs. Does anyone doubt that William Shakespeare has at least as great a claim to represent our national heritage as those three gentlemen?

He is, to put his greatness in more prosaic language, our highest quality product and most spectacular export success. Nothing would do more to improve our prestige in the world than a statue reminding tourists, as they wander across Trafalgar Square, that he was “Made in England”.

Roy Hattersley is a novelist and

Labour peer

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