Statue of George Orwell Statue of George Orwell A statue of George Orwell by the British sculptor Martin Jennings was unveiled on 7 November 2017 outside Broadcasting House, the headquarters of the BBC, in London. The wall behind the statue is inscribed with Orwell's words "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear", from an unused preface to "Animal Farm". The head of BBC history, Robert Seatter, said of Orwell and the statue that "He reputedly based his notorious Room 101 from "Nineteen Eighty-Four" on a room he had worked in whilst
George Orwell people to read. Orwell pointed out that its proprietor François Coty also owned the right-wing dailies "Le Figaro" and "Le Gaulois", which the "Ami de Peuple" was supposedly competing against. Orwell suggested that cheap newspapers were no more than a vehicle for advertising and anti-leftist propaganda, and predicted the world might soon see free newspapers which would drive legitimate dailies out of business. The Spanish Civil War played the most important part in defining Orwell's socialism. He wrote to Cyril Connolly from Barcelona on 8 June 1937: "I have seen wonderful things and at last really believe in Socialism, which