IT is not often that you can start a column in Latin, and today is no exception, although there is a Latin theme.

Well sort of, anyway.

It follows news that works by some of the UK’s finest poets have been removed from the English GCSE curriculum in a bid to introduce “exciting and diverse” voices into the syllabus.

So works by Wilfred Owen and Philip Larkin will now be consigned to history in schools, meaning that pupils will not now learn classics such as Dulce et Decorum est or An Arundel Tomb.

This really is a great shame, as Owen’s masterpieces chronicling the horrors of trench warfare during the First World War are as thought-provoking today as they were in 1918.

But according to the OCR, his famed poem Anthem for Doomed Youth is no longer relevant, and will be replaced in the section of the curriculum devoted to conflicts.

Likewise Larkin, deemed to be the greatest poet of the 20st century, will also no longer be included in the love and relationships section, spelling the end for An Arundel Tomb.

Thomas Hardy, Seamus Heaney and Siegfried Sassoon’s work have also been removed in the diversity drive which has been dubbed “cultural vandalism” by critics.

Of the 45 poems used by OCR for last year’s GCSE English Literature course, 15 have been replaced.

New entries include 14 by “poets of colour” with “disabled and LGBT voices” also featured.

The “conflict” section of the course was previously dominated by works from the First World War, with Owen’s Anthem for Doomed Youth arguably the most famous piece in the collection.

Philip Larkin has also been replaced with new pieces including We Lived Happily during the War by Ilya Kaminsky, Colonisation in Reverse by Louise Bennett Coverly and Thirteen by Caleb Femi.

OCR said: “Our anthology for GCSE English Literature students will feature many poets that have never been on a GCSE syllabus before and represent diverse voices, from living poets of British-Somali, British-Guyanese and Ukrainian heritage to one of the first black women in 19th-century America to publish a novel.”

There is ,of course, a great irony about removing Owen for the sake of more diversity, as he was gay and could be legitimately seen as an early representative of the LGBTQ voice in poetry.

He also wrote at a time when his sexuality was still punishable as a criminal offence.

Of course, as a serving soldier who experienced atrocities first-hand, his poems are crucial to the curriculum if students are to achieve any sense of history.

It is impossible to disagree with the sentiment that school curriculums need more diversity and modernisation.

But it is hard to escape the increasing view that there is a culture war going on across educational establishments, with schools at the very heart of it.

There is a widespread move to de-colonise curriculums, but it appears to be driven not by a genuine attempt to improve education, but by pure hatred of the past.

It is perfectly acceptable to tweak and improve things but erasing history entirely and replacing it with something else is not a good look and does nothing to educate anyone. The purge of authors and writers has echoes of Germany in the 1920’s with ‘Degenerate art’ adopted by the Nazis to describe any modernist works by the likes of Picasso.

Hundreds of works, which would have been priceless today, were simply tossed on a bonfire by a Nazi party hellbent on only allowing Germans and Austrians to view censored art that suited their agenda.

It was an idea adopted by that other great believer of a liberal democracy, Stalin.

Ironically, most of the Degenerate art pieces that were saved from the bonfire are now kept in safekeeping in The Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, alongside works that were hidden by Stalin.

Any move to censor artistic work such as music, literature or paintings is a brutal step that is only ever considered by dictators.

Yet, in 21st century Britain, the censors are out in force, changing things they don’t like and nobody seems able to challenge them.

This is a very slippery and dangerous slope to go down and one that can only end in disaster.

The most dangerous aspect of censorship is where does it all end – after all, who censors the censors at the end of the day?