I am asked why I did not write today about the violence over the week-end. I am not running a newspaper and had nothing original or new to say about it. The Home Secretary made a Statement today condemning it and telling us the perpetrators would be prosecuted.
There are democratic ways of moving statues from prominent places if people no longer wish to remember the individuals concerned. The Labour Mayor of Bristol did not get around to doing that.
June 8, 2020
Looks like another virtue signalling act of tyranny from a despotic far Left wing government working together with the MSM. If they were protesting against things which were not politically approved the police would have crushed them. Look what happened to Corbyns more intelligent brother and his followers when peacefully protesting the lockdown etc.
June 9, 2020
I think that the images of the statue’s falling will come to be more powerfully symbolic for this land than any silly referendum result.
They are in moving pictures for one thing, like those of the Berlin Wall’s demise.
They say that the concept of Britishness no longer belongs to its hitherto custodians – which is marvellous.
You can’t defeat that visual message with words of indignation.
The assertion, that statues of such reprehensible people can endure in Britain, because the consensus represented by the law is sufficiently respected has been emphatically shown to be no longer true.
That is now an absolute fact, and the change, equally absolutely cannot be reversed.
The UK is now a different country, and an immeasurably better one.
That said, those who did this should be held to account under the law, and I trust that good sense will prevail, in handing down a nominal penalty, in recognition of the conflict at times between morality and the law.
June 9, 2020
Martin, Vandalism such as toppling statues is symbolic only of vacuous mob rule by a decided minority of leftist thugs, If it ever became important it will symbolise the passing of rule by consent and democracy. As you endorse, of course, with your silly sneer about our Leave decision. Be careful what you wish for, you may get it.
June 9, 2020
Perhaps the hitherto custodians should just be guillotined if they cannot prove their innocence in order to rush in your new society?
Why didn’t the Labour Council propose removing the statue?
If you think that our country at this moment is better than it was previously bearing in mind the direction of travel I pity you…
zorro
June 9, 2020
What?
June 10, 2020
Sorry did my allusion to 18th centuryy revolutionary France pass you by?
zorro
June 9, 2020
I find it hard to see rampant virtue signalling and hypocrisy as an improvement.
Colston was born in 1636. Slavery is still a problem but the self-appointed statue police seem to have a very short list and an even shorter attention span when choosing which victims deserve their support.
Rotherham? Forget it.
June 9, 2020
I think this artifice for having a riot has set back race relations decades. The message has been shoved in our faces by violence, and that is bound to divide.
I cannot understand why it is a good thing to hide history in brick buildings, or hang and drown them as happened in Bristol, when it is essential we learn from history, and these figures represent good acts as well as bad acts. They should be prominently displayed for open debate instead of a Daesh like determination to bury education and learning.
June 9, 2020
Would you feel theat same warm glow of righteousness if a mob of hard right activists went out and did the same to Marx’s statue in London?
I expect you would not.
June 9, 2020
They already have done – and to Mandela’s and to others.
But neither of those traded in utter human misery.
June 10, 2020
Both statues are still there.
I asked specifically about Marx not Mandela.
Marxism killed millions.
June 9, 2020
16/02/2019: Karl Marxâs London memorial vandalised for second time.
June 10, 2020
But still there.
June 10, 2020
Given that it is a tomb not a statue what do you propose? To put him and his wife in the common grave?
June 10, 2020
It can still be removed
Where is your sense of imagination.
June 11, 2020
Maybe imagining I would get an intelligent answer from you?
June 9, 2020
I would say the conflict is between democracy and the law (or the establishment that won’t change the law). Most people would agree we no longer want to have statues of people that were involved in the ‘slave trade’ (a terrible expression and a much more terrible reality). But the establishment won’t listen and remove them. There are loads of worthy people – why not replace the statue with a statue of the elderly WW2 veteran who has just raised a load of money for the NHS. All you need to do is recast the head.
June 9, 2020
I’ve heard 56% of the people of Bristol polled did not want the statue removed.
Are you for the majority or the rest?
June 8, 2020
Thank you for allowing us to comment off topic.
June 8, 2020
I read that Edward Colston “supported and endowed schools, almshouses, hospitals and churches in Bristol, London and elsewhere. Many of his charitable foundations survive to this day
I wonder if those who pulled his statue down would wreck those edifices too, and would the Mayor of Bristol condone it if they did so.
June 9, 2020
There is irony in the signaling these protests have brought about.
Edward Colston worked for the then Duke of Yorks company ‘Royal African Company’, as a sort of broker. The Company bought ‘human beings’ that had been enslaved by African Chieftans then sold them on to plantation owners in the New World.
It had been practice for more than 200 hundred years before Colston and the like turned up for African Chieftains to enslave those they captured in wars with neighbours or those that were seen as criminals. The African Chieftains created the Slaves from those of a similar ethnic background to themselves.
Because of suseptability to deasease the Europeans didn’t enter into the African interland, they relied on the African Chiftains to supply the goods
That begs the question, if the protests are based on historical grounds, who should the focus be on. The creaters of the Slaves or the traders in the Slaves. The average human would say both.
For the greater majority of people on this Planet we have only come to recognise there to be only the one race, the Human Race. So it is interesting that a minority of people identify themselves as something else. Are they the ones that are the racists?
Sorry @Brian I went on to long there.
June 10, 2020
Probably there are no statues of those African chieftains though.
June 9, 2020
Are you suggesting the end justifies the means? I don’t think so.
June 9, 2020
The Dahomey used to slaughter 500 slaves when their king died. The Ashanti used to take slave wives, so a culture of rape, and also killed slaves when their owner died. Another African tribe used to kill slaves as an offering to the gods to ensure the white slave traders returned next year, and so on.
All these slaves were traded, so the African tribes got money etc in exchange for them, but unlike Colston I haven’t heard of any of them creating foundations for the generations following them.
June 9, 2020
Mike
Interesting how these protesters want the benefit of the legacy Colston left when they attend colleges, theatres and the like, which he funded with the money he made.
Surely if you are against how he made his money then you should not want to benefit from it either.
Life is full of many Wars, deeds, good , bad, and indifferent that is history no matter what Country, what faith, what colour, both male and female
If it is out in the open for discussion, perhaps future generations may learn a little , instead of trying to erase it or make out it did not happen by removing al evidence, and rewriting the facts..
June 8, 2020
The Home Secretary also said she hears what the demonstrators are saying. Hearing is easy for most people. Listening is much harder.
June 9, 2020
What’s the problem with my comment awaiting moderation still? 24 hours on almost.
June 9, 2020
I may have had to wait 24 hours to read it but, for what it is worth, it was worth it.
đ
June 9, 2020
@Irene , you are expecting much of some to understand that!
June 10, 2020
Does the Home Secretary âhearâ what the majority are saying I wonder? She has to obey the majority!
June 8, 2020
Sir John
Understood and fully appreciate you providing this forum
June 9, 2020
Hear hear.
June 8, 2020
The disgusting behaviour of the left wing thugs was a reminder of the sort of people who would have been the key supporters of the govt had the election gone the other way. Thanks to Boris the Country has been saved from having these sort of people near power. We mustnât now allow the subversion of our society by the thuggery of deranged mobs.
June 8, 2020
As so often legitimate protest has been hijacked by thugs and extremists
June 10, 2020
This is not legitimate protest.
June 9, 2020
How do you know the thugs were left wing?
June 8, 2020
According to a news report on Channel 4 tonight, there have been pleas and peaceful protests for years in Bristol to remove this statue all to no avail. To speak about a democratic process now is ludicrous.
June 9, 2020
Perhaps the Bristolians,exercising their democratic rights,did not want the statue removed which is why the pleas failed.
June 9, 2020
According to their website, Bristol City has a large Labour majority in councillor numbers, including the elected Mayor, plus 4 Greens. Presumably if there had been a democratic majority to remove the statue, it would have happened.
June 9, 2020
They also have 4 Labour MPs to throw in extra influence.
June 9, 2020
That fact speaks volumes…..
zorro
June 9, 2020
You are not under the illusion that Labour councillors listen to local people in a way Tory councillors don’t. In my experience many councillors, of all stripes, are self-important little nobodies who got themselves elected (or were co-opted) with a few hundred votes because most people can’t be bothered to vote for councillors.
June 9, 2020
Well dont vote for them.
Or stand as an independent.
June 9, 2020
Just because a minority plea and peacefully protest for removal of the statue, doesn’t mean that is should happen if the majority would rather retain it and remember the good things Colston did. He was a man of his times and present day values cannot be ascribed to him.
June 9, 2020
David Hambley
That excuse won’t do. The fight against the slave trade was active during his time and most European countries wanted nothing to do with it.
June 9, 2020
One thing we can rely on, Margaret, whatever the subject, you will get it wrong. Edward Colston died in 1721. The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was founded in Britain in 1787. So the fight against the slave trade here was not active during his time.
June 10, 2020
All European countries âhad nothing to do with the fight against the slave tradeâ. They were at war with Britain when the U.K. found the resources after William WilberforceâS Bill was past, to put a stop to it.
However the European countries now foster the âmodern slave tradeâ and exported it to the U.K. when we had no power to resist – no Sovereign Government in the dark years of EU membership.
June 10, 2020
Not true Margaret, most European countries were involved with slavery of one form or another over the centuries
June 9, 2020
Let’s just get this right – you’re saying it was okay to be a slave trader then but it’s not okay now. Mind you, slavery was approved in the Bible so it must, actually, be okay. Where can I get one?
June 9, 2020
Bristol council has always been Labour run except for a short time under the Liberals – why didn’t they remove the statue ?
June 9, 2020
1) They think they know better than the hoi polloi.
2) It’s not in the budget
3) They are too stupid to realise they could remove the statue, put it in storage for a year and then put it back and say it is a statue of someone else more worthy.
June 9, 2020
Well don’t vote for them.
June 9, 2020
Muddled thinking.
Presumably there was no democratic majority in favour of it.
Pleas and powerful protests are no more democratic in this sense than in the sense of Brexit.
June 9, 2020
One can but wonder, with jaw dropped, how you come to that conclusion. Was there a referendum? Was there even a survey or poll? A council interested in the views of people in the area could have commissioned a poll and acted on the result.
June 9, 2020
There was a survey.
June 9, 2020
Mike W, One can but wonder, with jaw dropped, how you come to that conclusion. A few people shouting loudly – or a mob – do not signify democratic majority approval.
June 9, 2020
There are no doubt plenty of reds left in various Russian cities who want statues of Stalin back.
June 9, 2020
Please apply the above to your own opinion on leaving the EU.
June 9, 2020
Bristol has a population of over 680,000 and 7000 people, not necessarily Bristol residents, signed a petition calling for the statue to be removed. How exactly is the democratic process not working?
June 9, 2020
Yeah, that’s the way to interpret democracy. Now, if you had said – Bristol has a population of 680,000 and in a referendum a majority had voted to lose, or keep, the statue – then you might argue that democracy was working. As it is, it is impossible to know.
If 7000 people (and you have no way of knowing if they were Bristol residents – that is just an aspersion you cast for effect) signed a petition to get rid of the statue – how many signed a petition to keep the statue? Surely, as soon as word got about that there was a petition to get rid of it, all the pro slave traders would have started a counter petition? Did they? Why don’t you? You sound upset that the statue is gone. Personally, I’m pleased they pulled it down and got rid of it. I can think of lots more I’d like to see in the nearest harbour.
June 9, 2020
Mike W, That’s a fallacy. One does not have to be pro slave traders to want to retain a statue. And especially one does not have to be pro slaves traders to be appalled at the mob of thugs and vandals.
June 9, 2020
They (the people of Bristol) have elected Labour MPs Labour Councils and have a Labour Mayor.
Presumably all these leaders refused to listen to the calls to remove this statue.
Perhaps they elected people who didn’t agree with their wishes.
It has to be done through the democratic process not mob rule.
June 9, 2020
And how, pray, can it be done through the democratic process? Is there some mechanism to force a council to hold a referendum?
June 9, 2020
Public pressure.
It has worked before.
Or vote for Council candidate who make removal of that statue a part of their manifesto.
Or stand for election yourself with that promise.
It is the proper democratic way.
June 9, 2020
Mike W, There should indeed be a mechanism to hold referendums both nationally and locally triggered by petition. That at least would be civil and democratic rather than the disgusting mob rule we have seen in the last few days. Perhaps we should hold referendums on making prisoners work, the death penalty, abortion, deportation of foreign criminals?
June 9, 2020
Bristol.gov.uk “The people of Bristol are represented by: The Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees (Labour) Councillors: one, two or three councillors for each of city’s 34 wards, 70 councillors in total.Councillors make decisions on how to improve local services on behalf of local people and serve for a four year term.
Mayoral and councillor elections are held every four years.
The current political representation on the council is:
Conservative 14
Green 11
Labour 36
Liberal Democrat 9”
Go on their website and ask them why they didn’t sort this local big problem out.
I read a comment message on Guido Fawkes so it is not verified that said they held a referendum locally with 56% against removal.
June 9, 2020
And you don’t think that the black mayor would have removed it if it didn’t “involve spending political capital” – which I took to mean that he knew it would be unpopular with a significant portion of Bristol voters/residents. Clearly people don’t support Slavery these days but you do not rewrite (or change) history by destroying symbols of that history without democratic consent (Unless you live in Mao’s China or Pol Pots Cambodia of course – where everyone was “re-educated”…at least those who survived it)
If the people of Bristol had desired this statue to be in a museum (which frankly might have been a good solution) then I’m sure it would have already been there. But that was up to them to decide – and I doubt taking that choice away by force has helped improve or change anyone’s view of these matters…
June 9, 2020
Margaret.
This may be controversial, but I didn’t particularly approve of the statue of Nelson Mandela being erected in Westminster, but I wouldnât go out and vandalize it. Why? Because, I know there are many who do approve, and they have a right to their opinion too.
June 9, 2020
Hear, hear!
June 10, 2020
Removing the statue diminishes knowledge. More people walk the streets so can view the statue and find out about the person to inform themselves and their children than go to museums.
June 8, 2020
Are the police kneeling before the mob at the behest of the London Mayor?
June 9, 2020
I doubt it – frankly, it just shows very poor discipline.
What officers do in their own time (and civilian clothes) is up to them – but when on duty (and in uniform) they are there to do their job – not to express a personal opinion.
June 9, 2020
Her, hear!
June 9, 2020
Being on one knee in this context, as it comes from the US is to show disrespect to your flag and your country – which is why it is seen as controversial.
June 9, 2020
This is a dreadful mistake by the Police and sends out all the wrong messages. To think that they could placate this mob! THey just show weakness and will be devoured!
zorro
June 9, 2020
They are lucky to be able to kneel. My left knee kills if I have to kneel on it. Thank heavens for fit police force able to kneel when necessary.
June 9, 2020
Sounds like you will be non PC very soon.
June 9, 2020
Mike W, I’ll ask the policeman who gives me a speeding ticket to kneel before me, on pain of me toppling the statue of Karl Marx?
June 8, 2020
JR
“I am not running a newspaper”
You completely outclass any newspaper JR. I gave up buying them years ago because of their bias.
As for the rioters, suffice to say I’m disgusted with these lefty moaners. Any slight vestige of credibility they might have had went down the pan the second they threw bricks, pyrotechnics and ironmongery at horses.
Ms Patel says they will face the courts, well I hope the Judges throw the book at them….fullest custodial sentences for animal cruelty, incitement of violence, hate crime, public disorder, damage to public property.
I understand that one horse bolted because a ‘demonstrator’ threw a brick at it’s nose.
We’re seeing the real mentality of left wing socialists, they disgust me.
June 9, 2020
Some “snow”, some “flakes”, what?
Make up what passes for your minds on the point.
When I see the European Union’s flag, “Hope Not Hate” and the Red Flag tattooed on shaven heads like we do BNP and the George Cross etc., then I’ll accept that the Centre and the Left have a significant thuggish element.
We don’t though, do we?
June 9, 2020
So, discount people trying to burn the Union Jack, discount the projectiles being thrown into the paths of police horses, discount the bloodied faces of police officers. No thuggery here.
June 9, 2020
Martin, You may have difficulty in believing there is more than one type of person, the rest of us do not. There are “snowflakes”, and there are leftist thugs. We’ve just seen some of the leftist thugs in action. What is the matter with you?
June 9, 2020
Their actions speak for them & mark them in the eyes of the majority who in this country don’t do violent revolution like they’ve had on the continent of Europe.
June 9, 2020
Steve “Ms Patel says they will face the courts,” how will she find them they were masked up? That chap that threw the woman under the bus captured on cctv was never found by the London police.
I wondered why the horseback police were sent out into a peaceful process and I heard yesterday that the protestors had started to become violent and chased down unarmed police officers so a kettle operation was mounted, there were videos circling and shared on twitter by James Cleverly about masked protestors chasing down officers and a young girl jumped between them asking them to stop throwning objects and chasing the police.
June 9, 2020
And more than bricks – weaponising Santander bikes had a certain irony. Much of the Left refuse to acknowledge the thuggery and violence within their midst; to borrow a phrase, their silence is violence.
June 9, 2020
‘Any slight vestige of credibility they might have had went down the pan the second they threw bricks, pyrotechnics and ironmongery at horses.’
– Well said. And also risking spreading the coronavirus.
(Although I think people are over-reacting to the slave-trader statue – especially as it will only help Bristol’s brand image and make it more ‘cool’ for creative and tech companies to settle there.
June 10, 2020
‘help Bristol look cool? Most of my life it’s been known by persons who went to live and work there as a regional capital for drugs, same as Brighton, Liverpool, Manchester, oh yes..and Durham.
June 9, 2020
How do you know they are ‘lefty’ moaners?
June 9, 2020
Because that’s what leftist thugs do?
June 9, 2020
I’ve always thought that people who mount horses and use them for crowd control are the ones guilty of animal cruelty. Why not leave the wonderful animals in fields where they don’t have to face horrible humans – either riding them or frightening them. Mounted police should be dismounted, permanently, at once. Why not use water cannons Boris?
June 9, 2020
Because Boris’s successor sold them
Did you not know?
June 10, 2020
‘Why not use water cannons Boris?’ Obviously that was just a pointed comment. Wake up!
June 10, 2020
I’m fully awake thanks Dennis.
Boris has no water cannons in London available to use.
They were bought by him when he was Mayor and then sold by the current Mayor
June 9, 2020
Because the Met does not have them: when as Mayor of London Boris Johnson in 2015 purchased three watercannon for use in riots, he was flatly refused permission for their use by the Home Secretary, one Theresa May.
A decision (or more accurately a typical May *indecision*) over which the Guardian predictably crowed, and one that has now emboldened the rioters.
June 8, 2020
The violence perpetrated by black men against all races including their own has been entirely disproportionate to their numbers.
This issue is being hijacked by leftists to achieve what they couldn’t through the ballot box or the courts.
June 9, 2020
+1
June 9, 2020
+1 as well
June 9, 2020
+2 – Gangs of London indeed!!
zorro
June 9, 2020
Hear, hear!
June 8, 2020
It wasn’t just the statue but the uncontrolled frenzy in a time of lock down which is thoughtless. I sympathise with anti racist behaviour protests but there is a time and place.
June 8, 2020
Nor did the Labour Council which has been in power for very much longer.
June 8, 2020
What was perfectly clear from the videos and photos of the rioting mobs: most of the youngsters who were wearing masks (and balaclavas/hoods) were not doing so ‘in order to protect against coronavirus’ as Evan Davies foolishly claimed on BBC Radio 4, but in order to evade street CCTV and police LFR identification during their criminal actions.
What stopped the 2011 riots from being continued was the mass of arrests and sentences arising from identification and arrest. Once the rioters have realized they cannot be identified, and that the police has neither the courage nor the ability nor the equipment needed to resist or arrest them, it will be open season for rioting, violence, arson and looting. As ex-Mayor of London, Johnson knows this well. He should put his foot down with the Met now, before the army has to be called out.
June 9, 2020
The government gives way to the mob ranting about a mere statue reminding us of the mores of two centuries ago, yet refuses to publish the grooming gang report relevant to today. Now that is powerfully symbolic. I wonder how long Boris Johnson can survive as he rides with the mobs – whether extreme leftists or deluded CAGW believers – rather than the law abiding majority?
June 9, 2020
Very wise.
Nothing stops Left Wing MPs lecturing Conservative Women, Kemi Badenoch & Priti Patel on race.
Both Voted Leave as well.
June 9, 2020
Diary authors are free as owners to use their content spaces in whatever way they choose. They are not a repository for others to store their excessive documents, campaign plans and email messages to others unless the host regards them of relevance or value there. Other diaries are available, of lower quality, with much more of less.
June 9, 2020
Good morning.
I am given to understand that, before any large organised demonstration, permission from the police must be sought. If this is correct, then who gave permission for those protesters and, given the current Lockdown / House Arrest, why was it given ?
June 9, 2020
I am note sure if it was given or even requested but clearly it was tacitly given by Cressida Dickâ Met and the senior management at Avon and Somerset Police.
June 9, 2020
Common Purpose Agenda
zorro
June 9, 2020
Bob
Your experience is not uncommon.
I have long suspected that these organisations (rent-a-mob) tend to serve a purpose that government find useful. eg Extinction Rebellion.
I have also noticed that when these groups protest and cause trouble, with little or no sanction, the State, Establishment and MSM tend to be very pro or understanding of their views.
Lenin had a term for them – Useful idiots đ
June 9, 2020
So the police moderate their behaviour as inversely proportionate to the likely rigour of the demonstrators. Not a good sign.
June 9, 2020
Charles Moore today has gone all âidentity politicsâ over âbaldnessâ in the Telegraph today. It seem baldies are more likely to die of Covid, they tend not to win elections as party leaders (Kinnock, Duncan Smith, Hague and are under represented as government ministers.
Oh well at least I still have all my hair – though I am in a high risk category by being oldish, blood group A, slightly high BMI, male and a non smoker. Perhaps I should try some nicotine gum and eat rather less for a while?
June 9, 2020
Or indeed twice as likely to be unemployed as similar white graduates from similar class backgrounds and from similar areas. Any broad comparison without such adjustment is meaningless. It just stokes up resentment without any valid statistical reason Shaun, If these people are bright and determined they can always start their own business anyway. ÂŁ50K loan to start a business might make far more sense that ÂŁ50K soft loan for a duff degree in a daft subject – for many people.
June 9, 2020
No. This will not do. The indignation belongs to the people not to the politicians. The party of government has a duty to maintain public order at all times, not simply to emerge later wielding a broom, whether metaphorically or, as Boris Johnson did in the aftermath of the 2011 London Riots, literally.
June 9, 2020
Gosh youâre a barrel of laughs. Perhaps this party of government would do better if it actually listened to a broader range of people – and not just the frothing, permanently angry, red faced, white haired, old people who support it.
June 9, 2020
Buddhism is the answer to your cries for help Andy!
Respect is a two-way modus operandi.
Fortunately everyone is redeemable…
Great patience is required by all.
June 9, 2020
Apparently it did listen – and stripped Labour of their voters.
June 9, 2020
Well, Andy, there are 17.4 million angry white haired Tory pensioners by your own estimation. That’s a quite formidable number. In contrast your evil little gloats about the deaths of Leave voters is a decidedly minority view. Fortunately for the rest of the nation. So no wonder the government doesn’t bother with your views.
June 9, 2020
Oh another mealy-mouthed supporter of thuggery appears….
zorro
June 9, 2020
Quite a few frothing, permanently angry, red faced, white, young people on the streets at the moment, it seems.
June 9, 2020
Perhaps those who support this mockery of a reason to riot should listen to real facts from the unfashionable but balanced interpretations of history and not just the frothing, permanently angry, red faced, white and shaven haired, masked and hooded, young and old people who support it.
June 9, 2020
Must be a lot of them to get an 80 seat majority .
But the left is still in denial as to why they fared so badly at the last election.
June 9, 2020
More people voted for parties of the centre and left than voted for parties of the right at the last election. The vote was just split between more parties.
June 10, 2020
Andy, in the last set of European elections that are proportional representation, that so many try to persuade us is more a true representation of voting, more people voted for parties of the centre right and the Brexit Party.
June 9, 2020
Don’t worry Andy, Covid 19 has seen of those you so constantly despise.
June 9, 2020
You’re not under the illusion that this government – or any government – listens to anyone. Once they make their promises and blagg their way into 10 Downing Street they lose their hearing. They know best.
June 9, 2020
Seems anyone who votes for a party you dislike is stupid.
That’s why the left got hammered at the last election.
If you keep abusing those who might vote for you, then dont be surprised when they decide to vote for other parties.
June 9, 2020
The BBC – and other broadcasters – chose not to report on the violent nature of the riots, preferring to describe 27 police officers being injured during peaceful protests, police horses causing havoc, police drawing batons as they clashed with largely peaceful demonstrations and a police officer knocking herself off her horse. Were the news media called up on this in parliament?
June 9, 2020
For protestors to protest assaults and murders committed by armed police in another country by assaulting unarmed police in this country seems rather pointless.
June 9, 2020
I say good riddance to the slave trader, but those who ditched his statue into the river should be charged with vandalism and fly-tipping.
I dispute with those who say such people were a product of their time. They knew what they were doing was wrong, even before Darwin came along to say it was OK to think of some branches of the human race as inferior to others.
June 9, 2020
If you had gone down to Bristol at that time you would have peered through the yellow fog and seen glass workers who were not deemed to be human, so stunted and misshapen were they by the poison in which they worked. Then there were the child labourers and the agricultural labourers, the sailors and the fishermen, the tanners and all the rest of the labouring poor who didn’t have a Dickens at that time to describe the conditions in which they worked or how they lived. Wilberforce and his fellow campaigners for the abolition of slavery were often asked “Why don’t you concentrate on the sufferings of your own people?” In an earlier generation, Colston did, which is why he came to be regarded as Bristol’s greatest philanthropist.
He made his fortune as a London Mercer from trading corn, wine, wool – all things on which Bristol had grown rich – with the Continental countries. That is why he was seen for generations of Bristolians as a merchant, not as a slave trader. Then, at the age of 44, he went to work for the RAC. Having shares in the RAC or working for them would have been much like having shares or working in an oil company now – something which later comes to be seen as evil but wasn’t at the time.
The thing we should be worrying about is cultural revolution. We all saw where it went in the 20th century and we should give it no purchase on our civilization now.
Once the purging and the denunciation starts, who knows where it will end? In 1960s China, Mao had them tearing up the grass because it was bourgeois (the 20 century equivalent of racist).
History is complicated and it is horrible. In every generation. We should be concentrating on eradicating the slave trade of today.
June 9, 2020
This gives the reasons for listing the statue:
https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1202137
June 9, 2020
Grooming in Rotherham is wrong. The essential difference is that it is happening in our lifetime but too few people seem to want to talk about it, let alone do anything about it.
Priorities!
June 9, 2020
+ 1
June 9, 2020
Darwin and his family were against slavery, unlike many purported Christians who benefitted from the slave trade.
June 10, 2020
Not said nowadays but there was more to it than being for against slavery as a moral issue. There was party politics, sides, one side who prospered by slavery and one side who prospered without it because they got the other side out. Life is not simple .
June 9, 2020
Africa is listed as the epicenter of modern slavery , with an estimated 9.2 million Africans in servitude, but never mind what is that when you can signal your virtue by tearing down a statue of a man who died 299 years ago.
June 9, 2020
Should it be made illegal to wear a face-covering while engaging in mass protest?
June 9, 2020
Not while there is a deadly virus about. And, even afterwards, only if all police officers have their number on their back in large letters so they, too, can be identified.
I have never been to a demonstration – when I was a child I used to watch the Ban the Bomb march from Aldermaston to London when it went along the Uxbridge Road but I don’t think that counts as attending – but, if I did attend, I think I’d cover my face when the tear gas is being lobbed about.
June 9, 2020
Mike – do you think tear gas is âbeing lobbed aboutâ by police for no good reason?
Did you see the videos of unarmed police officers being chased by the peaceful protestors getting lobbed with full bottles of water and other objects?
Do you know any police officers on front line duties at all?
June 9, 2020
A tangential question. What is there is no spike in infections at all after these mass protests in London and elsewhere ? There were none after the VE Day celebrations. This will demonstrate the whole basis of the heavy lockdown was flawed – plenty of SAGE members will be looking nervously at the numbers.
June 9, 2020
There is no spike because they do not all come from Tower Hamlets or any other identifiable location. At present the effect is diluted.
June 9, 2020
A spike doesn’t depend on interactions between people all from the same area, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many restrictions on travel.
June 10, 2020
So what does a spike in a specific area depend on, for sure you cannot blame the milkman.
June 9, 2020
Well, it won’t really demonstrate that. The numbers demonstrating are tiny in the scheme of things. If there is a spike after a few hundred people have got together for a demo, then it would indicate this virus is worse than the Black Death or the Bubonic Plague.
June 9, 2020
There were thousands.
Spikes were apparently detected after several sports meetings, so we should expect one after the protests.
June 9, 2020
It isnât a few hundred people, itâs thousands all together from the environment weâre told is the most at risk Urban, poor, multi-age occupancy homes. No spike, no new patients and people will feel more able to get out and about reduce the 2m physical distance. Theyâve been shoulder to shoulder shouting in each otherâs faces.
June 9, 2020
Not running a newspaper but you do stand back and look at the wider picture I hope.
Question is whether the virus is being used as cover for many left-wing ideas to gain permanent traction?
-Mob attacks on Grade 2 listed sites with the police standing on?
-petitions for black history classes in schools?
-Handing out taxpayers’ cash to select folk sitting round doing very little, while public sector carry on as before?
-Sneak in an extension of the tenants’ eviction ban over the weekend to impoverish landlords?
-Idolise the NHS?
-Schools closed (but teachers paid in full)?
Time to make a list and question what on earth is happening.
June 9, 2020
Of course, they are using it to impose extreme authoritarian left-wing socialism. I wonder if Dear Leader Kim Jong Son has twigged it yet…. I must wonder as he allegedly said “Christ!” when told that further shutdown of leisure/entertainment industries would lead to 3.5 million extra job losses. Is he really so dim?
zorro
June 9, 2020
It is the liberal left acting under the guise of a conservative party that has lost its moral compass.
June 9, 2020
Pesky tenants. Surely if they are self employed and not eligible for any help and have no income they should be flung out on the street with their bags behind them. I don’t know, people think landlords are charities.
Yeah! If teachers are working from home trying to hold classes on line – or working at the school educating the key workers’ kids – they should only get half pay at best. And no contributions to pension during this period of skiving. Right?
Who cares if it is ‘Grade 2 listed’? There is too much living in the past. Half the cottages in the town I live in are Grade 2 listed. It’s like living two centuries ago. And, NO, you cannot have double glazing you philistine!
They are not idle.
June 9, 2020
Mike,
The State should pay their rent in Housing Benefit like they do for plenty of people I know that havenât worked a day in their lived. If theyâre self-employed and have paid their taxes theyâll get furlough, I know plenty of self-employed people that did and others that didnât because they only left uni last year got jobs.
Why canât teachers go into the classroom without the children to plan online lessons, arrange worksheets for pupils to collect who arenât online, Mark work 3 days after left. Individual classrooms would give them their social distance.
June 9, 2020
1
Would you be a landlord when tenants do not pay rent?
If so fir how long
2.
If teachers are only working part time would you pay them full wages?
Is so why.
3
Do you feel we need to reduce global warming and that can be helped by improvements in insulation?
Do why would you ban discrete double glazing?
June 10, 2020
Edward
2. You can take this another stage further, why are we expected to pay taxes to pay for a service our children aren’t getting? We don’t pay other services if they don’t provide the work, we don’t pay theatres for not putting on shows, we don’t pay hairdressers who aren’t allowed to cut our hair (if they’re employed and furloughed that is all the taxpayer pays up to ÂŁ2500 per employee per month – why are our state run services any different?)
June 9, 2020
Most practices of our ancestors dont look very good viewed against today’s standards.
Should we burn Catholic churches to pay them back for the inquisition?
Loot C of E churches because they oppressed Catholics?
The Woke Taliban and Woke STASI on our streets at the moment are just pretending virtue whilst committing mindless violence.
June 9, 2020
+1
June 9, 2020
@Dunc,
The point surely about individuals maturing and becoming more interesting and better, 3D people through life is that we try and sandpaper down what is worst about ourselves and focus more on developing what is best.
Same principle should apply to one’s own country too. And if we don’t, then we’re just flotsam and jetsam without character / personality etc .. Our great country is far more than that, and deserves more.
June 9, 2020
‘Should we burn Catholic churches to pay them back for the inquisition?’
– And, I’m sorry, that’s a fanatical way of looking at it, especially comparing burning down a church (which Catholic church are you going to burn down? Not forgetting The Catholic Church built all the medieval Cathedrals and churches in this country) to the destruction of a slaver-trader in Bristol.
June 9, 2020
Dunc, Exactly right. Perhaps the criminal leftist gangs will pull up chunks of the A1 next because it was originally built by the slave trading Roman empire?
June 9, 2020
Btw, King Henry VIII was 100% Catholic in Doctrine too – except in finally renouncing the supremacy of the Pope on spiritual matters.
The Pope (and bishops) of that time were heretic in spirit (not in doctrine) for assuming temporal powers to themselves, never intended by God or permitted in doctrine.
The Catholic Church committed many terrible sins (most of which Pope John Paul II apologised for). But it also did a lot of good too – including playing a key role in founding so many great institutions in England back in the Middle Ages institutions still alive and well today.
Apologies, I shouldn’t have used the word ‘fanatic’ earlier
Best
June 9, 2020
Indeed, so many road to lunacy open up – Cromwell will be torn down from Parliament next….
zorro
June 9, 2020
Aspects of Roman law were fairly unpleasant.
Do we turn our minds to the castigation of Romans, and their villas and monuments here? Should modern day Italians be bending the knee to us?
The list goes on. This is British history, and our host should be declaring an interest in preserving it and not tearing it down.
June 9, 2020
The Inquisition was a means of dealing with infiltrators into the Catholic church. As such it was a very good thing. Perhaps its time for an inquisition here to deal with the infiltrators who are trying to destroy our country by weaponising the mob and standing back whilst they destroy our heritage.
June 9, 2020
Agreed but the greatest tragedy is having a police force that is so PC that it stands by and watches it happen, and in some cases morally abets it by going on bended knee.
June 9, 2020
None of these people were transported thousands of mile across oceans in chains in conditions so horrific that millions of them died on the way. The ancestors of those that survived toiled for centuries in tobacco and sugar cane fields making white men rich and were bought and sold like cattle in slave markets until the 19th century.
There is absolutely no comparison.
June 9, 2020
Margaret, Many of our ancestors toiled away for hours underground in mines, in textile mills, in pot banks, steelworks, my Nan started life in the workhouse and toiled away cleaning hospitals. You make me sick, thousands of Australians had their ancestors taken in chains on long voyages, tortured do you see them demanding anything, theyâve progressed, theyâve trained, theyâve pulled themselves up.
June 9, 2020
It wasn’t a life of milk and honey for white poor people either.
June 9, 2020
I think I’d rather that than be eaten alive by a lion or dog, per Roman rule.
June 9, 2020
Ripping that statue down and tipping it into the harbour was, I would say, mindful – not mindless. Fair play to them. I applaud them.
June 9, 2020
Would you agree with people of alternative opinions who might destroy a statue of Karl Marx in London?
June 10, 2020
So you applaud criminal acts. Interesting. What other criminal acts do you approve of ?
June 9, 2020
Small revolution in which nobody but a statue got physically hurt.
Reminds me of the sixties. The squatting movement in the Netherlands was obviously against law and order.
But revolutions do occur.
June 9, 2020
This is a cultural revolution. They have a habit of going beyond what people thought they might at the beginning. Mao’s cultural revolution in the same 1960s eventually had people tearing up the grass because it was bourgeois. Bourgeois was the equivalent of racist then.
June 10, 2020
Exactly.
They always start with something small and with which most people, if not agree with, certainly would not object. Then they progress to and more extreme acts.
June 10, 2020
“Small revolution in which nobody but a statue got physically hurt.” – Peter Van Leeuwen
I believe the 35 UK police officers injured over the weekend by the protestors might disagree.
June 10, 2020
@Al: That is very sad, specially considering the very sophisticated and unarmed attitude for which British police have a reputation.
But I don’t think that these 35 police officers were injured in Bristol and during this statue incident.
June 10, 2020
Revolutions do NOT occur in the UK.
The minorities throwing their weight around might get more than they bargained for if this persists.
The British people, as we discovered in 2016, have more gumption than their Government.
June 10, 2020
@Lynn Atkinson: hm . . . well . . . you did have your “glorious revolution”, didn’t you? Or was that just to mask the fact that you were sucessfully invaded by the Dutch? :âD
June 9, 2020
The govt. appears to have lost control in all matters.
Is it waiting for us, in the light of crime etc., to beg for martial law?
Or is it happy to see all descend into chaos in order to Build Back Better?
Whatever the answer …it ainât behaving normally!
June 9, 2020
Black Lives matter is a very legitimate sentiment. When things happen that suggest that they do not matter it is totally correct to protest peacefully and to lobby those in power to correct anything that suggests they do not matter. Witness the murder by police in the USA of George Floyd. What is not acceptable in a civilised society is the anarchic , lawless carbuncle that has attached itself to the movement. They need to be descended on with the full force of the law and those who are paid to maintain it. The sight of policemen going on bended knee in face of such provocation is very demeaning and reflects the paucity of leadership within the police forces of the UK. They should be ashamed of themselves.
June 9, 2020
So people don’t like slave traders and slave owners.
Abraham Lincoln was a slave owner. Can we look forward to his statues being removed all over America?
June 9, 2020
Just heard on the BBC News from some reporter who said, âthat some people might think that Lord Nelson should be taken down from his column , because of his links with slavery. â
I wonder if any others share my first thought on hearing that, âOver my dead bodyâ!
June 9, 2020
It seems iconoclasm has gripped the country, with Sadiq Khan and others making up a list of the statues and street names etc to be torn down. Its cultural cleansing that is being proposed.
This is what comes of having an establishment who hate us , who can’t summon up the courage to confront the Marxist rabble, instead grovel at their feet and commiserate with them and their agenda. Like Boris. The longer the people who have a voice remain cowed and silent the more the head of steam is built up for this vandalism. Jeremy Vine on his programme couldn’t be bothered to put up a defence of Winston Churchill or Nelson when it was suggested that their statues should be torn down, yet you lot in Parliament continue to make us fund this bunch of 5th columnists at the BBC. By the time someone decides to speak up it will e too late.
June 9, 2020
Well spoken, Iain!
June 9, 2020
+1
June 9, 2020
Nelson’s column to be pulled down?
June 9, 2020
Are those wishing to tear down statues, plaques, names etc. wishing to rub out history?
Does that mean Auschwitz should be removed? Should Stalin’s grave be removed from Highgate. The list is endless
Where we have come from in the types of monuments our predecessors left are a reminder of how we got here, not only the good but also the bad. The way we live today is a worlds a part from history’s norms.
So is blotting out History going to teach the next generation anything?
June 9, 2020
They don’t want to blot out history. They want to dominate. You must genuflect. They are the masters now.
June 9, 2020
Stalin isn’t buried at Highgate Cemetery, Karl Marx is buried there!
June 9, 2020
Are you equating keeping Auschwitz as a permanent reminder of the barbarity of man – to make sure it never happens again – with putting a slave trader on a pedestal? Weird.
Indeed. It is not possible to teach kids about our slave trading past without putting a statue of a slave trader on a pedestal in a public place. Give me strength.
June 10, 2020
Should Marxâs grave be removed?
June 9, 2020
On balance you are correct , as a back bench Politician there are matters that are publicly commented on by appropriate ministers in this case the Home Secretary and PM.
I fundamentally disagree with many of your comments about the EU.
However surprisingly there are some areas of common agreement with you on wider issues.
June 9, 2020
I would like to see our government, with its majority, to prohibit the removal of statues and monuments throughout the UK
June 9, 2020
We are sinking into a terrible abyss and it is utterly soul destroying when one thinks we elected a party, your party, that we believed would drag our nation back to a moral place
Your party has utterly betrayed this nation and its moral majority to protect your party
The future will be an unwelcome place indeed
June 10, 2020
There are a lot of concerned and anxious people out there, they need the government, along with the Police, to stand up for them, not simply stand back, kneel and appease. The anarchists and thugs simply become more and more empowered and worse will surely follow?