Why am I a troll? I am offering an opinion, which, if you wish, you can disagree. The point I am making is that slavery was 400 years ago and in that time slavery was accepted as normal, as it has been for most of human history. To apologise for Sir John Hawkins is ridiculous because Hawkins would have seen nothing wrong in what he was doing-and neither would have anyone else at that time. You have to view history from the perspective of the people who were alive at the time. You cannot judge their actions from our perspective. Their mindset was totally different.

What next? Apologies from the UK government over the killing of Joan of Arc and apologies from the French government over the Norman Invasion? This apology craze has to stop. It is meaningless and pointless.