From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 05:19 PM

I know Bristol a little bit and I'm dead chuffed that Colston's statue was ripped down and dumped in the harbour, where his ships sailed from. I didn't even know that there was a statue of him in Bristol and I think that its presence was an abomination. Well done to the local police for taking a step back but yah boo to Priti Patel who could only spout the formulaic establishment line. Colston made his money via the slave trade and his philanthropy can't disguise that. I've been to the Colston Hall a few times and I'm over the moon that its name will soon be changed. There was a man who does not deserve any kind of glorification.



From: Steve Shaw - PM
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 05:25 PM

"Because a career criminal guilty in the past of many acts of violence which included the robbery at gunpoint of a heavily pregnant woman died at the hands of a police officer and large riots ensued...."

Blimey. If you believe in the rule of law that you really can't think this. No matter what he's alleged to have done in the past, he was entitled to the same due process as anyone else. I'll remind you that he was unarmed, that the policeman knelt on his neck for nine minutes and that, for most of that time at least, he was no threat to anybody. Think again.

And, if you believe in the rule of law you wouldn't condone the police stepping back.
The two are in no way equivalent, but belief in the rule of law applies to both. You can't choose to only support it when it matches your own beliefs, that way lies anarchy.