This is the nub of it. Do we wipe out signs of the past because they are unpleasant?
How would we know what had happened?
Those claims are very surprising and frankly strike me as pretty implausible because almost no slaves went from Bristol to the West Indies. A very small number came the other way, but were usually brought across by their owners, not by slave traders.
The whole point about the African slave trade was that while financed from Bristol, Liverpool and London it was actually worked from Africa to the West Indies.
Do we know much about this poster?
AFAIK, Blackboy Hill was named after a pub which itself goes back to Stuart times.
The upper part of the road is commonly known as Blackboy Hill, named after the Black Boy Inn which stood on the hill until 1874.[1] "Black Boy" was a common name for pubs after the Restoration. Charles II was commonly known as "the black boy" due to his black hair[2] and the pub sign on Blackboy Hill had, until very recently, a portrait of Charles II on it.
I think Priti is dreadful, but if she goes it ends all doubt that Cummings is the de facto Prime Minister.
Let us hope she goes then. I look forward to the usual suspects on here defending Cummings the Dictator
I am not a fan of Patel because of her support for the Death Penalty. But the fact that she had the courage to stand up against the Cummings whitewash has certainly improved her reputation somewhat in my eyes.
It really would be a travesty for a Home Secretary to be dismissed for refusing to support a political advisor flouting the law.
I agree with you, but nothing surprises me any more....
This is the nub of it. Do we wipe out signs of the past because they are unpleasant?
How would we know what had happened?
Those claims are very surprising and frankly strike me as pretty implausible because almost no slaves went from Bristol to the West Indies. A very small number came the other way, but were usually brought across by their owners, not by slave traders.
The whole point about the African slave trade was that while financed from Bristol, Liverpool and London it was actually worked from Africa to the West Indies.
Do we know much about this poster?
AFAIK, Blackboy Hill was named after a pub which itself goes back to Stuart times.
The upper part of the road is commonly known as Blackboy Hill, named after the Black Boy Inn which stood on the hill until 1874.[1] "Black Boy" was a common name for pubs after the Restoration. Charles II was commonly known as "the black boy" due to his black hair[2] and the pub sign on Blackboy Hill had, until very recently, a portrait of Charles II on it.
The origin of the name of Whiteladies Road appears to be a pub, known as the White Ladies Inn, shown on maps in 1746[3] and 1804.[4] There is a popular belief in Bristol that the naming of both Whiteladies Road and Blackboy Hill had connections with the slave trade, but this is probably an urban myth. Both names appear to be derived from pubs. A map of 1826 shows a house called White Ladies, and the road at least as far as Whiteladies Gate (near the present site of Clifton Down station) had been given its name by that time.[5]
Amazing all the labourites cheering on criminal behaviour. Remember their outrage at Big Dom behaviour and.claims he would encourage the dangerous behaviour by the public.
Now we literally have labourites advocating forget covid (that think that disproportionately kills BAME individuals) and get into mobs to go smash shit up.
Lots of stuff used to be illegal that shouldn't have been. Some stuff is still illegal that shouldn't be. Sometimes doing what's right matters more than obeying the law. Plenty of stuff would never have changed if nobody had been willing to break the law. A statue of a man who became wealthy on the bloody murder of the slave trade should have been taken down years ago. If this was the only way to get it done, I am happy to applaud it.
So give me an apology for your role in the Irish Potato Famine.
Now.
Are you drinking already? That doesn't even make sense.
Irish Lives Matter
though not to you it seems
I would happily endorse the removal of any statues of British people who played any role in the Irish famine. It was a monstrous crime and another example of our problematic history. The Atlantic slave economy and the plantations at their core built on the British colonial experiment in Ireland, as you know, so the two issues are of course related. Since I am part Irish I'm certainly not going to deny that Irish lives matter, I'd like to see them mattering a whole lot more, in a united Ireland by consent. I'm just a bit confused as to why you are bringing it up since we weren't talking about it.
]Because you asking people to apolgise for evernts outside there experience is as logical as me holding you responsible for potato blight.
When did I ask anybody to apologise? I am just glad that a man who profited from the greatest crime in the history of humanity is no longer being honoured with a statue in one of our cities. I am genuinely surprised that is a controversial view, TBH.
You are genuinely surprised that a bunch of white extremists telling the people of Bristol what statues they can and can’t have because of their own particular views on how people should respond to race and racism is controversial?
It’s a view.
Yes it is surprising to me. The guy is a mass murderer, the statue should have been removed years ago. Like I say, the crowd I saw was mixed, but I don't know why the race of the people involved is important.
Wasn't the Prophet Mohammed a slave owner ?
Would you favour the closure of mosques because of it ?
Sure, why not?
I'm going to file pulling down a statue to a slave trader in the same kind of category as driving to Barnhard Castle during lockdown - sure its illegal technically but I honestly couldn't care less about it.
Its right not to have statues to slave traders in 21st century. Maybe the statue can be recovered and put in a museum somewhere but not out and about on display.
Surely, the right response is to destroy statues of Muhammad?
I don't think there are any, due to Muslims thinking there shouldn't be any visual representation of him.
Is the one on the US Supreme Court building still there?
Oh yeah, I forgot about that one
Acording to Wikipedia it is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Supreme_Court_Building " In 1997, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) asked for the image of Muhammad to be removed from the marble frieze of the façade. While appreciating that Muhammad was included in the court's pantheon of 18 prominent lawgivers of history, CAIR noted that Islam discourages depictions of Muhammad in any artistic representation. CAIR also objected that Muhammad was shown with a sword, which they claimed reinforced stereotypes of Muslims as intolerant conquerors. Chief Justice William Rehnquist rejected the request to sandblast Muhammad, saying the artwork "was intended only to recognize him, among many other lawgivers, as an important figure in the history of law; it is not intended as a form of idol worship". The court later added a footnote to tourist materials, calling it "a well-intentioned attempt by the sculptor to honor Muhammad""
Amazing all the labourites cheering on criminal behaviour. Remember their outrage at Big Dom behaviour and.claims he would encourage the dangerous behaviour by the public.
Now we literally have labourites advocating forget covid (that think that disproportionately kills BAME individuals) and get into mobs to go smash shit up.
Lots of stuff used to be illegal that shouldn't have been. Some stuff is still illegal that shouldn't be. Sometimes doing what's right matters more than obeying the law. Plenty of stuff would never have changed if nobody had been willing to break the law. A statue of a man who became wealthy on the bloody murder of the slave trade should have been taken down years ago. If this was the only way to get it done, I am happy to applaud it.
So give me an apology for your role in the Irish Potato Famine.
Now.
Are you drinking already? That doesn't even make sense.
Irish Lives Matter
though not to you it seems
I would happily endorse the removal of any statues of British people who played any role in the Irish famine. It was a monstrous crime and another example of our problematic history. The Atlantic slave economy and the plantations at their core built on the British colonial experiment in Ireland, as you know, so the two issues are of course related. Since I am part Irish I'm certainly not going to deny that Irish lives matter, I'd like to see them mattering a whole lot more, in a united Ireland by consent. I'm just a bit confused as to why you are bringing it up since we weren't talking about it.
So just to be clear - you want to tear down every statue of Gladstone?
I don't know a whole lot about Gladstone - wasn't he the one who used to hang around with prostitutes? Was he as unambiguously responsible for the famine as a man who ran the company that ran the slave trade was responsible for the slave trade? Did Gladstone do enough other good stuff to in any way balance his role in the famine? I don't know enough about this subject to have a strong view to be honest, you should ask Alenbrooke to enlighten you, the Irish angle was his non sequitur not mine.
He was President of the Board of Trade, responsible for food supplies.
The issue with Colston is that he endowed a huge number of public works and buildings in Bristol - paid for with money from slaving. Most of them are still in place. Should they be demolished? Because ultimately, pulling down a statue and yet leaving the practical effects of his life and crimes in place renders the whole thing more pointless than a broken pencil. Worse, it arguably helps airbrush the distinctly dubious foundations of those things from history.
The issue with excusing any such act of desecration like this is what comes next. And whether that too can be excused. And the next. And the next.
I'm not sure what trench the apologists for the vandals would fight in.
Law breaking occurs on a daily basis, small and large. We don't live in a zero tolerance Police State.
This is low-level law breaking that I honestly couldn't care less about. Hurting public/Police/horses etc matters far more.
Yes, and your lack of concern about this I find worrying. I'm astonished at you describing a baying mob desecrating a public monument and throwing it in the harbour as "low-level law breaking", whatever he did or may not have done 300 years ago.
Not the Philip I remember. You've been dangerously off form in recent days.
The idea that people will suddenly decide to vote for Boris Johnson out of deference to the reputation of Churchill is a bizarre logical leap.
It wil keep Leavers firmly in the Tory tent though and One nation Tory Remainers
So if some street anarchists hadn't slagged off Churchill Leavers and One Nation Tories would now be looking elsewhere, but as they did do it these voters are now staying put?
The extreme left are the current government's best friends. They keep people firmly voting Conservative.
I think most people know that the troublemakers are a very small minority. They are idiots but are not linked to the Labour Party. People don't go rushing off to vote Labour every time Tommy Robinson and his right-wing hoodlums take to the streets.
If Starmer endorsed the vandalism as Corbyn may well have done then you might have a point but the game has changed.
I am not a fan of Patel because of her support for the Death Penalty. But the fact that she had the courage to stand up against the Cummings whitewash has certainly improved her reputation somewhat in my eyes.
It really would be a travesty for a Home Secretary to be dismissed for refusing to support a political advisor flouting the law.
Reportedly when asked to tweet support she said "He hasn't been interested in my opinion up to today, why should he be interested in it now?"
Also nudged up slightly in my estimation too.....
JRM on the other hand well deserves the obscurity of the back benches....
Some people (not saying anyone here) seem more concerned with violence against statues than violence against individuals.
To me violence against individuals is worse than violence against businesses, which is worse than violence against statues etc
I care far more about broken windows and businesses attacked than statues etc
One often leads to another. It emboldens the mob. See 2011, where the police went softly softly and before they knew it we had widespread rioting and looting across a number of cities.
On the plus side, if this doesn't give the modelling bods the data to clearly distinguish R value and their correlation with lockdown observation across parts of Britain, nothing will.
This is the nub of it. Do we wipe out signs of the past because they are unpleasant?
How would we know what had happened?
Those claims are very surprising and frankly strike me as pretty implausible because almost no slaves went from Bristol to the West Indies. A very small number came the other way, but were usually brought across by their owners, not by slave traders.
The whole point about the African slave trade was that while financed from Bristol, Liverpool and London it was actually worked from Africa to the West Indies.
Do we know much about this poster?
It was called the triangular trade for this reason. You ran manufactured goods from the UK to the west coast of Africa to pay for slaves, who you then took west to the east indies (or southern US) where they could be sold. There you bought sugar, tobacco and cotton to bring back to the UK, where the cotton would be turned into cloth, continuing the cycle.
Maybe the occasional ship would run into trouble & return to Bristol for repairs in the days before slavery was outlawed in the UK?
Slavery was never legal on English soil (or not since the days of serfdom) and going back to Bristol is navigationally unlikely since it would entail turning back into the NE trade wind. You'd push on to the Azores for repairs.
Amazing all the labourites cheering on criminal behaviour. Remember their outrage at Big Dom behaviour and.claims he would encourage the dangerous behaviour by the public.
Now we literally have labourites advocating forget covid (that think that disproportionately kills BAME individuals) and get into mobs to go smash shit up.
Lots of stuff used to be illegal that shouldn't have been. Some stuff is still illegal that shouldn't be. Sometimes doing what's right matters more than obeying the law. Plenty of stuff would never have changed if nobody had been willing to break the law. A statue of a man who became wealthy on the bloody murder of the slave trade should have been taken down years ago. If this was the only way to get it done, I am happy to applaud it.
So give me an apology for your role in the Irish Potato Famine.
Now.
Are you drinking already? That doesn't even make sense.
Irish Lives Matter
though not to you it seems
I would happily endorse the removal of any statues of British people who played any role in the Irish famine. It was a monstrous crime and another example of our problematic history. The Atlantic slave economy and the plantations at their core built on the British colonial experiment in Ireland, as you know, so the two issues are of course related. Since I am part Irish I'm certainly not going to deny that Irish lives matter, I'd like to see them mattering a whole lot more, in a united Ireland by consent. I'm just a bit confused as to why you are bringing it up since we weren't talking about it.
]Because you asking people to apolgise for evernts outside there experience is as logical as me holding you responsible for potato blight.
When did I ask anybody to apologise? I am just glad that a man who profited from the greatest crime in the history of humanity is no longer being honoured with a statue in one of our cities. I am genuinely surprised that is a controversial view, TBH.
You are genuinely surprised that a bunch of white extremists telling the people of Bristol what statues they can and can’t have because of their own particular views on how people should respond to race and racism is controversial?
It’s a view.
Yes it is surprising to me. The guy is a mass murderer, the statue should have been removed years ago. Like I say, the crowd I saw was mixed, but I don't know why the race of the people involved is important.
Wasn't the Prophet Mohammed a slave owner ?
Would you favour the closure of mosques because of it ?
Sure, why not?
I'm going to file pulling down a statue to a slave trader in the same kind of category as driving to Barnhard Castle during lockdown - sure its illegal technically but I honestly couldn't care less about it.
Its right not to have statues to slave traders in 21st century. Maybe the statue can be recovered and put in a museum somewhere but not out and about on display.
Surely, the right response is to destroy statues of Muhammad?
Living dangerously Foxy!!!!!
More likely converted to Islam
No, just teasing. Obviously there are no statues of Muhammad to tear down. Muslims don't like idols.
I take the point of view that Mohammad was a false prophet, and there is little in common between Islam and Christianity.
This is the nub of it. Do we wipe out signs of the past because they are unpleasant?
How would we know what had happened?
Those claims are very surprising and frankly strike me as pretty implausible because almost no slaves went from Bristol to the West Indies. A very small number came the other way, but were usually brought across by their owners, not by slave traders.
The whole point about the African slave trade was that while financed from Bristol, Liverpool and London it was actually worked from Africa to the West Indies.
Do we know much about this poster?
It was called the triangular trade for this reason. You ran manufactured goods from the UK to the west coast of Africa to pay for slaves, who you then took west to the east indies (or southern US) where they could be sold. There you bought sugar, tobacco and cotton to bring back to the UK, where the cotton would be turned into cloth, continuing the cycle.
Maybe the occasional ship would run into trouble & return to Bristol for repairs in the days before slavery was outlawed in the UK?
All the way from Africa to Bristol? Surely not. Easier to refit in Portugal.
I think it much more likely they were rings for chains to secure strong boxes containing either particularly valuable merchandise, say rare spices, or money. The owner then fed somebody credulous this story and boom, a myth is born.
Of course, since the merchandise would have been purchased with money from the slave trade, and any money would be raised on the back of craving, you could argue metaphorically there is still justification for what is being said.
But he’s still talking rather dangerous rubbish. Could indeed be a further metaphor of how this is based on prejudice and personal spite rather than reasoned appraisal of how to approach Bristol’s past.
Slavers no more represent "my race" than Jimmy Saville did. Farage can go f**k himself with a rusty screwdriver as far as I'm concerned with this post.
If there's going to be a riot between those pro-slavery and those anti-slavery I'll stand on the anti-slavery side thank you very much.
On the plus side, if this doesn't give the modelling bods the data to clearly distinguish R value and their correlation with lockdown observation across parts of Britain, nothing will.
Don't forget ladies and gentlemen, that fishing makes up 0.1% of our GDP
Throwing the “fisherpeople” under the bus in 1973 was perhaps where modern Euroscepticism started.
It may be insignificant, but it seems offends a sense of fair play. The EU would do well to cave on this in exchange for British compromise on level playing field etc.
It's a complete myth. It was losing access to waters for long distance trawling as coastal limits were increased that decimated the British fishing industry. The EEC was just a scapegoat.
You have no idea of the feelings of Scottish Fishermen at the time whose fury knew no bounds and still does
I have never met a fisherman yet who would not hoover the seas clean of fish. When I talked with a Fisheries Protection Vessel Capt, he said that most of their work was trying to keep UK fisherman from ignoring the rules.
On the plus side, if this doesn't give the modelling bods the data to clearly distinguish R value and their correlation with lockdown observation across parts of Britain, nothing will.
Cummings 4d chess....
With the current shambles I think it's 1D chess at the moment.
This is the nub of it. Do we wipe out signs of the past because they are unpleasant?
How would we know what had happened?
Those claims are very surprising and frankly strike me as pretty implausible because almost no slaves went from Bristol to the West Indies. A very small number came the other way, but were usually brought across by their owners, not by slave traders.
The whole point about the African slave trade was that while financed from Bristol, Liverpool and London it was actually worked from Africa to the West Indies.
Do we know much about this poster?
It was called the triangular trade for this reason. You ran manufactured goods from the UK to the west coast of Africa to pay for slaves, who you then took west to the east indies (or southern US) where they could be sold. There you bought sugar, tobacco and cotton to bring back to the UK, where the cotton would be turned into cloth, continuing the cycle.
Maybe the occasional ship would run into trouble & return to Bristol for repairs in the days before slavery was outlawed in the UK?
Slavery was never legal on English soil (or not since the days of serfdom) and going back to Bristol is navigationally unlikely since it would entail turning back into the NE trade wind. You'd push on to the Azores for repairs.
Perhaps virtuously keeping the horrible reality of the slave trade away from the mother country while enjoying the fruits could be seen as a quintessential expression of British hypocrisy.
I wonder what all the people who have followed the rules to the letter for the past 3 months and especially those shielded and unable to go out at all, think of seeing people gathering in mass crowds, vandalising statues and attacking the police.
Perhaps virtuously keeping the horrible reality of the slave trade away from the mother country while enjoying the fruits could be seen as a quintessential expression of British hypocrisy.
Slavers no more represent "my race" than Jimmy Saville did. Farage can go f**k himself with a rusty screwdriver as far as I'm concerned with this post.
If there's going to be a riot between those pro-slavery and those anti-slavery I'll stand on the anti-slavery side thank you very much.
No-one is pro slavery.
Dial it down a notch.
It's Phil Thomson's Piers Morgan-esque love in with PB's right on crowd - forgivable to want to be liked every now and again.
Have the anti-slavery protesters been down to the Mauritanian embassy yet ?
For all the government’s denials, slavery persists in Mauritania. In a rare insight into the lives of the tens of thousands of people affected, photojournalist Seif Kousmate spent a month photographing and interviewing current and former slaves. While there, he was arrested and imprisoned by police, who confiscated his memory cards, phone and laptop.
In 1981, Mauritania made slavery illegal, the last country in the world to do so. Nonetheless, tens of thousands of people – mostly from the minority Haratine or Afro-Mauritanian groups – still live as bonded labourers, domestic servants or child brides. Local rights groups estimate that up to 20% of the population is enslaved, with one in two Haratines forced to work on farms or in homes with no possibility of freedom, education or pay.
Slavery has a long history in this north African desert nation. For centuries, Arabic-speaking Moors raided African villages, resulting in a rigid caste system that still exists to this day, with darker-skinned inhabitants beholden to their lighter-skinned “masters”. Slave status is passed down from mother to child, and anti-slavery activists are regularly tortured and detained.
The embassy is easy to get to on Vauxhall Bridge Road so perhaps a PBer might like to start a protest.
Don't forget ladies and gentlemen, that fishing makes up 0.1% of our GDP
Throwing the “fisherpeople” under the bus in 1973 was perhaps where modern Euroscepticism started.
It may be insignificant, but it seems offends a sense of fair play. The EU would do well to cave on this in exchange for British compromise on level playing field etc.
It's a complete myth. It was losing access to waters for long distance trawling as coastal limits were increased that decimated the British fishing industry. The EEC was just a scapegoat.
You have no idea of the feelings of Scottish Fishermen at the time whose fury knew no bounds and still does
I have never met a fisherman yet who would not hoover the seas clean of fish. When I talked with a Fisheries Protection Vessel Capt, he said that most of their work was trying to keep UK fisherman from ignoring the rules.
You have obviously never depended on fishing for your livelihood or your communities
Ydoethur, is there a link to back up the claim that the good people of Bristol voted to retain the statue ?. This link posted earlier suggests that the usual clued up political class are flexing their muscles. Seen it many times in local govt. Thanks
I wonder what all the people who have followed the rules to the letter for the past 3 months and especially those shielded and unable to go out at all, think of seeing people gathering in mass crowds, vandalising statues and attacking the police.
Extremely pissed off.
Dominic Cummings and these rioters are utter cock juggling thunder [word that sounds like runts]
Amazing all the labourites cheering on criminal behaviour. Remember their outrage at Big Dom behaviour and.claims he would encourage the dangerous behaviour by the public.
Now we literally have labourites advocating forget covid (that think that disproportionately kills BAME individuals) and get into mobs to go smash shit up.
Lots of stuff used to be illegal that shouldn't have been. Some stuff is still illegal that shouldn't be. Sometimes doing what's right matters more than obeying the law. Plenty of stuff would never have changed if nobody had been willing to break the law. A statue of a man who became wealthy on the bloody murder of the slave trade should have been taken down years ago. If this was the only way to get it done, I am happy to applaud it.
So give me an apology for your role in the Irish Potato Famine.
Now.
Are you drinking already? That doesn't even make sense.
Irish Lives Matter
though not to you it seems
I would happily endorse the removal of any statues of British people who played any role in the Irish famine. It was a monstrous crime and another example of our problematic history. The Atlantic slave economy and the plantations at their core built on the British colonial experiment in Ireland, as you know, so the two issues are of course related. Since I am part Irish I'm certainly not going to deny that Irish lives matter, I'd like to see them mattering a whole lot more, in a united Ireland by consent. I'm just a bit confused as to why you are bringing it up since we weren't talking about it.
]Because you asking people to apolgise for evernts outside there experience is as logical as me holding you responsible for potato blight.
When did I ask anybody to apologise? I am just glad that a man who profited from the greatest crime in the history of humanity is no longer being honoured with a statue in one of our cities. I am genuinely surprised that is a controversial view, TBH.
You are genuinely surprised that a bunch of white extremists telling the people of Bristol what statues they can and can’t have because of their own particular views on how people should respond to race and racism is controversial?
It’s a view.
Yes it is surprising to me. The guy is a mass murderer, the statue should have been removed years ago. Like I say, the crowd I saw was mixed, but I don't know why the race of the people involved is important.
Wasn't the Prophet Mohammed a slave owner ?
Would you favour the closure of mosques because of it ?
Sure, why not?
I'm going to file pulling down a statue to a slave trader in the same kind of category as driving to Barnhard Castle during lockdown - sure its illegal technically but I honestly couldn't care less about it.
Its right not to have statues to slave traders in 21st century. Maybe the statue can be recovered and put in a museum somewhere but not out and about on display.
Surely, the right response is to destroy statues of Muhammad?
Living dangerously Foxy!!!!!
More likely converted to Islam
No, just teasing. Obviously there are no statues of Muhammad to tear down. Muslims don't like idols.
I take the point of view that Mohammad was a false prophet, and there is little in common between Islam and Christianity.
This is the nub of it. Do we wipe out signs of the past because they are unpleasant?
How would we know what had happened?
Those claims are very surprising and frankly strike me as pretty implausible because almost no slaves went from Bristol to the West Indies. A very small number came the other way, but were usually brought across by their owners, not by slave traders.
The whole point about the African slave trade was that while financed from Bristol, Liverpool and London it was actually worked from Africa to the West Indies.
Do we know much about this poster?
It was called the triangular trade for this reason. You ran manufactured goods from the UK to the west coast of Africa to pay for slaves, who you then took west to the east indies (or southern US) where they could be sold. There you bought sugar, tobacco and cotton to bring back to the UK, where the cotton would be turned into cloth, continuing the cycle.
Maybe the occasional ship would run into trouble & return to Bristol for repairs in the days before slavery was outlawed in the UK?
All the way from Africa to Bristol? Surely not. Easier to refit in Portugal.
I think it much more likely they were rings for chains to secure strong boxes containing either particularly valuable merchandise, say rare spices, or money. The owner then fed somebody credulous this story and boom, a myth is born.
Of course, since the merchandise would have been purchased with money from the slave trade, and any money would be raised on the back of craving, you could argue metaphorically there is still justification for what is being said.
But he’s still talking rather dangerous rubbish. Could indeed be a further metaphor of how this is based on prejudice and personal spite rather than reasoned appraisal of how to approach Bristol’s past.
I agree that it seems very unlikely. There were some slaves traded in the UK in the C18th - it wasn’t completely unknown - but I’m not aware of it being done on the kind of industrial scale that would require specialist infrastructure to be built.
As you say though, the goods traded out of that cellar were probably bought with profits from the slave trade, so the link isn’t entirely unjustified, just at a remove from the grim reality.
I see "woke" has joined the collection of pejorative terms used by some on the Right - it can proudly take its place alongside "liberal", "metropolitan elite", "Guardian reading", "intellectual", "lefties", "progressive" and so many others.
I was not sure anyone had ever used woke non-pejoratively, but I did encounter someone about 6 months ago who did use it, non-pejortively, to refer to themselves and how they felt others should be. I don't think liberal belongs on that list, however, as while it is used perjoritively by many on the right, there are people on the right who identifies either as classic liberals or liberal conservatives.
If Cummings does sack PP and Mogg in the reshuffle, what intellectual titans are currently languishing on the back benches ready to take over?
Gavin Williamson to Home Secretary. Suella Braverman to Leader of the House. Bill Cash to Attorney General. Dehenna Davison to Secretary of State for Education.
Some people (not saying anyone here) seem more concerned with violence against statues than violence against individuals.
To me violence against individuals is worse than violence against businesses, which is worse than violence against statues etc
I care far more about broken windows and businesses attacked than statues etc
One often leads to another. It emboldens the mob. See 2011, where the police went softly softly and before they knew it we had widespread rioting and looting across a number of cities.
And for centuries, sensible conservatives have recognised this; reform not revolution. Once it became clear that this statue was causing offence to a section of reasonable people, something needed to be done about it- move it to a museum for preference. For their reasons, the local elite in Bristol decided not to do that, and dragged their feet on a second plaque saying that he wasn't just virtuous and wise.
One of the first lessons I was taught by my history teacher was not to judge people from history by modern standards.
You cannot simply erase history.
People give a damn good try though. I think it is pretty funny, since you can assume very good odds that the historical heroes of virtually any person (even if not all that long ago) will have had some views or taken some actions which that person would condemn, and either they are not aware of it and are very shocked, or they tie themselves in knots about it.
This is the nub of it. Do we wipe out signs of the past because they are unpleasant?
How would we know what had happened?
Those claims are very surprising and frankly strike me as pretty implausible because almost no slaves went from Bristol to the West Indies. A very small number came the other way, but were usually brought across by their owners, not by slave traders.
The whole point about the African slave trade was that while financed from Bristol, Liverpool and London it was actually worked from Africa to the West Indies.
Do we know much about this poster?
It was called the triangular trade for this reason. You ran manufactured goods from the UK to the west coast of Africa to pay for slaves, who you then took west to the east indies (or southern US) where they could be sold. There you bought sugar, tobacco and cotton to bring back to the UK, where the cotton would be turned into cloth, continuing the cycle.
Maybe the occasional ship would run into trouble & return to Bristol for repairs in the days before slavery was outlawed in the UK?
Slavery was never legal on English soil (or not since the days of serfdom) and going back to Bristol is navigationally unlikely since it would entail turning back into the NE trade wind. You'd push on to the Azores for repairs.
Well there were some interesting legal cases on the subject in the eighteenth century. It wasnt unusual for plantation and factory owners to bring back slaves to the UK, who would sometimes abscond.
There was a small industry in recapturing them and shipping them back, and it is possible that a holding facility was needed. Not for vast numbers though.
This is the nub of it. Do we wipe out signs of the past because they are unpleasant?
How would we know what had happened?
Those claims are very surprising and frankly strike me as pretty implausible because almost no slaves went from Bristol to the West Indies. A very small number came the other way, but were usually brought across by their owners, not by slave traders.
The whole point about the African slave trade was that while financed from Bristol, Liverpool and London it was actually worked from Africa to the West Indies.
Do we know much about this poster?
It was called the triangular trade for this reason. You ran manufactured goods from the UK to the west coast of Africa to pay for slaves, who you then took west to the east indies (or southern US) where they could be sold. There you bought sugar, tobacco and cotton to bring back to the UK, where the cotton would be turned into cloth, continuing the cycle.
Maybe the occasional ship would run into trouble & return to Bristol for repairs in the days before slavery was outlawed in the UK?
Slavery was never legal on English soil (or not since the days of serfdom) and going back to Bristol is navigationally unlikely since it would entail turning back into the NE trade wind. You'd push on to the Azores for repairs.
Perhaps virtuously keeping the horrible reality of the slave trade away from the mother country while enjoying the fruits could be seen as a quintessential expression of British hypocrisy.
Indeed. The uk shackle makers also did a brisk trade throughout. The civil courts were also happy to adjudicate claims over slaves outside the jurisdiction. There's a thing you can do in maritime law called serving a writ in rem which means literally nailing a piece of paper to the ship or cargo in dispute. A very humane decision rules that you can dispense with the nailing when the cargo is slaves.
Perhaps virtuously keeping the horrible reality of the slave trade away from the mother country while enjoying the fruits could be seen as a quintessential expression of British hypocrisy.
I wonder what all the people who have followed the rules to the letter for the past 3 months and especially those shielded and unable to go out at all, think of seeing people gathering in mass crowds, vandalising statues and attacking the police.
Just madness and if we stay below R1 in the next three weeks lockdown has to be over, but if this sends in a second wave then we will all pay a huge price in freedom and our economy
Amazing all the labourites cheering on criminal behaviour. Remember their outrage at Big Dom behaviour and.claims he would encourage the dangerous behaviour by the public.
Now we literally have labourites advocating forget covid (that think that disproportionately kills BAME individuals) and get into mobs to go smash shit up.
Lots of stuff used to be illegal that shouldn't have been. Some stuff is still illegal that shouldn't be. Sometimes doing what's right matters more than obeying the law. Plenty of stuff would never have changed if nobody had been willing to break the law. A statue of a man who became wealthy on the bloody murder of the slave trade should have been taken down years ago. If this was the only way to get it done, I am happy to applaud it.
So give me an apology for your role in the Irish Potato Famine.
Now.
Are you drinking already? That doesn't even make sense.
Irish Lives Matter
though not to you it seems
I would happily endorse the removal of any statues of British people who played any role in the Irish famine. It was a monstrous crime and another example of our problematic history. The Atlantic slave economy and the plantations at their core built on the British colonial experiment in Ireland, as you know, so the two issues are of course related. Since I am part Irish I'm certainly not going to deny that Irish lives matter, I'd like to see them mattering a whole lot more, in a united Ireland by consent. I'm just a bit confused as to why you are bringing it up since we weren't talking about it.
]Because you asking people to apolgise for evernts outside there experience is as logical as me holding you responsible for potato blight.
When did I ask anybody to apologise? I am just glad that a man who profited from the greatest crime in the history of humanity is no longer being honoured with a statue in one of our cities. I am genuinely surprised that is a controversial view, TBH.
You are genuinely surprised that a bunch of white extremists telling the people of Bristol what statues they can and can’t have because of their own particular views on how people should respond to race and racism is controversial?
It’s a view.
Yes it is surprising to me. The guy is a mass murderer, the statue should have been removed years ago. Like I say, the crowd I saw was mixed, but I don't know why the race of the people involved is important.
Wasn't the Prophet Mohammed a slave owner ?
Would you favour the closure of mosques because of it ?
Sure, why not?
I'm going to file pulling down a statue to a slave trader in the same kind of category as driving to Barnhard Castle during lockdown - sure its illegal technically but I honestly couldn't care less about it.
Its right not to have statues to slave traders in 21st century. Maybe the statue can be recovered and put in a museum somewhere but not out and about on display.
Surely, the right response is to destroy statues of Muhammad?
Living dangerously Foxy!!!!!
More likely converted to Islam
No, just teasing. Obviously there are no statues of Muhammad to tear down. Muslims don't like idols.
I take the point of view that Mohammad was a false prophet, and there is little in common between Islam and Christianity.
Little in common? Are you sure?
Yes. The God described in the New Testament is very different to the one in the Koran. They are incompatible.
Don't forget ladies and gentlemen, that fishing makes up 0.1% of our GDP
Throwing the “fisherpeople” under the bus in 1973 was perhaps where modern Euroscepticism started.
It may be insignificant, but it seems offends a sense of fair play. The EU would do well to cave on this in exchange for British compromise on level playing field etc.
It's a complete myth. It was losing access to waters for long distance trawling as coastal limits were increased that decimated the British fishing industry. The EEC was just a scapegoat.
You have no idea of the feelings of Scottish Fishermen at the time whose fury knew no bounds and still does
I have never met a fisherman yet who would not hoover the seas clean of fish. When I talked with a Fisheries Protection Vessel Capt, he said that most of their work was trying to keep UK fisherman from ignoring the rules.
You have obviously never depended on fishing for your livelihood or your communities
No I have not. And you would think that for those to whom it did matter, hoovering the sea clean of fish would matter.
One of the first lessons I was taught by my history teacher was not to judge people from history by modern standards.
You cannot simply erase history.
People give a damn good try though. I think it is pretty funny, since you can assume very good odds that the historical heroes of virtually any person (even if not all that long ago) will have had some views or taken some actions which that person would condemn, and either they are not aware of it and are very shocked, or they tie themselves in knots about it.
A while back a friend of mine listed a dozen liberal lions who were born in first half of the 20th century then appended their views on homosexuality.
It was certainly an eye opener, some of them used the language of virulent homophobes.
Amazing all the labourites cheering on criminal behaviour. Remember their outrage at Big Dom behaviour and.claims he would encourage the dangerous behaviour by the public.
Now we literally have labourites advocating forget covid (that think that disproportionately kills BAME individuals) and get into mobs to go smash shit up.
Lots of stuff used to be illegal that shouldn't have been. Some stuff is still illegal that shouldn't be. Sometimes doing what's right matters more than obeying the law. Plenty of stuff would never have changed if nobody had been willing to break the law. A statue of a man who became wealthy on the bloody murder of the slave trade should have been taken down years ago. If this was the only way to get it done, I am happy to applaud it.
So give me an apology for your role in the Irish Potato Famine.
Now.
Are you drinking already? That doesn't even make sense.
Irish Lives Matter
though not to you it seems
I would happily endorse the removal of any statues of British people who played any role in the Irish famine. It was a monstrous crime and another example of our problematic history. The Atlantic slave economy and the plantations at their core built on the British colonial experiment in Ireland, as you know, so the two issues are of course related. Since I am part Irish I'm certainly not going to deny that Irish lives matter, I'd like to see them mattering a whole lot more, in a united Ireland by consent. I'm just a bit confused as to why you are bringing it up since we weren't talking about it.
]Because you asking people to apolgise for evernts outside there experience is as logical as me holding you responsible for potato blight.
When did I ask anybody to apologise? I am just glad that a man who profited from the greatest crime in the history of humanity is no longer being honoured with a statue in one of our cities. I am genuinely surprised that is a controversial view, TBH.
You are genuinely surprised that a bunch of white extremists telling the people of Bristol what statues they can and can’t have because of their own particular views on how people should respond to race and racism is controversial?
It’s a view.
Yes it is surprising to me. The guy is a mass murderer, the statue should have been removed years ago. Like I say, the crowd I saw was mixed, but I don't know why the race of the people involved is important.
Wasn't the Prophet Mohammed a slave owner ?
Would you favour the closure of mosques because of it ?
Sure, why not?
I'm going to file pulling down a statue to a slave trader in the same kind of category as driving to Barnhard Castle during lockdown - sure its illegal technically but I honestly couldn't care less about it.
Its right not to have statues to slave traders in 21st century. Maybe the statue can be recovered and put in a museum somewhere but not out and about on display.
Surely, the right response is to destroy statues of Muhammad?
Living dangerously Foxy!!!!!
More likely converted to Islam
No, just teasing. Obviously there are no statues of Muhammad to tear down. Muslims don't like idols.
I take the point of view that Mohammad was a false prophet, and there is little in common between Islam and Christianity.
Little in common? Are you sure?
Yes. The God described in the New Testament is very different to the one in the Koran. They are incompatible.
Slavers no more represent "my race" than Jimmy Saville did. Farage can go f**k himself with a rusty screwdriver as far as I'm concerned with this post.
If there's going to be a riot between those pro-slavery and those anti-slavery I'll stand on the anti-slavery side thank you very much.
No-one is pro slavery.
Dial it down a notch.
I think even our dear friend contrarian would go with the consensus on that front.
Ydoethur, is there a link to back up the claim that the good people of Bristol voted to retain the statue ?. This link posted earlier suggests that the usual clued up political class are flexing their muscles. Seen it many times in local govt. Thanks
I’m afraid I don’t have a link. I was a student at the time and was very lightly involved on the edges, which is how I know about it. There was a BBC programme on the subject with interviews from those descended from Colston’s victims who wanted to keep it, but it doesn’t appear to be on YouTube.
There was a petition to get rid of it again a couple of years ago, which attracted several thousand signatures - not many of them from Bristol though as it turns out. I think that was the context of the plaque that this row was about.
What bothers me more is that if a bunch of white supremacists had tried to get rid of the statue to hide Bristol’s past, this is exactly the way they would go about it. 48 hours and it will be forgotten about and nobody will think about Colston again.
Slavers no more represent "my race" than Jimmy Saville did. Farage can go f**k himself with a rusty screwdriver as far as I'm concerned with this post.
If there's going to be a riot between those pro-slavery and those anti-slavery I'll stand on the anti-slavery side thank you very much.
No-one is pro slavery.
Dial it down a notch.
It was Farage who suggested that an entire race will support statues to slavers in a "race war".
I'm not the one who needs to dial it down a notch.
I seem to be the only person on here, broadly proud of the “Empire” (without which my home country would not exist), broadly sympathetic to BLM, a bit disconcerted to see a Grade II statue topple, but with an intemperate loathing of Trump and Johnson.
I am “centrist Dad”.
Substitute “loathing” of Johnson for “dislike” and we agree.
I guess that’s why I’m on the right and you on the left 😆
One of the first lessons I was taught by my history teacher was not to judge people from history by modern standards.
You cannot simply erase history.
People give a damn good try though. I think it is pretty funny, since you can assume very good odds that the historical heroes of virtually any person (even if not all that long ago) will have had some views or taken some actions which that person would condemn, and either they are not aware of it and are very shocked, or they tie themselves in knots about it.
A while back a friend of mine listed a dozen liberal lions who were born in first half of the 20th century then appended their views on homosexuality.
It was certainly an eye opener, some of them used the language of virulent homophobes.
And a founder of the Labour Party had some choice views on immigration. According to Keir Hardie, Lithuanian migrant workers in the mining industry had "filthy habits", lived off "garlic and oil", and were carriers of "the Black Death".
He said "God made Scotland for Scotchmen, and I would keep it so."
I had no idea until today that we had statues up of slavers. The fact that one stood in the centre of a major core city is pretty nauseating TBH.
When I visited Rome I was surprised by how many Mussolini monuments are still standing. But I wouldn't support getting rid of them because they remind people of what he was like.
Amazing all the labourites cheering on criminal behaviour. Remember their outrage at Big Dom behaviour and.claims he would encourage the dangerous behaviour by the public.
Now we literally have labourites advocating forget covid (that think that disproportionately kills BAME individuals) and get into mobs to go smash shit up.
Lots of stuff used to be illegal that shouldn't have been. Some stuff is still illegal that shouldn't be. Sometimes doing what's right matters more than obeying the law. Plenty of stuff would never have changed if nobody had been willing to break the law. A statue of a man who became wealthy on the bloody murder of the slave trade should have been taken down years ago. If this was the only way to get it done, I am happy to applaud it.
So give me an apology for your role in the Irish Potato Famine.
Now.
Are you drinking already? That doesn't even make sense.
Irish Lives Matter
though not to you it seems
I would happily endorse the removal of any statues of British people who played any role in the Irish famine. It was a monstrous crime and another example of our problematic history. The Atlantic slave economy and the plantations at their core built on the British colonial experiment in Ireland, as you know, so the two issues are of course related. Since I am part Irish I'm certainly not going to deny that Irish lives matter, I'd like to see them mattering a whole lot more, in a united Ireland by consent. I'm just a bit confused as to why you are bringing it up since we weren't talking about it.
]Because you asking people to apolgise for evernts outside there experience is as logical as me holding you responsible for potato blight.
When did I ask anybody to apologise? I am just glad that a man who profited from the greatest crime in the history of humanity is no longer being honoured with a statue in one of our cities. I am genuinely surprised that is a controversial view, TBH.
You are genuinely surprised that a bunch of white extremists telling the people of Bristol what statues they can and can’t have because of their own particular views on how people should respond to race and racism is controversial?
It’s a view.
Yes it is surprising to me. The guy is a mass murderer, the statue should have been removed years ago. Like I say, the crowd I saw was mixed, but I don't know why the race of the people involved is important.
Wasn't the Prophet Mohammed a slave owner ?
Would you favour the closure of mosques because of it ?
Sure, why not?
I'm going to file pulling down a statue to a slave trader in the same kind of category as driving to Barnhard Castle during lockdown - sure its illegal technically but I honestly couldn't care less about it.
Its right not to have statues to slave traders in 21st century. Maybe the statue can be recovered and put in a museum somewhere but not out and about on display.
Surely, the right response is to destroy statues of Muhammad?
Living dangerously Foxy!!!!!
More likely converted to Islam
No, just teasing. Obviously there are no statues of Muhammad to tear down. Muslims don't like idols.
I take the point of view that Mohammad was a false prophet, and there is little in common between Islam and Christianity.
Little in common? Are you sure?
Yes. The God described in the New Testament is very different to the one in the Koran. They are incompatible.
What about the geezer described in the Old Testament? Is he compatible?
The decency of that woman is a credit to BLM and speaks for all of us
She's actually given me great hope.
Mob rule usually ends badly, tending towards the glorification of violence and ever more extreme positions. The vaguely sensible voices get drowned out.
Sensible thing for the quiet majority who find mob rule distasteful is to wait for it to burn itself out. It feels like another 48 hours and it will subside.
Amazing all the labourites cheering on criminal behaviour. Remember their outrage at Big Dom behaviour and.claims he would encourage the dangerous behaviour by the public.
Now we literally have labourites advocating forget covid (that think that disproportionately kills BAME individuals) and get into mobs to go smash shit up.
Lots of stuff used to be illegal that shouldn't have been. Some stuff is still illegal that shouldn't be. Sometimes doing what's right matters more than obeying the law. Plenty of stuff would never have changed if nobody had been willing to break the law. A statue of a man who became wealthy on the bloody murder of the slave trade should have been taken down years ago. If this was the only way to get it done, I am happy to applaud it.
So give me an apology for your role in the Irish Potato Famine.
Now.
Are you drinking already? That doesn't even make sense.
Irish Lives Matter
though not to you it seems
I would happily endorse the removal of any statues of British people who played any role in the Irish famine. It was a monstrous crime and another example of our problematic history. The Atlantic slave economy and the plantations at their core built on the British colonial experiment in Ireland, as you know, so the two issues are of course related. Since I am part Irish I'm certainly not going to deny that Irish lives matter, I'd like to see them mattering a whole lot more, in a united Ireland by consent. I'm just a bit confused as to why you are bringing it up since we weren't talking about it.
]Because you asking people to apolgise for evernts outside there experience is as logical as me holding you responsible for potato blight.
When did I ask anybody to apologise? I am just glad that a man who profited from the greatest crime in the history of humanity is no longer being honoured with a statue in one of our cities. I am genuinely surprised that is a controversial view, TBH.
You are genuinely surprised that a bunch of white extremists telling the people of Bristol what statues they can and can’t have because of their own particular views on how people should respond to race and racism is controversial?
It’s a view.
Yes it is surprising to me. The guy is a mass murderer, the statue should have been removed years ago. Like I say, the crowd I saw was mixed, but I don't know why the race of the people involved is important.
Wasn't the Prophet Mohammed a slave owner ?
Would you favour the closure of mosques because of it ?
Sure, why not?
I'm going to file pulling down a statue to a slave trader in the same kind of category as driving to Barnhard Castle during lockdown - sure its illegal technically but I honestly couldn't care less about it.
Its right not to have statues to slave traders in 21st century. Maybe the statue can be recovered and put in a museum somewhere but not out and about on display.
Surely, the right response is to destroy statues of Muhammad?
Living dangerously Foxy!!!!!
More likely converted to Islam
No, just teasing. Obviously there are no statues of Muhammad to tear down. Muslims don't like idols.
I take the point of view that Mohammad was a false prophet, and there is little in common between Islam and Christianity.
Little in common? Are you sure?
Yes. The God described in the New Testament is very different to the one in the Koran. They are incompatible.
He's quite a bit different to that spiteful bugger in the Old Testament too.
Anyway, why should Mo have referred to the New Testament when he composed the Koran?
Amazing all the labourites cheering on criminal behaviour. Remember their outrage at Big Dom behaviour and.claims he would encourage the dangerous behaviour by the public.
Now we literally have labourites advocating forget covid (that think that disproportionately kills BAME individuals) and get into mobs to go smash shit up.
Lots of stuff used to be illegal that shouldn't have been. Some stuff is still illegal that shouldn't be. Sometimes doing what's right matters more than obeying the law. Plenty of stuff would never have changed if nobody had been willing to break the law. A statue of a man who became wealthy on the bloody murder of the slave trade should have been taken down years ago. If this was the only way to get it done, I am happy to applaud it.
So give me an apology for your role in the Irish Potato Famine.
Now.
Are you drinking already? That doesn't even make sense.
Irish Lives Matter
though not to you it seems
I would happily endorse the removal of any statues of British people who played any role in the Irish famine. It was a monstrous crime and another example of our problematic history. The Atlantic slave economy and the plantations at their core built on the British colonial experiment in Ireland, as you know, so the two issues are of course related. Since I am part Irish I'm certainly not going to deny that Irish lives matter, I'd like to see them mattering a whole lot more, in a united Ireland by consent. I'm just a bit confused as to why you are bringing it up since we weren't talking about it.
]Because you asking people to apolgise for evernts outside there experience is as logical as me holding you responsible for potato blight.
When did I ask anybody to apologise? I am just glad that a man who profited from the greatest crime in the history of humanity is no longer being honoured with a statue in one of our cities. I am genuinely surprised that is a controversial view, TBH.
You are genuinely surprised that a bunch of white extremists telling the people of Bristol what statues they can and can’t have because of their own particular views on how people should respond to race and racism is controversial?
It’s a view.
Yes it is surprising to me. The guy is a mass murderer, the statue should have been removed years ago. Like I say, the crowd I saw was mixed, but I don't know why the race of the people involved is important.
Wasn't the Prophet Mohammed a slave owner ?
Would you favour the closure of mosques because of it ?
Sure, why not?
I'm going to file pulling down a statue to a slave trader in the same kind of category as driving to Barnhard Castle during lockdown - sure its illegal technically but I honestly couldn't care less about it.
Its right not to have statues to slave traders in 21st century. Maybe the statue can be recovered and put in a museum somewhere but not out and about on display.
Surely, the right response is to destroy statues of Muhammad?
Living dangerously Foxy!!!!!
More likely converted to Islam
No, just teasing. Obviously there are no statues of Muhammad to tear down. Muslims don't like idols.
I take the point of view that Mohammad was a false prophet, and there is little in common between Islam and Christianity.
Little in common? Are you sure?
Yes. The God described in the New Testament is very different to the one in the Koran. They are incompatible.
One of the first lessons I was taught by my history teacher was not to judge people from history by modern standards.
You cannot simply erase history.
People give a damn good try though. I think it is pretty funny, since you can assume very good odds that the historical heroes of virtually any person (even if not all that long ago) will have had some views or taken some actions which that person would condemn, and either they are not aware of it and are very shocked, or they tie themselves in knots about it.
Simon de Montfort was involved in several massacres of the Jews.
I say we burn down Parliament, chuck all his statues in the Thames and call De Montfort University Balfour University instead.
(Yes, I am being sarcastic. Although of course as it was Jews he was massacring that would probably elevate him in the eyes of these protestors anyway.)
Have the anti-slavery protesters been down to the Mauritanian embassy yet ?
For all the government’s denials, slavery persists in Mauritania. In a rare insight into the lives of the tens of thousands of people affected, photojournalist Seif Kousmate spent a month photographing and interviewing current and former slaves. While there, he was arrested and imprisoned by police, who confiscated his memory cards, phone and laptop.
In 1981, Mauritania made slavery illegal, the last country in the world to do so. Nonetheless, tens of thousands of people – mostly from the minority Haratine or Afro-Mauritanian groups – still live as bonded labourers, domestic servants or child brides. Local rights groups estimate that up to 20% of the population is enslaved, with one in two Haratines forced to work on farms or in homes with no possibility of freedom, education or pay.
Slavery has a long history in this north African desert nation. For centuries, Arabic-speaking Moors raided African villages, resulting in a rigid caste system that still exists to this day, with darker-skinned inhabitants beholden to their lighter-skinned “masters”. Slave status is passed down from mother to child, and anti-slavery activists are regularly tortured and detained.
The embassy is easy to get to on Vauxhall Bridge Road so perhaps a PBer might like to start a protest.
Or if they want to do something about modern slavery how about a trip to Leicestershire:
A detective who is leading the fight against modern day slavery in Leicestershire says her officers have rescued victims from squalid overcrowded homes and found evidence of people being forced to work 18-hour days for as little as £10.
In the most disturbing cases yet uncovered by Leicestershire Police, workers - most of them overseas nationals - have been found in tattered clothing and sleeping in sheds, on floors or 'hot-bedding' - that is, taking turns to sleep in a bed.
The victims are working in a range of areas, including building sites, nail bars, car washes and in 'pop-up brothels'.
Detective Inspector Jenni Heggs gave an insight into the rapid growth in the team's caseload as officers and the public learn more about nature and scale of modern slavery in the city and county.
In 2015, when the Modern Slavery Act was introduced, the force investigated 12 reports of the crime.
In the first six months of this year, officers opened more than 100 investigations.
Det Insp Heggs said: "We’ve recovered people living in sheds, in clothing full of holes and with no access to toilets or bathrooms.
This is the nub of it. Do we wipe out signs of the past because they are unpleasant?
How would we know what had happened?
The statue isn't some warning from history, it's a hagiography saying what a thoroughly nice chap he was. It was erected over a hundred years after he died when slavery was illegal.
I wonder what all the people who have followed the rules to the letter for the past 3 months and especially those shielded and unable to go out at all, think of seeing people gathering in mass crowds, vandalising statues and attacking the police.
The decency of that woman is a credit to BLM and speaks for all of us
She's actually given me great hope.
As I pointed out the other day,. the mainstream BLM movement in America has done its very best to behave in a reasoned, lawful manner and have been very quick to attack the looters and rioters. Unfortunately any mass protest these days seems to attract the lunatic fringe elements like Antifa who are not interested in peaceful resolutions but in violence and force.
I had no idea until today that we had statues up of slavers. The fact that one stood in the centre of a major core city is pretty nauseating TBH.
When I visited Rome I was surprised by how many Mussolini monuments are still standing. But I wouldn't support getting rid of them because they remind people of what he was like.
Almost spot on. Just need to change "will" to "won't" to be truthful.
How so? Lots of people faced very swift justice after the 2011 riots for instance.
If I were HS at the moment, I would be encouraging the police to use the extensive metropolitan CCTV system and operators to track down the violent minority committing crimes, and arrest either after crowd has dispersed, or if needs be, a few days later.
Sky interviewing people at Schiphol ahead of the quarantine coming in. Not one of them was asked why they are travelling at all during this time.
We have a lot of jet setters on here. Has anyone travelled during the crisis? I know some on here returned to the country at the start, but has anyone actually got on a plane to go somewhere and then come back?
My wife and daughter just flew to California. I will join them at some point. There were 20 passengers on her flight.
I had no idea until today that we had statues up of slavers. The fact that one stood in the centre of a major core city is pretty nauseating TBH.
When I visited Rome I was surprised by how many Mussolini monuments are still standing. But I wouldn't support getting rid of them because they remind people of what he was like.
I'm not opposed in principle to removal of statues of dictators and slavers and the like, though if it is to be done then moving them rather than destruction would be a way to go as erasing the past not the way to go etc (and it becomes problematic with statues of very old figures - pretty sure Emperor Constantine will have done so awful stuff but I don't think that many want his statue out of York, it seems like people only really care about stuff 17th century on), but mobs going round doing it is definitely not the right way of doing it (who knows what a mob would choose to destroy next time?), and that it might be difficult to do it officially and people would oppose it strongly and that would upset those who want them removed is no excuse.
I’m fascinated by those posters who think that any kind of metric based on performance is going to be relevant to the job security of Cabinet ministers under Boris Johnson. Did they not notice the treatment of Julian Smith?
Amazing all the labourites cheering on criminal behaviour. Remember their outrage at Big Dom behaviour and.claims he would encourage the dangerous behaviour by the public.
Now we literally have labourites advocating forget covid (that think that disproportionately kills BAME individuals) and get into mobs to go smash shit up.
Lots of stuff used to be illegal that shouldn't have been. Some stuff is still illegal that shouldn't be. Sometimes doing what's right matters more than obeying the law. Plenty of stuff would never have changed if nobody had been willing to break the law. A statue of a man who became wealthy on the bloody murder of the slave trade should have been taken down years ago. If this was the only way to get it done, I am happy to applaud it.
So give me an apology for your role in the Irish Potato Famine.
Now.
Are you drinking already? That doesn't even make sense.
Irish Lives Matter
though not to you it seems
I would happily endorse the removal of any statues of British people who played any role in the Irish famine. It was a monstrous crime and another example of our problematic history. The Atlantic slave economy and the plantations at their core built on the British colonial experiment in Ireland, as you know, so the two issues are of course related. Since I am part Irish I'm certainly not going to deny that Irish lives matter, I'd like to see them mattering a whole lot more, in a united Ireland by consent. I'm just a bit confused as to why you are bringing it up since we weren't talking about it.
]Because you asking people to apolgise for evernts outside there experience is as logical as me holding you responsible for potato blight.
When did I ask anybody to apologise? I am just glad that a man who profited from the greatest crime in the history of humanity is no longer being honoured with a statue in one of our cities. I am genuinely surprised that is a controversial view, TBH.
You are genuinely surprised that a bunch of white extremists telling the people of Bristol what statues they can and can’t have because of their own particular views on how people should respond to race and racism is controversial?
It’s a view.
Yes it is surprising to me. The guy is a mass murderer, the statue should have been removed years ago. Like I say, the crowd I saw was mixed, but I don't know why the race of the people involved is important.
Wasn't the Prophet Mohammed a slave owner ?
Would you favour the closure of mosques because of it ?
Sure, why not?
I'm going to file pulling down a statue to a slave trader in the same kind of category as driving to Barnhard Castle during lockdown - sure its illegal technically but I honestly couldn't care less about it.
Its right not to have statues to slave traders in 21st century. Maybe the statue can be recovered and put in a museum somewhere but not out and about on display.
Surely, the right response is to destroy statues of Muhammad?
Living dangerously Foxy!!!!!
More likely converted to Islam
No, just teasing. Obviously there are no statues of Muhammad to tear down. Muslims don't like idols.
I take the point of view that Mohammad was a false prophet, and there is little in common between Islam and Christianity.
Little in common? Are you sure?
Yes. The God described in the New Testament is very different to the one in the Koran. They are incompatible.
What about the one in the Old Testament?
What about it?
The Christian understanding of God is not based purely on it. That's what the (choose your term) reinterpretations / elucidations of the New Testament is for.
Would you base your understanding of the Labour Party on all the Fabians who believed in Eugenics in the 1930/40s ? Not suggesting you are Lab, just drawing an analogy.
One of the first lessons I was taught by my history teacher was not to judge people from history by modern standards.
You cannot simply erase history.
People give a damn good try though. I think it is pretty funny, since you can assume very good odds that the historical heroes of virtually any person (even if not all that long ago) will have had some views or taken some actions which that person would condemn, and either they are not aware of it and are very shocked, or they tie themselves in knots about it.
Simon de Montfort was involved in several massacres of the Jews.
I say we burn down Parliament, chuck all his statues in the Thames and call De Montfort University Balfour University instead.
(Yes, I am being sarcastic. Although of course as it was Jews he was massacring that would probably elevate him in the eyes of these protestors anyway.)
Given Edward VIII's love of Nazism and Hitler, and our current unelected Head of State Queen's history of doing the Nazi salute, we should burn down all royal palaces.
Fits in the nasty side of the royals, I mean I haven't even mentioned the Edict of Expulsion.
I had no idea until today that we had statues up of slavers. The fact that one stood in the centre of a major core city is pretty nauseating TBH.
When I visited Rome I was surprised by how many Mussolini monuments are still standing. But I wouldn't support getting rid of them because they remind people of what he was like.
The decency of that woman is a credit to BLM and speaks for all of us
She's actually given me great hope.
Mob rule usually ends badly, tending towards the glorification of violence and ever more extreme positions. The vaguely sensible voices get drowned out.
Sensible thing for the quiet majority who find mob rule distasteful is to wait for it to burn itself out. It feels like another 48 hours and it will subside.
I'm not sure it will.
The authorities need to start to identify and distinguish the trouble makers and separate them out from the peaceful protestors. Not treat everyone with kid gloves.
Those in power and the media need to support them.
Sky interviewing people at Schiphol ahead of the quarantine coming in. Not one of them was asked why they are travelling at all during this time.
We have a lot of jet setters on here. Has anyone travelled during the crisis? I know some on here returned to the country at the start, but has anyone actually got on a plane to go somewhere and then come back?
My wife and daughter just flew to California. I will join them at some point. There were 20 passengers on her flight.
Are you waiting for them to lift the restriction on having been in the UK 14 days previously?
I had no idea until today that we had statues up of slavers. The fact that one stood in the centre of a major core city is pretty nauseating TBH.
The country is full from top to bottom with monuments that many people find objectionable, or would find objectionable if they knew more about the figures whom they commemorated.
When Midland Red was first nationalised, bus services on routes in Staffordshire stopped picking up passengers. This was on the orders of Staffordshire County Council, who said punctuality was the only thing that mattered so any buses that were not running early should not stop to pick up or drop off passengers.
Perhaps virtuously keeping the horrible reality of the slave trade away from the mother country while enjoying the fruits could be seen as a quintessential expression of British hypocrisy.
The decency of that woman is a credit to BLM and speaks for all of us
She's actually given me great hope.
Mob rule usually ends badly, tending towards the glorification of violence and ever more extreme positions. The vaguely sensible voices get drowned out.
Sensible thing for the quiet majority who find mob rule distasteful is to wait for it to burn itself out. It feels like another 48 hours and it will subside.
I'm not sure it will.
The authorities need to start to identify and distinguish the trouble makers and separate them out from the peaceful protestors. Not treat everyone with kid gloves.
Those in power and the media need to support them.
I totally agree re punishing the violent - see my next post. But even so, suspect the novelty will wear off soon. Whatsapp chatter about it all in various group chats that I am in has gone pretty silent about BLM today.
I had no idea until today that we had statues up of slavers. The fact that one stood in the centre of a major core city is pretty nauseating TBH.
When I visited Rome I was surprised by how many Mussolini monuments are still standing. But I wouldn't support getting rid of them because they remind people of what he was like.
Rome could do with losing the Typewriter (pre-fascist, but adopted by them), but the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana is a cracking building and hardly out of place in the city where the fasces originated.
One of the first lessons I was taught by my history teacher was not to judge people from history by modern standards.
You cannot simply erase history.
People give a damn good try though. I think it is pretty funny, since you can assume very good odds that the historical heroes of virtually any person (even if not all that long ago) will have had some views or taken some actions which that person would condemn, and either they are not aware of it and are very shocked, or they tie themselves in knots about it.
Simon de Montfort was involved in several massacres of the Jews.
I say we burn down Parliament, chuck all his statues in the Thames and call De Montfort University Balfour University instead.
(Yes, I am being sarcastic. Although of course as it was Jews he was massacring that would probably elevate him in the eyes of these protestors anyway.)
I am in favour of simply shutting down De Montfort university instead. That I went to the University of Leicester in no way impacts my opinion on that.
Comments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiteladies_Road
ydroethur will give you your three bonus questions.
Acording to Wikipedia it is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Supreme_Court_Building
" In 1997, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) asked for the image of Muhammad to be removed from the marble frieze of the façade. While appreciating that Muhammad was included in the court's pantheon of 18 prominent lawgivers of history, CAIR noted that Islam discourages depictions of Muhammad in any artistic representation. CAIR also objected that Muhammad was shown with a sword, which they claimed reinforced stereotypes of Muslims as intolerant conquerors. Chief Justice William Rehnquist rejected the request to sandblast Muhammad, saying the artwork "was intended only to recognize him, among many other lawgivers, as an important figure in the history of law; it is not intended as a form of idol worship". The court later added a footnote to tourist materials, calling it "a well-intentioned attempt by the sculptor to honor Muhammad""
To me violence against individuals is worse than violence against businesses, which is worse than violence against statues etc
I care far more about broken windows and businesses attacked than statues etc
Not the Philip I remember. You've been dangerously off form in recent days.
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1269674753234624517?s=19
If Starmer endorsed the vandalism as Corbyn may well have done then you might have a point but the game has changed.
Also nudged up slightly in my estimation too.....
JRM on the other hand well deserves the obscurity of the back benches....
I take the point of view that Mohammad was a false prophet, and there is little in common between Islam and Christianity.
I think it much more likely they were rings for chains to secure strong boxes containing either particularly valuable merchandise, say rare spices, or money. The owner then fed somebody credulous this story and boom, a myth is born.
Of course, since the merchandise would have been purchased with money from the slave trade, and any money would be raised on the back of craving, you could argue metaphorically there is still justification for what is being said.
But he’s still talking rather dangerous rubbish. Could indeed be a further metaphor of how this is based on prejudice and personal spite rather than reasoned appraisal of how to approach Bristol’s past.
Dial it down a notch.
For all the government’s denials, slavery persists in Mauritania. In a rare insight into the lives of the tens of thousands of people affected, photojournalist Seif Kousmate spent a month photographing and interviewing current and former slaves. While there, he was arrested and imprisoned by police, who confiscated his memory cards, phone and laptop.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/jun/08/the-unspeakable-truth-about-slavery-in-mauritania
In 1981, Mauritania made slavery illegal, the last country in the world to do so. Nonetheless, tens of thousands of people – mostly from the minority Haratine or Afro-Mauritanian groups – still live as bonded labourers, domestic servants or child brides. Local rights groups estimate that up to 20% of the population is enslaved, with one in two Haratines forced to work on farms or in homes with no possibility of freedom, education or pay.
Slavery has a long history in this north African desert nation. For centuries, Arabic-speaking Moors raided African villages, resulting in a rigid caste system that still exists to this day, with darker-skinned inhabitants beholden to their lighter-skinned “masters”. Slave status is passed down from mother to child, and anti-slavery activists are regularly tortured and detained.
The embassy is easy to get to on Vauxhall Bridge Road so perhaps a PBer might like to start a protest.
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/second-colston-statue-plaque-not-2682813
Dominic Cummings and these rioters are utter cock juggling thunder [word that sounds like runts]
As you say though, the goods traded out of that cellar were probably bought with profits from the slave trade, so the link isn’t entirely unjustified, just at a remove from the grim reality.
Suella Braverman to Leader of the House.
Bill Cash to Attorney General.
Dehenna Davison to Secretary of State for Education.
There was a small industry in recapturing them and shipping them back, and it is possible that a holding facility was needed. Not for vast numbers though.
https://www.runaways.gla.ac.uk/
It was only the Somerset case in 1773 that stopped recapture in England.
Have you got earth shattering news for me?!
It was certainly an eye opener, some of them used the language of virulent homophobes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century#/media/File:Modern_incidence_of_slavery.png
I’m afraid I don’t have a link. I was a student at the time and was very lightly involved on the edges, which is how I know about it. There was a BBC programme on the subject with interviews from those descended from Colston’s victims who wanted to keep it, but it doesn’t appear to be on YouTube.
There was a petition to get rid of it again a couple of years ago, which attracted several thousand signatures - not many of them from Bristol though as it turns out. I think that was the context of the plaque that this row was about.
What bothers me more is that if a bunch of white supremacists had tried to get rid of the statue to hide Bristol’s past, this is exactly the way they would go about it. 48 hours and it will be forgotten about and nobody will think about Colston again.
I'm not the one who needs to dial it down a notch.
I guess that’s why I’m on the right and you on the left 😆
He said "God made Scotland for Scotchmen, and I would keep it so."
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/why-are-so-many-fascist-monuments-still-standing-in-italy
Sensible thing for the quiet majority who find mob rule distasteful is to wait for it to burn itself out. It feels like another 48 hours and it will subside.
Anyway, why should Mo have referred to the New Testament when he composed the Koran?
I say we burn down Parliament, chuck all his statues in the Thames and call De Montfort University Balfour University instead.
(Yes, I am being sarcastic. Although of course as it was Jews he was massacring that would probably elevate him in the eyes of these protestors anyway.)
A detective who is leading the fight against modern day slavery in Leicestershire says her officers have rescued victims from squalid overcrowded homes and found evidence of people being forced to work 18-hour days for as little as £10.
In the most disturbing cases yet uncovered by Leicestershire Police, workers - most of them overseas nationals - have been found in tattered clothing and sleeping in sheds, on floors or 'hot-bedding' - that is, taking turns to sleep in a bed.
The victims are working in a range of areas, including building sites, nail bars, car washes and in 'pop-up brothels'.
Detective Inspector Jenni Heggs gave an insight into the rapid growth in the team's caseload as officers and the public learn more about nature and scale of modern slavery in the city and county.
In 2015, when the Modern Slavery Act was introduced, the force investigated 12 reports of the crime.
In the first six months of this year, officers opened more than 100 investigations.
Det Insp Heggs said: "We’ve recovered people living in sheds, in clothing full of holes and with no access to toilets or bathrooms.
https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/workers-leicester-who-sleep-sheds-3417899
Not to mention the Leicester textile industry where modern slavery it seems is endemic.
https://www.ft.com/content/e427327e-5892-11e8-b8b2-d6ceb45fa9d0
But I won’t.
The Christian understanding of God is not based purely on it. That's what the (choose your term) reinterpretations / elucidations of the New Testament is for.
Would you base your understanding of the Labour Party on all the Fabians who believed in Eugenics in the 1930/40s ? Not suggesting you are Lab, just drawing an analogy.
Fits in the nasty side of the royals, I mean I haven't even mentioned the Edict of Expulsion.
The authorities need to start to identify and distinguish the trouble makers and separate them out from the peaceful protestors. Not treat everyone with kid gloves.
Those in power and the media need to support them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDEpqyJ-_w
No, I am not joking.
Good night.
The only problem is that which name you then picked to describe the street might be a symbol of your politics.
Maybe it could be hyphenated.