The people who thought judges were enemies of the people and that activist lawyers are frustrating the noble intentions of HMG will be moving on to the juries. Who's left in the legal system to demonise, court ushers?
It's such a shame that the gammon society is upset...
Cheap shot. I don't know much about 'Save Our Statues' but they're making a substantive point that should be addressed.
It isn't open season on statues.
It does show however that juries will use their powers to acquit people if laws are used harshly to suppress legitimate dissent. Indeed that is how the original Penn case came to set the precedent.
Sorry but it strikes me as populist justice. There are plenty of ways people could show 'legitimate dissent' without having to tear the statue down.
No it is a long established principle that juries can refuse to enforce oppressive laws. It is the sort of ancient British custom that supposed patriots dislike.
Exactly. It has been part of how the system works for centuries. For far longer than the statue was up for.
It really is telling when something quite that longstanding is seen as some new threat to society by certain conservatives.
The statue was erected in 1895, I'm fairly certain in 1895 we as a nation had decided Slavery was morally repugnent.
Which suggests slavery wasn’t a motivating factor in putting it up.
I like where you are going with this. The politics might have been we are putting this up to score points off our wokish political opponents? The opponents were what - republican, anti Empire, anti capitalism?
The motivating factor in putting it up at the time was the elites of Bristol patting themselves on the back and pushing any discussion of the seedy origins of their wealth outside of the acceptable discourse in the city. A state of affairs that obviously continued for some time.
Do you think that all the statues of Southern generals that were erected in the US during the late C19th / early C20th had nothing whatsoever to do with the history of slavery there either? Are you actually that naïve?
Only if you are naive, because I agree with you on the last point. Isn’t there a statue of a civil war general in the middle of a motorway?
An allegory of the American South: In 1998, a fierce racist (who also happened to be the former attorney of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin) named Jack Kershaw created a monument for another bad man, Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. The resulting statue is so hilariously stupid that we should keep it forever.
It’s an interesting one art is founded upon to an extent. What you see for yourself without knowing anything. Then the knowledge behind it changing what you see.
Wow. That is so beautiful. Yes. It was invented by Satan to lead the human race astray. Oh. Does it now look as beautiful as before?
One hilarious example comes to mind.....
Tony Blair at an exhibition of Aztec items at (I think) the British Museum praised a particular bowl as beautiful example of the art of a vibrant, lost culture.
It was the bowl into which the hearts torn from the sacrificial victims were placed. Thousands upon thousands of victims (lots of slaves, incidentally) murdered in those rituals.
The Aztecs enslaved millions too. you know.
I do know. The reason that the Spanish got anywhere was that all the other locals were utterly convinced by the idea of doing some slaughter on the Aztecs for a change....
Okay, following a bit of kick back from my previous comment, may I be blunt?
It's only a fucking statue of some slave trader who died 300 years ago. Nobody was hurt in the bringing down of said statue, no harm done. It's no big deal. Had I been on the jury, I'd have shrugged my shoulders and said 'not guilty', and I don't care whether the perpetrators were middle class or whatever.
One of them clearly isn't middle class. But it has been discerned that obviously isn't her real accent.
Regarding Bristol, there are two very separate issues. One is whether the statue of Colston should be there or not, the other is whether the people that the jury has just acquitted are guilty of criminal damage. I am not sure anyone can contest the second point reasonably.
Apart from the jury of course.
@Northern_Al has liked your post but his musings on the matter are definitely of the 'statue shouldn't be there variety'. Juries can nullify, but you can't argue it's applying the law properly. Any magistrate would have convicted.
You've a right to a jury trial. They found not guilty. I fail to see how that "isn't applying the law properly."
My take on PMQs is late because I have caught up on it on YouTube because the weather is nice here and I went out for a hike. And I have been into loft of my Dads house. Back in my loungewear now.
Important stuff first. Rayners hair is on a journey. I don’t like it now, but a lob will be great for her. It didn’t look great today from the back for someone using a “brush your hair” attack. I don’t even like it from the front, maybe that is just me as there is zilch about Rayner or her politics I like. But the dress was cool. If we had a lady Primeminister that is exactly the type of dress imo as I would play safe - it’s already easy to stand out in a room of men in their best suits, it doesn’t need extra femininity or anything to go on to distract from what you are saying, your style choice in those situations has to support what you are saying imo. My girlfriend certainly trusts me when I pick things out for her.
Johnson’s hair is on a journey too. It looks awful now. It doesn’t suit his head or face - whoever posted yesterday it makes him look more thuggish is spot on. I think it’s been forced on him by his better haircut ravaged by time. All it will do is associate in minds of voters this is a different Boris Johnson than Love Actually Boris they loved and voted for, which is the last thing he needs.
Boris is in trouble, but I’m not picking this up on PB.com. Just about all 360 degree factions around in the commons called for fuel vat axe to help the “heat or eat” families yet Boris fought back against this £1.5B U turn.
Where do you stand on this Big G and HYUFD? Boris position right or wrong? U turn a nd axe it at such small cost, or continue to have everyone against the position?
I have answered the vat question before
At 5% it is not a great help to the lower paid but it gives a 5% cut to the wealthy
The answer is for the treasury to make a one off payment to the lower paid and those on UC similar to the £300 winter fuel payment given to pensioners over 80
That final statement has a bit of an "I'm on the bus, Conductor ring the bell" sentiment about it.
What about us peasants twenty years your junior?
No sure your point but as a taxpayer and not on pension credits I do not expect to receive any payment towards my much increased energy bills, as that should be generously targeted to the lower paid and those on uc
I misread your point. I assumed you were paying the over 80s, but you were merely suggesting the over 80 winter fuel payment mechanism could pay the recipients.
My mistake. Feel free to off-topic.
Yes indeed, that has been my logic in all this
The 5% vat to the lower paid is insufficient in monetary terms and a scheme similar to the over 80s winter fuel allowance would be sensible and fair
And I would not off topic you (or anyone) anyway
You are right on this one Big G. Just two of you then. You and Boris. Help needs to be targeted at fuel poverty, not in universal cuts.
Up against the two of you, the Tory back benches, every opposition speaker at PMQs, and every newspaper from Mail to Mirror.
There’s the economic case you and Boris are making, and then a political reality of saying no tax cut using Brexit freedom isn’t there?
I think you will find this is more Rishi than Boris and of course it is very much the right thing to do
The fact many politicians and journalists cannot see past the 5% cut is maybe a commentary on how poor their thought processes are
Boris hasn’t helped himself, floating it as a benefit of Brexit and then denying it when it is most needed.
His line at PMQs was bizarre - trying at the same time to have a go at the ‘remainers’ opposite for not wanting the UK to have the ‘freedom’ to remove VAT on fuel whilst - in the same answer - trying to explain why the people of the UK weren’t going to get it removed.
The politics of the impending cost of living crisis is that the government will be pushed towards some fairly significant help for the poor AND some sort of giveaway for all voters. For the latter, knocking away the 5% VAT appears ideal, and I’d say it’s odds-on that the PM has another humiliating u-turn coming his way….
Has BJ set his face against any changes yet - that sounds like an AR talking point - or has he just not made major moves?
There's also a small benefit that if prices suddenly fail to go up by 50-60%, it will take some stuffing out of inflation.
Regarding Bristol, there are two very separate issues. One is whether the statue of Colston should be there or not, the other is whether the people that the jury has just acquitted are guilty of criminal damage. I am not sure anyone can contest the second point reasonably.
Apart from the jury of course.
@Northern_Al has liked your post but his musings on the matter are definitely of the 'statue shouldn't be there variety'. Juries can nullify, but you can't argue it's applying the law properly. Any magistrate would have convicted.
I'm sorry, but: a) you don't know that (there's quite a lot of liberal leftie magistrates about, and b) more importantly, that's the whole point of "either-way" offences - you can opt for trail by jury, but you're taking the risk that if found guilty you'll get a harsher sentence than from a magistrate's court.
The people who thought judges were enemies of the people and that activist lawyers are frustrating the noble intentions of HMG will be moving on to the juries. Who's left in the legal system to demonise, court ushers?
It's such a shame that the gammon society is upset...
Cheap shot. I don't know much about 'Save Our Statues' but they're making a substantive point that should be addressed.
It isn't open season on statues.
It does show however that juries will use their powers to acquit people if laws are used harshly to suppress legitimate dissent. Indeed that is how the original Penn case came to set the precedent.
Sorry but it strikes me as populist justice. There are plenty of ways people could show 'legitimate dissent' without having to tear the statue down.
No it is a long established principle that juries can refuse to enforce oppressive laws. It is the sort of ancient British custom that supposed patriots dislike.
Well that depends on your definition of oppression. I don't think a law against destroying public monuments qualifies.
I can't help but feel there are a fair number of middle class parents on here with woke(ish) kids who are worried about the idea of Cassia or Tarquin having their collars felt. Surely that must be wrong.
My main concern is with a politicised justice system in which jury members decide to use their position to make a political point. How about a Tommy Robinson type on trial for something but the jury (probably not in Bristol) acquits because although the evidence suggests he's guilty, they're convinced he's a good 'un with the right ideas so doesn't deserve to go down.
Bearing in mind that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon has several convictions, I think the evidence is that juries are happy to convict him.
I find the use of his original name strangely irritating. Is he not allowed to use a different name because you think he is an utter shit? Would you refer to say Elton John as Reg Dwight?
I agree that "Tommy Robinson" is a created character.
The statue was erected in 1895, I'm fairly certain in 1895 we as a nation had decided Slavery was morally repugnent.
Which suggests slavery wasn’t a motivating factor in putting it up.
I like where you are going with this. The politics might have been we are putting this up to score points off our wokish political opponents? The opponents were what - republican, anti Empire, anti capitalism?
The motivating factor in putting it up at the time was the elites of Bristol patting themselves on the back and pushing any discussion of the seedy origins of their wealth outside of the acceptable discourse in the city. A state of affairs that obviously continued for some time.
Do you think that all the statues of Southern generals that were erected in the US during the late C19th / early C20th had nothing whatsoever to do with the history of slavery there either? Are you actually that naïve?
Only if you are naive, because I agree with you on the last point. Isn’t there a statue of a civil war general in the middle of a motorway?
An allegory of the American South: In 1998, a fierce racist (who also happened to be the former attorney of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin) named Jack Kershaw created a monument for another bad man, Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. The resulting statue is so hilariously stupid that we should keep it forever.
It’s an interesting one art is founded upon to an extent. What you see for yourself without knowing anything. Then the knowledge behind it changing what you see.
Wow. That is so beautiful. Yes. It was invented by Satan to lead the human race astray. Oh. Does it now look as beautiful as before?
One hilarious example comes to mind.....
Tony Blair at an exhibition of Aztec items at (I think) the British Museum praised a particular bowl as beautiful example of the art of a vibrant, lost culture.
It was the bowl into which the hearts torn from the sacrificial victims were placed. Thousands upon thousands of victims (lots of slaves, incidentally) murdered in those rituals.
That’s a great example.
And yes this golden horse with Cartoon confederate on back. Yes absolutely. All the knowledge behind its creation tells you it’s malign. But do you get that from observing it, without the knowledge? You could so easily think it a pastiche of the confederates? And a joyful and funny one at that.
What you know definitely changes what you see, any argument with that bit? But should it also change your enjoyment?
For example Screaming Eagles most favourite Soccer Mom movie - can he enjoy just as much when learning its director was a racist, and funding came from brexiteer who gave the most to Brexit campaign?
From loving it, to straight in the bin. How Should knowledge of artists and creatives change your enjoyment of their art?
Okay, following a bit of kick back from my previous comment, may I be blunt?
It's only a fucking statue of some slave trader who died 300 years ago. Nobody was hurt in the bringing down of said statue, no harm done. It's no big deal. Had I been on the jury, I'd have shrugged my shoulders and said 'not guilty', and I don't care whether the perpetrators were middle class or whatever.
One of them clearly isn't middle class. But it has been discerned that obviously isn't her real accent.
Regarding Bristol, there are two very separate issues. One is whether the statue of Colston should be there or not, the other is whether the people that the jury has just acquitted are guilty of criminal damage. I am not sure anyone can contest the second point reasonably.
Apart from the jury of course.
@Northern_Al has liked your post but his musings on the matter are definitely of the 'statue shouldn't be there variety'. Juries can nullify, but you can't argue it's applying the law properly. Any magistrate would have convicted.
You've a right to a jury trial. They found not guilty. I fail to see how that "isn't applying the law properly."
Do you ? I didn't get the option with either my speeding or red light offence.
I don't know much about the Colston case; but as other people have pointed out it is a feature of jury trials that this type of verdict can happen. I would rather just accept that, than have a 'better' or 'more accurate' system of justice. Generally speaking the obsession with slavery 300 years ago is curious. It is an unfortunate feature of human development and the real story is that Britain took the lead in abolishing it. It is one of the few areas in which human society progressed. The debate about the rights and wrongs of it was finished generations ago. Trying to bring all this back up is just the sign of a society that has no confidence in itself; what it is and what it has achieved; it is just sad.
The people who thought judges were enemies of the people and that activist lawyers are frustrating the noble intentions of HMG will be moving on to the juries. Who's left in the legal system to demonise, court ushers?
It's such a shame that the gammon society is upset...
Cheap shot. I don't know much about 'Save Our Statues' but they're making a substantive point that should be addressed.
It isn't open season on statues.
It does show however that juries will use their powers to acquit people if laws are used harshly to suppress legitimate dissent. Indeed that is how the original Penn case came to set the precedent.
Sorry but it strikes me as populist justice. There are plenty of ways people could show 'legitimate dissent' without having to tear the statue down.
No it is a long established principle that juries can refuse to enforce oppressive laws. It is the sort of ancient British custom that supposed patriots dislike.
Causing criminal damage is an oppressive law?
No but criminalising protest is.
As is planned via the new Police Bill.
That's a separate issue. Although the right to protest doesn't equal the right to cause disruption.
Is there a law under which jurors can be prosecuted for being a bunch of knobheads?
The joy of the jury system is that the jury can acquit for whatever reason they like.
You could flip that the opposite way and that they can convict for any reason they like.
It’s not for juries to be setting laws. That’s why we have elections.
Not so simple. Juries can indeed acquit for whatever reason they like, and don't ever give a reason. And it is generally against the law to try to find out.
But they can't just convict any old how. There is a double safety net. To get to a jury decision there has to be evidence upon which a properly directed jury can properly convict. If there isn't the judge chucks it out on application at the close of the prosecution case.
Secondly a conviction can be appealed. An acquittal can't. (Unless very exceptionally compelling new facts arise).
The people who thought judges were enemies of the people and that activist lawyers are frustrating the noble intentions of HMG will be moving on to the juries. Who's left in the legal system to demonise, court ushers?
It's such a shame that the gammon society is upset...
Cheap shot. I don't know much about 'Save Our Statues' but they're making a substantive point that should be addressed.
It isn't open season on statues.
It does show however that juries will use their powers to acquit people if laws are used harshly to suppress legitimate dissent. Indeed that is how the original Penn case came to set the precedent.
Sorry but it strikes me as populist justice. There are plenty of ways people could show 'legitimate dissent' without having to tear the statue down.
No it is a long established principle that juries can refuse to enforce oppressive laws. It is the sort of ancient British custom that supposed patriots dislike.
Well that depends on your definition of oppression. I don't think a law against destroying public monuments qualifies.
I can't help but feel there are a fair number of middle class parents on here with woke(ish) kids who are worried about the idea of Cassia or Tarquin having their collars felt. Surely that must be wrong.
My main concern is with a politicised justice system in which jury members decide to use their position to make a political point. How about a Tommy Robinson type on trial for something but the jury (probably not in Bristol) acquits because although the evidence suggests he's guilty, they're convinced he's a good 'un with the right ideas so doesn't deserve to go down.
Bearing in mind that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon has several convictions, I think the evidence is that juries are happy to convict him.
I find the use of his original name strangely irritating. Is he not allowed to use a different name because you think he is an utter shit? Would you refer to say Elton John as Reg Dwight?
I agree that "Tommy Robinson" is a created character.
Yes, and that is his choice for how he is known, so why do so many like to report him by his original name? Don’t know why it annoys me so much, but it does. Pobably says more about me than anything else...
Okay, following a bit of kick back from my previous comment, may I be blunt?
It's only a fucking statue of some slave trader who died 300 years ago. Nobody was hurt in the bringing down of said statue, no harm done. It's no big deal. Had I been on the jury, I'd have shrugged my shoulders and said 'not guilty', and I don't care whether the perpetrators were middle class or whatever.
One of them clearly isn't middle class. But it has been discerned that obviously isn't her real accent.
Regarding Bristol, there are two very separate issues. One is whether the statue of Colston should be there or not, the other is whether the people that the jury has just acquitted are guilty of criminal damage. I am not sure anyone can contest the second point reasonably.
Apart from the jury of course.
@Northern_Al has liked your post but his musings on the matter are definitely of the 'statue shouldn't be there variety'. Juries can nullify, but you can't argue it's applying the law properly. Any magistrate would have convicted.
You've a right to a jury trial. They found not guilty. I fail to see how that "isn't applying the law properly."
Do you ? I didn't get the option with either my speeding or red light offence.
Depends on the offence. This was triable either way, but I can’t recall if defendants have the right to a jury trial, or if it’s down to the mags to decide.
The people who thought judges were enemies of the people and that activist lawyers are frustrating the noble intentions of HMG will be moving on to the juries. Who's left in the legal system to demonise, court ushers?
It's such a shame that the gammon society is upset...
Cheap shot. I don't know much about 'Save Our Statues' but they're making a substantive point that should be addressed.
It isn't open season on statues.
It does show however that juries will use their powers to acquit people if laws are used harshly to suppress legitimate dissent. Indeed that is how the original Penn case came to set the precedent.
Sorry but it strikes me as populist justice. There are plenty of ways people could show 'legitimate dissent' without having to tear the statue down.
No it is a long established principle that juries can refuse to enforce oppressive laws. It is the sort of ancient British custom that supposed patriots dislike.
Causing criminal damage is an oppressive law?
No but criminalising protest is.
As is planned via the new Police Bill.
That's a separate issue. Although the right to protest doesn't equal the right to cause disruption.
It certainly does include that, although whether it should include the right to block ambulances, say, is a different question.
Okay, following a bit of kick back from my previous comment, may I be blunt?
It's only a fucking statue of some slave trader who died 300 years ago. Nobody was hurt in the bringing down of said statue, no harm done. It's no big deal. Had I been on the jury, I'd have shrugged my shoulders and said 'not guilty', and I don't care whether the perpetrators were middle class or whatever.
One of them clearly isn't middle class. But it has been discerned that obviously isn't her real accent.
Regarding Bristol, there are two very separate issues. One is whether the statue of Colston should be there or not, the other is whether the people that the jury has just acquitted are guilty of criminal damage. I am not sure anyone can contest the second point reasonably.
Apart from the jury of course.
@Northern_Al has liked your post but his musings on the matter are definitely of the 'statue shouldn't be there variety'. Juries can nullify, but you can't argue it's applying the law properly. Any magistrate would have convicted.
You've a right to a jury trial. They found not guilty. I fail to see how that "isn't applying the law properly."
Do you ? I didn't get the option with either my speeding or red light offence.
The people who thought judges were enemies of the people and that activist lawyers are frustrating the noble intentions of HMG will be moving on to the juries. Who's left in the legal system to demonise, court ushers?
It's such a shame that the gammon society is upset...
Cheap shot. I don't know much about 'Save Our Statues' but they're making a substantive point that should be addressed.
It isn't open season on statues.
It does show however that juries will use their powers to acquit people if laws are used harshly to suppress legitimate dissent. Indeed that is how the original Penn case came to set the precedent.
Sorry but it strikes me as populist justice. There are plenty of ways people could show 'legitimate dissent' without having to tear the statue down.
No it is a long established principle that juries can refuse to enforce oppressive laws. It is the sort of ancient British custom that supposed patriots dislike.
Well that depends on your definition of oppression. I don't think a law against destroying public monuments qualifies.
I can't help but feel there are a fair number of middle class parents on here with woke(ish) kids who are worried about the idea of Cassia or Tarquin having their collars felt. Surely that must be wrong.
My main concern is with a politicised justice system in which jury members decide to use their position to make a political point. How about a Tommy Robinson type on trial for something but the jury (probably not in Bristol) acquits because although the evidence suggests he's guilty, they're convinced he's a good 'un with the right ideas so doesn't deserve to go down.
Bearing in mind that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon has several convictions, I think the evidence is that juries are happy to convict him.
I find the use of his original name strangely irritating. Is he not allowed to use a different name because you think he is an utter shit? Would you refer to say Elton John as Reg Dwight?
I agree that "Tommy Robinson" is a created character.
Yes, and that is his choice for how he is known, so why do so many like to report him by his original name? Don’t know why it annoys me so much, but it does. Pobably says more about me than anything else...
Reg Dwight adopted a stage name. Yaxley-Lennon created an alias to draw a veil over his criminal convictions for violence.
Okay, following a bit of kick back from my previous comment, may I be blunt?
It's only a fucking statue of some slave trader who died 300 years ago. Nobody was hurt in the bringing down of said statue, no harm done. It's no big deal. Had I been on the jury, I'd have shrugged my shoulders and said 'not guilty', and I don't care whether the perpetrators were middle class or whatever.
One of them clearly isn't middle class. But it has been discerned that obviously isn't her real accent.
Regarding Bristol, there are two very separate issues. One is whether the statue of Colston should be there or not, the other is whether the people that the jury has just acquitted are guilty of criminal damage. I am not sure anyone can contest the second point reasonably.
Apart from the jury of course.
@Northern_Al has liked your post but his musings on the matter are definitely of the 'statue shouldn't be there variety'. Juries can nullify, but you can't argue it's applying the law properly. Any magistrate would have convicted.
You've a right to a jury trial. They found not guilty. I fail to see how that "isn't applying the law properly."
Do you ? I didn't get the option with either my speeding or red light offence.
Depends on the offence. This was triable either way, but I can’t recall if defendants have the right to a jury trial, or if it’s down to the mags to decide.
AIUI The magistrates don't get to decide triable either way on their own initiative. It's for the prosecution or, in this case, the defence to request it.
The statue was erected in 1895, I'm fairly certain in 1895 we as a nation had decided Slavery was morally repugnent.
Great minds think alike. I just asked that same question, only come to a completely different answers to you 🙂
Whoever put them up Alastair obviously making the political point it’s not morally repugnant. You see what I mean?
In 1895 who are the people putting them up? They are clearly thumbing their noses at someone as they do this? Weren’t the Liberals in 1895 nearly as Republican as Screaming Eagles now is?
The 1890's were a period of rampant, competitive statue building mania across the country. With each town furiously throwing up hideous representations of ever more obscure local "personalities". They really weren't considering why. For some reason these monstrosities are now sacrosanct.
Is that true?
Both the attempt to cover the earth in them. And the No real motivation such as to counter opponents?
The people who thought judges were enemies of the people and that activist lawyers are frustrating the noble intentions of HMG will be moving on to the juries. Who's left in the legal system to demonise, court ushers?
It's such a shame that the gammon society is upset...
Cheap shot. I don't know much about 'Save Our Statues' but they're making a substantive point that should be addressed.
It isn't open season on statues.
It does show however that juries will use their powers to acquit people if laws are used harshly to suppress legitimate dissent. Indeed that is how the original Penn case came to set the precedent.
Sorry but it strikes me as populist justice. There are plenty of ways people could show 'legitimate dissent' without having to tear the statue down.
No it is a long established principle that juries can refuse to enforce oppressive laws. It is the sort of ancient British custom that supposed patriots dislike.
Well that depends on your definition of oppression. I don't think a law against destroying public monuments qualifies.
I can't help but feel there are a fair number of middle class parents on here with woke(ish) kids who are worried about the idea of Cassia or Tarquin having their collars felt. Surely that must be wrong.
My main concern is with a politicised justice system in which jury members decide to use their position to make a political point. How about a Tommy Robinson type on trial for something but the jury (probably not in Bristol) acquits because although the evidence suggests he's guilty, they're convinced he's a good 'un with the right ideas so doesn't deserve to go down.
Bearing in mind that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon has several convictions, I think the evidence is that juries are happy to convict him.
I find the use of his original name strangely irritating. Is he not allowed to use a different name because you think he is an utter shit? Would you refer to say Elton John as Reg Dwight?
I agree that "Tommy Robinson" is a created character.
Yes, and that is his choice for how he is known, so why do so many like to report him by his original name? Don’t know why it annoys me so much, but it does. Pobably says more about me than anything else...
Reg Dwight adopted a stage name. Yaxley-Lennon created an alias to draw a veil over his criminal convictions for violence.
I still think it’s double standards. I think the guy is an absolute bell end. He has a very minor point that political correctness may have played a part in allowing some of the awful child abuses to go on for so long, a point which others have made in better ways. But it’s striking that people refuse to allow him to be identify as the person he wants to be known as, and I think it’s wrong.
I don't know much about the Colston case; but as other people have pointed out it is a feature of jury trials that this type of verdict can happen. I would rather just accept that, than have a 'better' or 'more accurate' system of justice. Generally speaking the obsession with slavery 300 years ago is curious. It is an unfortunate feature of human development and the real story is that Britain took the lead in abolishing it. It is one of the few areas in which human society progressed. The debate about the rights and wrongs of it was finished generations ago. Trying to bring all this back up is just the sign of a society that has no confidence in itself; what it is and what it has achieved; it is just sad.
No, quite specifically, fuck off about that. Why "the real story is that Britain took the lead in abolishing it" rather than "the real story is that Britain took the lead in establishing it"? Do you dispute that Britain shipped more Africans across the Atlantic than anyone except Portugal? Why does shipping 3m slaves suddenly not count because you decide not to ship any more?
Okay, following a bit of kick back from my previous comment, may I be blunt?
It's only a fucking statue of some slave trader who died 300 years ago. Nobody was hurt in the bringing down of said statue, no harm done. It's no big deal. Had I been on the jury, I'd have shrugged my shoulders and said 'not guilty', and I don't care whether the perpetrators were middle class or whatever.
One of them clearly isn't middle class. But it has been discerned that obviously isn't her real accent.
Regarding Bristol, there are two very separate issues. One is whether the statue of Colston should be there or not, the other is whether the people that the jury has just acquitted are guilty of criminal damage. I am not sure anyone can contest the second point reasonably.
Apart from the jury of course.
@Northern_Al has liked your post but his musings on the matter are definitely of the 'statue shouldn't be there variety'. Juries can nullify, but you can't argue it's applying the law properly. Any magistrate would have convicted.
You've a right to a jury trial. They found not guilty. I fail to see how that "isn't applying the law properly."
Do you ? I didn't get the option with either my speeding or red light offence.
Depends on the offence. This was triable either way, but I can’t recall if defendants have the right to a jury trial, or if it’s down to the mags to decide.
AIUI The magistrates don't get to decide triable either way on their own initiative. It's for the prosecution or, in this case, the defence to request it.
Right, so if you want crown court you can have it, but you can’t insist on magistrates if the prosecution want crown court.
The statue was erected in 1895, I'm fairly certain in 1895 we as a nation had decided Slavery was morally repugnent.
Which suggests slavery wasn’t a motivating factor in putting it up.
I like where you are going with this. The politics might have been we are putting this up to score points off our wokish political opponents? The opponents were what - republican, anti Empire, anti capitalism?
The motivating factor in putting it up at the time was the elites of Bristol patting themselves on the back and pushing any discussion of the seedy origins of their wealth outside of the acceptable discourse in the city. A state of affairs that obviously continued for some time.
Do you think that all the statues of Southern generals that were erected in the US during the late C19th / early C20th had nothing whatsoever to do with the history of slavery there either? Are you actually that naïve?
Only if you are naive, because I agree with you on the last point. Isn’t there a statue of a civil war general in the middle of a motorway?
An allegory of the American South: In 1998, a fierce racist (who also happened to be the former attorney of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin) named Jack Kershaw created a monument for another bad man, Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. The resulting statue is so hilariously stupid that we should keep it forever.
It’s an interesting one art is founded upon to an extent. What you see for yourself without knowing anything. Then the knowledge behind it changing what you see.
Wow. That is so beautiful. Yes. It was invented by Satan to lead the human race astray. Oh. Does it now look as beautiful as before?
One hilarious example comes to mind.....
Tony Blair at an exhibition of Aztec items at (I think) the British Museum praised a particular bowl as beautiful example of the art of a vibrant, lost culture.
It was the bowl into which the hearts torn from the sacrificial victims were placed. Thousands upon thousands of victims (lots of slaves, incidentally) murdered in those rituals.
That’s a great example.
And yes this golden horse with Cartoon confederate on back. Yes absolutely. All the knowledge behind its creation tells you it’s malign. But do you get that from observing it, without the knowledge? You could so easily think it a pastiche of the confederates? And a joyful and funny one at that.
What you know definitely changes what you see, any argument with that bit? But should it also change your enjoyment?
For example Screaming Eagles most favourite Soccer Mom movie - can he enjoy just as much when learning its director was a racist, and funding came from brexiteer who gave the most to Brexit campaign?
From loving it, to straight in the bin. How Should knowledge of artists and creatives change your enjoyment of their art?
The statue was erected in 1895, I'm fairly certain in 1895 we as a nation had decided Slavery was morally repugnent.
Which suggests slavery wasn’t a motivating factor in putting it up.
I like where you are going with this. The politics might have been we are putting this up to score points off our wokish political opponents? The opponents were what - republican, anti Empire, anti capitalism?
The motivating factor in putting it up at the time was the elites of Bristol patting themselves on the back and pushing any discussion of the seedy origins of their wealth outside of the acceptable discourse in the city. A state of affairs that obviously continued for some time.
Do you think that all the statues of Southern generals that were erected in the US during the late C19th / early C20th had nothing whatsoever to do with the history of slavery there either? Are you actually that naïve?
Only if you are naive, because I agree with you on the last point. Isn’t there a statue of a civil war general in the middle of a motorway?
An allegory of the American South: In 1998, a fierce racist (who also happened to be the former attorney of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin) named Jack Kershaw created a monument for another bad man, Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. The resulting statue is so hilariously stupid that we should keep it forever.
It’s an interesting one art is founded upon to an extent. What you see for yourself without knowing anything. Then the knowledge behind it changing what you see.
Wow. That is so beautiful. Yes. It was invented by Satan to lead the human race astray. Oh. Does it now look as beautiful as before?
One hilarious example comes to mind.....
Tony Blair at an exhibition of Aztec items at (I think) the British Museum praised a particular bowl as beautiful example of the art of a vibrant, lost culture.
It was the bowl into which the hearts torn from the sacrificial victims were placed. Thousands upon thousands of victims (lots of slaves, incidentally) murdered in those rituals.
That’s a great example.
And yes this golden horse with Cartoon confederate on back. Yes absolutely. All the knowledge behind its creation tells you it’s malign. But do you get that from observing it, without the knowledge? You could so easily think it a pastiche of the confederates? And a joyful and funny one at that.
What you know definitely changes what you see, any argument with that bit? But should it also change your enjoyment?
For example Screaming Eagles most favourite Soccer Mom movie - can he enjoy just as much when learning its director was a racist, and funding came from brexiteer who gave the most to Brexit campaign?
From loving it, to straight in the bin. How Should knowledge of artists and creatives change your enjoyment of their art?
It will be seen that what the defenders of Dali are claiming is a kind of benefit of clergy. The artist is to be exempt from the moral laws that are binding on ordinary people.
EDIT: the provenance of the artwork makes it *better* - a stupid racist tried to honour an evil racist and made himself (the stupid racist) look like an idiot and made the evil racist look like an idiot as well. "Evil doth often evil marr"...
Now for a fun one. This makes me laugh damn hard....
The people who thought judges were enemies of the people and that activist lawyers are frustrating the noble intentions of HMG will be moving on to the juries. Who's left in the legal system to demonise, court ushers?
It's such a shame that the gammon society is upset...
Cheap shot. I don't know much about 'Save Our Statues' but they're making a substantive point that should be addressed.
It isn't open season on statues.
It does show however that juries will use their powers to acquit people if laws are used harshly to suppress legitimate dissent. Indeed that is how the original Penn case came to set the precedent.
Sorry but it strikes me as populist justice. There are plenty of ways people could show 'legitimate dissent' without having to tear the statue down.
No it is a long established principle that juries can refuse to enforce oppressive laws. It is the sort of ancient British custom that supposed patriots dislike.
Well that depends on your definition of oppression. I don't think a law against destroying public monuments qualifies.
I can't help but feel there are a fair number of middle class parents on here with woke(ish) kids who are worried about the idea of Cassia or Tarquin having their collars felt. Surely that must be wrong.
My main concern is with a politicised justice system in which jury members decide to use their position to make a political point. How about a Tommy Robinson type on trial for something but the jury (probably not in Bristol) acquits because although the evidence suggests he's guilty, they're convinced he's a good 'un with the right ideas so doesn't deserve to go down.
Bearing in mind that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon has several convictions, I think the evidence is that juries are happy to convict him.
I find the use of his original name strangely irritating. Is he not allowed to use a different name because you think he is an utter shit? Would you refer to say Elton John as Reg Dwight?
The statue was erected in 1895, I'm fairly certain in 1895 we as a nation had decided Slavery was morally repugnent.
The statue wasn’t erected because of his contribution to slavery, it was his contributions to Bristol. In general most Bristolians of the time would have approved. Now they don’t, and that’s fine. Still shouldn’t get to have a mob decide on whether the statue should stay or go.
It was erected in response to a statue to Edmund Burke, noted critic of slavery, being put up. Its funding came principally from orgs with a long history of whitewashing Colston's slave trading.
That’s a great answer. But where did you get it from? Where is written down it was tit for tat statues across a political divide.
It sounds pretty true to me. But it also means 99% of the statues argument on blogs like this and in politics today in bollocks, getting it completely wrong barking up the wrong tree?
It's the opinion of a faculty member from Bristol University. Good enough for me, I will take it as gospel truth as it aligns with my prejudices (that's right, I'm prejudiced against Slave Traders and people who put up statues to Slave Traders)
What I like about your theory is it shows not just one point of view about statues going up. It’s probably lazy and wrong today say at a particular period of time everyone thought it was okay and happy with it - and contrasts periods of everyone okay with it with bunch of wokists today. Political battle of the statues putting them up in first place seems much more like the true history to me.
I feel inspired to read into late 19thC politics in UK, as it sounds like a proper bun fight on dividing line of proper issues? 📚
The people who thought judges were enemies of the people and that activist lawyers are frustrating the noble intentions of HMG will be moving on to the juries. Who's left in the legal system to demonise, court ushers?
It's such a shame that the gammon society is upset...
Cheap shot. I don't know much about 'Save Our Statues' but they're making a substantive point that should be addressed.
It isn't open season on statues.
It does show however that juries will use their powers to acquit people if laws are used harshly to suppress legitimate dissent. Indeed that is how the original Penn case came to set the precedent.
Sorry but it strikes me as populist justice. There are plenty of ways people could show 'legitimate dissent' without having to tear the statue down.
No it is a long established principle that juries can refuse to enforce oppressive laws. It is the sort of ancient British custom that supposed patriots dislike.
Well that depends on your definition of oppression. I don't think a law against destroying public monuments qualifies.
I can't help but feel there are a fair number of middle class parents on here with woke(ish) kids who are worried about the idea of Cassia or Tarquin having their collars felt. Surely that must be wrong.
My main concern is with a politicised justice system in which jury members decide to use their position to make a political point. How about a Tommy Robinson type on trial for something but the jury (probably not in Bristol) acquits because although the evidence suggests he's guilty, they're convinced he's a good 'un with the right ideas so doesn't deserve to go down.
Bearing in mind that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon has several convictions, I think the evidence is that juries are happy to convict him.
I find the use of his original name strangely irritating. Is he not allowed to use a different name because you think he is an utter shit? Would you refer to say Elton John as Reg Dwight?
I agree that "Tommy Robinson" is a created character.
Yes, and that is his choice for how he is known, so why do so many like to report him by his original name? Don’t know why it annoys me so much, but it does. Pobably says more about me than anything else...
I remember seeing Emily Thornberry on (I think) Question Time, insisting on calling him SY-L, a few months after forcing Johnson to apologise for referring to her as "Lady Nugee" in the Commons.
My take on PMQs is late because I have caught up on it on YouTube because the weather is nice here and I went out for a hike. And I have been into loft of my Dads house. Back in my loungewear now.
Important stuff first. Rayners hair is on a journey. I don’t like it now, but a lob will be great for her. It didn’t look great today from the back for someone using a “brush your hair” attack. I don’t even like it from the front, maybe that is just me as there is zilch about Rayner or her politics I like. But the dress was cool. If we had a lady Primeminister that is exactly the type of dress imo as I would play safe - it’s already easy to stand out in a room of men in their best suits, it doesn’t need extra femininity or anything to go on to distract from what you are saying, your style choice in those situations has to support what you are saying imo. My girlfriend certainly trusts me when I pick things out for her.
Johnson’s hair is on a journey too. It looks awful now. It doesn’t suit his head or face - whoever posted yesterday it makes him look more thuggish is spot on. I think it’s been forced on him by his better haircut ravaged by time. All it will do is associate in minds of voters this is a different Boris Johnson than Love Actually Boris they loved and voted for, which is the last thing he needs.
Boris is in trouble, but I’m not picking this up on PB.com. Just about all 360 degree factions around in the commons called for fuel vat axe to help the “heat or eat” families yet Boris fought back against this £1.5B U turn.
Where do you stand on this Big G and HYUFD? Boris position right or wrong? U turn a nd axe it at such small cost, or continue to have everyone against the position?
I have answered the vat question before
At 5% it is not a great help to the lower paid but it gives a 5% cut to the wealthy
The answer is for the treasury to make a one off payment to the lower paid and those on UC similar to the £300 winter fuel payment given to pensioners over 80
That final statement has a bit of an "I'm on the bus, Conductor ring the bell" sentiment about it.
What about us peasants twenty years your junior?
No sure your point but as a taxpayer and not on pension credits I do not expect to receive any payment towards my much increased energy bills, as that should be generously targeted to the lower paid and those on uc
I misread your point. I assumed you were paying the over 80s, but you were merely suggesting the over 80 winter fuel payment mechanism could pay the recipients.
My mistake. Feel free to off-topic.
Yes indeed, that has been my logic in all this
The 5% vat to the lower paid is insufficient in monetary terms and a scheme similar to the over 80s winter fuel allowance would be sensible and fair
And I would not off topic you (or anyone) anyway
You are right on this one Big G. Just two of you then. You and Boris. Help needs to be targeted at fuel poverty, not in universal cuts.
Up against the two of you, the Tory back benches, every opposition speaker at PMQs, and every newspaper from Mail to Mirror.
There’s the economic case you and Boris are making, and then a political reality of saying no tax cut using Brexit freedom isn’t there?
I think you will find this is more Rishi than Boris and of course it is very much the right thing to do
The fact many politicians and journalists cannot see past the 5% cut is maybe a commentary on how poor their thought processes are
Boris hasn’t helped himself, floating it as a benefit of Brexit and then denying it when it is most needed.
His line at PMQs was bizarre - trying at the same time to have a go at the ‘remainers’ opposite for not wanting the UK to have the ‘freedom’ to remove VAT on fuel whilst - in the same answer - trying to explain why the people of the UK weren’t going to get it removed.
The politics of the impending cost of living crisis is that the government will be pushed towards some fairly significant help for the poor AND some sort of giveaway for all voters. For the latter, knocking away the 5% VAT appears ideal, and I’d say it’s odds-on that the PM has another humiliating u-turn coming his way….
Has BJ set his face against any changes yet - that sounds like an AR talking point - or has he just not made major moves?
There's also a small benefit that if prices suddenly fail to go up by 50-60%, it will take some stuffing out of inflation.
No - we know they are meeting to discuss potential packages now. But they’ll be on the back foot.
Boris previously said this, about Brexit: “We will be able to scrap this unfair and damaging tax” specifically in relation to VAT on fuel. He isn’t going to be allowed to forget it.
Okay, following a bit of kick back from my previous comment, may I be blunt?
It's only a fucking statue of some slave trader who died 300 years ago. Nobody was hurt in the bringing down of said statue, no harm done. It's no big deal. Had I been on the jury, I'd have shrugged my shoulders and said 'not guilty', and I don't care whether the perpetrators were middle class or whatever.
One of them clearly isn't middle class. But it has been discerned that obviously isn't her real accent.
Regarding Bristol, there are two very separate issues. One is whether the statue of Colston should be there or not, the other is whether the people that the jury has just acquitted are guilty of criminal damage. I am not sure anyone can contest the second point reasonably.
Apart from the jury of course.
@Northern_Al has liked your post but his musings on the matter are definitely of the 'statue shouldn't be there variety'. Juries can nullify, but you can't argue it's applying the law properly. Any magistrate would have convicted.
You've a right to a jury trial. They found not guilty. I fail to see how that "isn't applying the law properly."
Do you ? I didn't get the option with either my speeding or red light offence.
Depends on the offence. This was triable either way, but I can’t recall if defendants have the right to a jury trial, or if it’s down to the mags to decide.
AIUI The magistrates don't get to decide triable either way on their own initiative. It's for the prosecution or, in this case, the defence to request it.
Right, so if you want crown court you can have it, but you can’t insist on magistrates if the prosecution want crown court.
The people who thought judges were enemies of the people and that activist lawyers are frustrating the noble intentions of HMG will be moving on to the juries. Who's left in the legal system to demonise, court ushers?
It's such a shame that the gammon society is upset...
Cheap shot. I don't know much about 'Save Our Statues' but they're making a substantive point that should be addressed.
It isn't open season on statues.
It does show however that juries will use their powers to acquit people if laws are used harshly to suppress legitimate dissent. Indeed that is how the original Penn case came to set the precedent.
Sorry but it strikes me as populist justice. There are plenty of ways people could show 'legitimate dissent' without having to tear the statue down.
No it is a long established principle that juries can refuse to enforce oppressive laws. It is the sort of ancient British custom that supposed patriots dislike.
Well that depends on your definition of oppression. I don't think a law against destroying public monuments qualifies.
I can't help but feel there are a fair number of middle class parents on here with woke(ish) kids who are worried about the idea of Cassia or Tarquin having their collars felt. Surely that must be wrong.
My main concern is with a politicised justice system in which jury members decide to use their position to make a political point. How about a Tommy Robinson type on trial for something but the jury (probably not in Bristol) acquits because although the evidence suggests he's guilty, they're convinced he's a good 'un with the right ideas so doesn't deserve to go down.
Bearing in mind that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon has several convictions, I think the evidence is that juries are happy to convict him.
I find the use of his original name strangely irritating. Is he not allowed to use a different name because you think he is an utter shit? Would you refer to say Elton John as Reg Dwight?
The people who thought judges were enemies of the people and that activist lawyers are frustrating the noble intentions of HMG will be moving on to the juries. Who's left in the legal system to demonise, court ushers?
It's such a shame that the gammon society is upset...
Cheap shot. I don't know much about 'Save Our Statues' but they're making a substantive point that should be addressed.
It isn't open season on statues.
It does show however that juries will use their powers to acquit people if laws are used harshly to suppress legitimate dissent. Indeed that is how the original Penn case came to set the precedent.
Sorry but it strikes me as populist justice. There are plenty of ways people could show 'legitimate dissent' without having to tear the statue down.
No it is a long established principle that juries can refuse to enforce oppressive laws. It is the sort of ancient British custom that supposed patriots dislike.
Well that depends on your definition of oppression. I don't think a law against destroying public monuments qualifies.
I can't help but feel there are a fair number of middle class parents on here with woke(ish) kids who are worried about the idea of Cassia or Tarquin having their collars felt. Surely that must be wrong.
My main concern is with a politicised justice system in which jury members decide to use their position to make a political point. How about a Tommy Robinson type on trial for something but the jury (probably not in Bristol) acquits because although the evidence suggests he's guilty, they're convinced he's a good 'un with the right ideas so doesn't deserve to go down.
Bearing in mind that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon has several convictions, I think the evidence is that juries are happy to convict him.
I find the use of his original name strangely irritating. Is he not allowed to use a different name because you think he is an utter shit? Would you refer to say Elton John as Reg Dwight?
Isn’t Elton John his real name?
I wonder what his friends call him. Bit like Jim Moir/Vic Reeves. (Definitely a Jim in that case).
The people who thought judges were enemies of the people and that activist lawyers are frustrating the noble intentions of HMG will be moving on to the juries. Who's left in the legal system to demonise, court ushers?
It's such a shame that the gammon society is upset...
Cheap shot. I don't know much about 'Save Our Statues' but they're making a substantive point that should be addressed.
It isn't open season on statues.
It does show however that juries will use their powers to acquit people if laws are used harshly to suppress legitimate dissent. Indeed that is how the original Penn case came to set the precedent.
Sorry but it strikes me as populist justice. There are plenty of ways people could show 'legitimate dissent' without having to tear the statue down.
No it is a long established principle that juries can refuse to enforce oppressive laws. It is the sort of ancient British custom that supposed patriots dislike.
Causing criminal damage is an oppressive law?
No but criminalising protest is.
As is planned via the new Police Bill.
That's a separate issue. Although the right to protest doesn't equal the right to cause disruption.
It certainly does include that, although whether it should include the right to block ambulances, say, is a different question.
Do you mean destruction?
I do mean disruption. I really don't understand our laws here. I find it bizarre that it was necessary to take out an injunction against Insulate Britain. Could they not be prosecuted under existing laws for blocking the roads?
Is there a law under which jurors can be prosecuted for being a bunch of knobheads?
The joy of the jury system is that the jury can acquit for whatever reason they like.
You could flip that the opposite way and that they can convict for any reason they like.
It’s not for juries to be setting laws. That’s why we have elections.
Who should be deciding if people have broken the law, if not a jury of the accused's peers?
Juries will occasionally acquit for reasons we find incomprehensible.
That's a feature, not a bug.
People who know what the law is, and have much better than average education and intelligence. What is this shit about "peers"? Who should be the judge of whether I have, let's say, MS? A specialist surgeon or 12 random wankers?
How we all cheered when good old Fred was acquitted in 1993.
Okay, following a bit of kick back from my previous comment, may I be blunt?
It's only a fucking statue of some slave trader who died 300 years ago. Nobody was hurt in the bringing down of said statue, no harm done. It's no big deal. Had I been on the jury, I'd have shrugged my shoulders and said 'not guilty', and I don't care whether the perpetrators were middle class or whatever.
One of them clearly isn't middle class. But it has been discerned that obviously isn't her real accent.
Regarding Bristol, there are two very separate issues. One is whether the statue of Colston should be there or not, the other is whether the people that the jury has just acquitted are guilty of criminal damage. I am not sure anyone can contest the second point reasonably.
Apart from the jury of course.
@Northern_Al has liked your post but his musings on the matter are definitely of the 'statue shouldn't be there variety'. Juries can nullify, but you can't argue it's applying the law properly. Any magistrate would have convicted.
You've a right to a jury trial. They found not guilty. I fail to see how that "isn't applying the law properly."
Do you ? I didn't get the option with either my speeding or red light offence.
You should have, for example, have caused serious injury by dangerous driving.
That would have got you your day with a jury.
And perhaps a few months behind bars with Fingers and the Ice Man.
The people who thought judges were enemies of the people and that activist lawyers are frustrating the noble intentions of HMG will be moving on to the juries. Who's left in the legal system to demonise, court ushers?
It's such a shame that the gammon society is upset...
Cheap shot. I don't know much about 'Save Our Statues' but they're making a substantive point that should be addressed.
It isn't open season on statues.
It does show however that juries will use their powers to acquit people if laws are used harshly to suppress legitimate dissent. Indeed that is how the original Penn case came to set the precedent.
Sorry but it strikes me as populist justice. There are plenty of ways people could show 'legitimate dissent' without having to tear the statue down.
No it is a long established principle that juries can refuse to enforce oppressive laws. It is the sort of ancient British custom that supposed patriots dislike.
Well that depends on your definition of oppression. I don't think a law against destroying public monuments qualifies.
I can't help but feel there are a fair number of middle class parents on here with woke(ish) kids who are worried about the idea of Cassia or Tarquin having their collars felt. Surely that must be wrong.
My main concern is with a politicised justice system in which jury members decide to use their position to make a political point. How about a Tommy Robinson type on trial for something but the jury (probably not in Bristol) acquits because although the evidence suggests he's guilty, they're convinced he's a good 'un with the right ideas so doesn't deserve to go down.
Bearing in mind that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon has several convictions, I think the evidence is that juries are happy to convict him.
I find the use of his original name strangely irritating. Is he not allowed to use a different name because you think he is an utter shit? Would you refer to say Elton John as Reg Dwight?
Is there a law under which jurors can be prosecuted for being a bunch of knobheads?
The joy of the jury system is that the jury can acquit for whatever reason they like.
You could flip that the opposite way and that they can convict for any reason they like.
It’s not for juries to be setting laws. That’s why we have elections.
Who should be deciding if people have broken the law, if not a jury of the accused's peers?
Juries will occasionally acquit for reasons we find incomprehensible.
That's a feature, not a bug.
People who know what the law is, and have much better than average education and intelligence. What is this shit about "peers"? Who should be the judge of whether I have, let's say, MS? A specialist surgeon or 12 random wankers?
How we all cheered when good old Fred was acquitted in 1993.
But that wasn't the jury. His victims were too frightened to testify against him in court. As they were on a previous occasion in the 1970s.
Okay, following a bit of kick back from my previous comment, may I be blunt?
It's only a fucking statue of some slave trader who died 300 years ago. Nobody was hurt in the bringing down of said statue, no harm done. It's no big deal. Had I been on the jury, I'd have shrugged my shoulders and said 'not guilty', and I don't care whether the perpetrators were middle class or whatever.
One of them clearly isn't middle class. But it has been discerned that obviously isn't her real accent.
Regarding Bristol, there are two very separate issues. One is whether the statue of Colston should be there or not, the other is whether the people that the jury has just acquitted are guilty of criminal damage. I am not sure anyone can contest the second point reasonably.
Apart from the jury of course.
@Northern_Al has liked your post but his musings on the matter are definitely of the 'statue shouldn't be there variety'. Juries can nullify, but you can't argue it's applying the law properly. Any magistrate would have convicted.
You've a right to a jury trial. They found not guilty. I fail to see how that "isn't applying the law properly."
Do you ? I didn't get the option with either my speeding or red light offence.
Depends on the offence. This was triable either way, but I can’t recall if defendants have the right to a jury trial, or if it’s down to the mags to decide.
AIUI The magistrates don't get to decide triable either way on their own initiative. It's for the prosecution or, in this case, the defence to request it.
My recollection is that you can require a jury trial if the potential penalties are serious, e.g. jail. You can't usually demand a jury trial for speeding. Escalating to jury trial has its risks since a magistrate can only impose limited penalties, a Crowd Court significantly more.
I also feel slightly uneasy about the effective introduction of a concept of "justifiable destruction", but that sort of thing is all over the criminal law; you can even be acquitted of murder if you had been subjected to lengthy and unendurable abuse - the phrase "no jury will convict you for that" is familiar. Colson's company's crimes sound utterly vile, from branding of children to organised rape, and the removal of the statue therefore sounds long overdue. I doubt if prosecution was in the public interest in this case.
Is there a law under which jurors can be prosecuted for being a bunch of knobheads?
The joy of the jury system is that the jury can acquit for whatever reason they like.
You could flip that the opposite way and that they can convict for any reason they like.
It’s not for juries to be setting laws. That’s why we have elections.
Not so simple. Juries can indeed acquit for whatever reason they like, and don't ever give a reason. And it is generally against the law to try to find out.
But they can't just convict any old how. There is a double safety net. To get to a jury decision there has to be evidence upon which a properly directed jury can properly convict. If there isn't the judge chucks it out on application at the close of the prosecution case.
Secondly a conviction can be appealed. An acquittal can't. (Unless very exceptionally compelling new facts arise).
Is this not all simply around the idea that in our system Juries get to decide? And we accept that juries occasionally taking it upon themselves to make exceptionally good or exceptionally perverse decisions is a price we pay for not having Officials make the decisions.
The people who thought judges were enemies of the people and that activist lawyers are frustrating the noble intentions of HMG will be moving on to the juries. Who's left in the legal system to demonise, court ushers?
It's such a shame that the gammon society is upset...
Cheap shot. I don't know much about 'Save Our Statues' but they're making a substantive point that should be addressed.
It isn't open season on statues.
It does show however that juries will use their powers to acquit people if laws are used harshly to suppress legitimate dissent. Indeed that is how the original Penn case came to set the precedent.
Sorry but it strikes me as populist justice. There are plenty of ways people could show 'legitimate dissent' without having to tear the statue down.
No it is a long established principle that juries can refuse to enforce oppressive laws. It is the sort of ancient British custom that supposed patriots dislike.
Causing criminal damage is an oppressive law?
No but criminalising protest is.
As is planned via the new Police Bill.
That's a separate issue. Although the right to protest doesn't equal the right to cause disruption.
It certainly does include that, although whether it should include the right to block ambulances, say, is a different question.
Do you mean destruction?
I do mean disruption. I really don't understand our laws here. I find it bizarre that it was necessary to take out an injunction against Insulate Britain. Could they not be prosecuted under existing laws for blocking the roads?
I don't think somebody sitting on the road counts as an obstruction under the law.
Is there a law under which jurors can be prosecuted for being a bunch of knobheads?
The joy of the jury system is that the jury can acquit for whatever reason they like.
You could flip that the opposite way and that they can convict for any reason they like.
It’s not for juries to be setting laws. That’s why we have elections.
Not so simple. Juries can indeed acquit for whatever reason they like, and don't ever give a reason. And it is generally against the law to try to find out.
But they can't just convict any old how. There is a double safety net. To get to a jury decision there has to be evidence upon which a properly directed jury can properly convict. If there isn't the judge chucks it out on application at the close of the prosecution case.
Secondly a conviction can be appealed. An acquittal can't. (Unless very exceptionally compelling new facts arise).
Is this not all simply around the idea that in our system Juries get to decide? And we accept that juries occasionally taking it upon themselves to make exceptionally good or exceptionally perverse decisions is a price we pay for not having Officials make the decisions.
Certainly you are right that there is no fail safe method, and the failings of one have to be weighted against the potential failings of the alternative.
The statue was erected in 1895, I'm fairly certain in 1895 we as a nation had decided Slavery was morally repugnent.
The statue wasn’t erected because of his contribution to slavery, it was his contributions to Bristol. In general most Bristolians of the time would have approved. Now they don’t, and that’s fine. Still shouldn’t get to have a mob decide on whether the statue should stay or go.
It was erected in response to a statue to Edmund Burke, noted critic of slavery, being put up. Its funding came principally from orgs with a long history of whitewashing Colston's slave trading.
So, stick all this on a sign below the statue and use it as a lesson in history.
The past is another country etc etc...
People tried to get historical context added to the statue for years but, would you believe it, Colston linked groups like the Society of Merchant Venturers repeatedly interfered and blocked the addition of such a thing.
Actually, they were willing to put it on, but they and Marvin Rees (who had wanted the statue taken down for years) couldn't agree on the wording.
Or to be exact, Rees would not agree to any wording that they put forward that didn't say something along the lines of 'Anyone who thinks this statue should stay up should be shot dead and are a bunch of Nazis.'*
Personally I hold no brief for Colston but there were plenty of Bristolians including a very large number of non-white ones who wanted that statue left up, and I'm sure I'm not the only person who finds it deeply uncomfortable that a bunch of self-righteous, not very bright, rich predominantly white anarchists from elsewhere not only disagree using violence but get away with it.
As for Rees, he's the one who obsesses about statues to hide the fact that Bristol's schools are now even more shit than when I worked in them a decade ago.
*OK, I exaggerate slightly. The Merchant Venturers wanted it just to say baldly that he made money from slaving, Rees wanted to say more about the numbers and the harm.
I alwasy like to think the statue protestors got the idea of vandalising it from Councillor Richard Eddy who thought wording of the proposed 2nd plaque so incendiary he thought if someone ‘unilaterally removing’ it ‘might be justified’.
It would have read “As a high official of the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, Edward Colston played an active role in the enslavement of over 84,000 Africans (including 12,000 children) of whom over 19,000 died en route to the Caribbean and America.
“Colston also invested in the Spanish slave trade and in slave-produced sugar. As Tory MP for Bristol (1710-1713), he defended the city’s ‘right’ to trade in enslaved Africans.
“Bristolians who did not subscribe to his religious and political beliefs were not permitted to benefit from his charities,”
The statue was erected in 1895, I'm fairly certain in 1895 we as a nation had decided Slavery was morally repugnent.
Great minds think alike. I just asked that same question, only come to a completely different answers to you 🙂
Whoever put them up Alastair obviously making the political point it’s not morally repugnant. You see what I mean?
In 1895 who are the people putting them up? They are clearly thumbing their noses at someone as they do this? Weren’t the Liberals in 1895 nearly as Republican as Screaming Eagles now is?
The 1890's were a period of rampant, competitive statue building mania across the country. With each town furiously throwing up hideous representations of ever more obscure local "personalities". They really weren't considering why. For some reason these monstrosities are now sacrosanct.
Is that true?
Both the attempt to cover the earth in them. And the No real motivation such as to counter opponents?
The Colston statue was put up decades after his death, at the height of the Victorian 'culture wars' with J S Mill on one side and Dickens and Carlyle on the other - there was doubtless an element of antagonism and provocation in its (ahem) erection.
On the other hand, in its favour, it's quite a nice statue.
It shouldn't have come down. It should have been joined by something that gave it its proper context. We should be a generation that adds to the discussion, not one that tears down public art because we're too weak-minded and pathetic to tolerate the sight of something we disagree with.
I don't know much about the Colston case; but as other people have pointed out it is a feature of jury trials that this type of verdict can happen. I would rather just accept that, than have a 'better' or 'more accurate' system of justice. Generally speaking the obsession with slavery 300 years ago is curious. It is an unfortunate feature of human development and the real story is that Britain took the lead in abolishing it. It is one of the few areas in which human society progressed. The debate about the rights and wrongs of it was finished generations ago. Trying to bring all this back up is just the sign of a society that has no confidence in itself; what it is and what it has achieved; it is just sad.
No, quite specifically, fuck off about that. Why "the real story is that Britain took the lead in abolishing it" rather than "the real story is that Britain took the lead in establishing it"? Do you dispute that Britain shipped more Africans across the Atlantic than anyone except Portugal? Why does shipping 3m slaves suddenly not count because you decide not to ship any more?
Are you seriously suggesting that Britain invented slavery?
Is there a law under which jurors can be prosecuted for being a bunch of knobheads?
The joy of the jury system is that the jury can acquit for whatever reason they like.
You could flip that the opposite way and that they can convict for any reason they like.
It’s not for juries to be setting laws. That’s why we have elections.
Not so simple. Juries can indeed acquit for whatever reason they like, and don't ever give a reason. And it is generally against the law to try to find out.
But they can't just convict any old how. There is a double safety net. To get to a jury decision there has to be evidence upon which a properly directed jury can properly convict. If there isn't the judge chucks it out on application at the close of the prosecution case.
Secondly a conviction can be appealed. An acquittal can't. (Unless very exceptionally compelling new facts arise).
Is this not all simply around the idea that in our system Juries get to decide? And we accept that juries occasionally taking it upon themselves to make exceptionally good or exceptionally perverse decisions is a price we pay for not having Officials make the decisions.
Juries are a bit like democracy. Loopy, weird, and coming to the wrong decisions all the time... yet the alternatives are worse.
And it is interesting how the history of juries being free to come to a verdict of their choosing is intertwined with democracy - all the way back to the first mentions of democracy in the ancient world.
The people who thought judges were enemies of the people and that activist lawyers are frustrating the noble intentions of HMG will be moving on to the juries. Who's left in the legal system to demonise, court ushers?
It's such a shame that the gammon society is upset...
Cheap shot. I don't know much about 'Save Our Statues' but they're making a substantive point that should be addressed.
It isn't open season on statues.
It does show however that juries will use their powers to acquit people if laws are used harshly to suppress legitimate dissent. Indeed that is how the original Penn case came to set the precedent.
Sorry but it strikes me as populist justice. There are plenty of ways people could show 'legitimate dissent' without having to tear the statue down.
No it is a long established principle that juries can refuse to enforce oppressive laws. It is the sort of ancient British custom that supposed patriots dislike.
Well that depends on your definition of oppression. I don't think a law against destroying public monuments qualifies.
I can't help but feel there are a fair number of middle class parents on here with woke(ish) kids who are worried about the idea of Cassia or Tarquin having their collars felt. Surely that must be wrong.
My main concern is with a politicised justice system in which jury members decide to use their position to make a political point. How about a Tommy Robinson type on trial for something but the jury (probably not in Bristol) acquits because although the evidence suggests he's guilty, they're convinced he's a good 'un with the right ideas so doesn't deserve to go down.
Bearing in mind that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon has several convictions, I think the evidence is that juries are happy to convict him.
I find the use of his original name strangely irritating. Is he not allowed to use a different name because you think he is an utter shit? Would you refer to say Elton John as Reg Dwight?
Isn’t Elton John his real name?
I wonder what his friends call him. Bit like Jim Moir/Vic Reeves. (Definitely a Jim in that case).
The statue was erected in 1895, I'm fairly certain in 1895 we as a nation had decided Slavery was morally repugnent.
Great minds think alike. I just asked that same question, only come to a completely different answers to you 🙂
Whoever put them up Alastair obviously making the political point it’s not morally repugnant. You see what I mean?
In 1895 who are the people putting them up? They are clearly thumbing their noses at someone as they do this? Weren’t the Liberals in 1895 nearly as Republican as Screaming Eagles now is?
The 1890's were a period of rampant, competitive statue building mania across the country. With each town furiously throwing up hideous representations of ever more obscure local "personalities". They really weren't considering why. For some reason these monstrosities are now sacrosanct.
Is that true?
Both the attempt to cover the earth in them. And the No real motivation such as to counter opponents?
1870-1914 is generally held to be the period of "statue mania". It is when various groups wanting to make a political point raised money to put a statue up. Often for long forgotten reasons. Sometimes not. There are so many of Columbus in the USA, because new Italian immigrants wanted to be included in the history of "white" America. Even though he never set foot there. They weren't really thought of as white back then. Often though they were put up because the neighbouring town had one. I dislike them as a rule. Most are of little artistic value, nor much relevance to today.
Bristol is probably where you'd want to be tried if you were a lefty vegan knitting statue botherer.
Indeed, every Bristol seat was won by Corbyn Labour even in 2019. The jury verdict was always likely to favour the protestors.
Though at least the statue is still in a museum even if probably rightly no longer on public display
Mrs Thatcher almost won all 4 seats in 1987.
Mirrors the national trend. Cities have moved more to Labour since the 1980s, Northern and Midlands ex mining and industrial areas have moved more to the Conservatives
Why?
Are you saying the people there change views, or the demographic itself changed? Like children of miners now live in conorbations not their area of birth? Like me! Last 40 years have made a big movement around?
If we had babies there is no family for nearly hundred miles who could help.
I might just get a pet to piss off the pope. Is that the right Anglican thing to do HY?
And we wonder why Catholics are outbreeding Protestants in Northern Ireland...
You mean Roman Catholics, I presume. As an Anglican you are just as much a Catholic as a RC. Unless you know something about Church of Ireland Episcopalians we don't.
*edit* checked: yes, Episcopalians are Catholic too. So scratch that last.
No we are not as the Head of our Church on earth is not the Pope.
There are also plenty of Protestant evangelicals too who would not consider themselves Catholic in any sense
I rather think the chaps at the C of E know better:
"The Church claims to be both Catholic and Reformed. It upholds teachings found in early Christian doctrines, such as the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed. The Church also reveres 16th century Protestant Reformation ideas outlined in texts, such as the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer."
And their Irish colleagues:
"1. Is the Church of Ireland Protestant or Catholic?
It is both Protestant and Catholic. For this reason it is incorrect to refer to members of the Church of Ireland as ‘non–Catholic’.
The terms Protestant and Catholic are not really opposites.
There are Catholics who accept the universal jurisdiction of the Pope, the Bishop of Rome. Often in consequence they are called Roman Catholics. But there are other Catholics who do not accept the Pope’s jurisdiction or certain doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. Some are called Protestant or Reformed Catholics. Among them are members of the Church of Ireland and the other Churches of the Anglican Communion.
It follows therefore that the terms ‘Protestant’ and ‘Reformed’ should be contrasted with ‘Roman’ and not with ‘Catholic’.
The Church of Ireland is Catholic because it is in possession of a continuous tradition of faith and practice, based on Scripture and early traditions, enshrined in the Catholic Creeds, together with the sacraments and apostolic ministry. "
Yet it is still not fully Catholic as the Pope is not its Head. Evangelicals, as opposed to Anglo Catholics and most liberals within even the Anglican Church would not consider themselves Catholic in any sense.
Protestant evangelical Pentecostals, Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans etc would also not consider themselves Catholic in any sense
You are confusing Catholicism in general with the specific kind mediated through the Roman Papacy. I'm sure the nice chap in Lambeth Palace can explain it all to you.
Allegedly mediated through the Roman Papacy
(I may not be helping here)
They would consider themselves catholic, but probably using a different word, and not Catholic.
The statue was erected in 1895, I'm fairly certain in 1895 we as a nation had decided Slavery was morally repugnent.
Great minds think alike. I just asked that same question, only come to a completely different answers to you 🙂
Whoever put them up Alastair obviously making the political point it’s not morally repugnant. You see what I mean?
In 1895 who are the people putting them up? They are clearly thumbing their noses at someone as they do this? Weren’t the Liberals in 1895 nearly as Republican as Screaming Eagles now is?
The 1890's were a period of rampant, competitive statue building mania across the country. With each town furiously throwing up hideous representations of ever more obscure local "personalities". They really weren't considering why. For some reason these monstrosities are now sacrosanct.
Is that true?
Both the attempt to cover the earth in them. And the No real motivation such as to counter opponents?
The Colston statue was put up decades after his death, at the height of the Victorian 'culture wars' with J S Mill on one side and Dickens and Carlyle on the other - there was doubtless an element of antagonism and provocation in its (ahem) erection.
On the other hand, in its favour, it's quite a nice statue.
It shouldn't have come down. It should have been joined by something that gave it its proper context. We should be a generation that adds to the discussion, not one that tears down public art because we're too weak-minded and pathetic to tolerate the sight of something we disagree with.
Though actually there is a long and interesting history of statues (and their removal) as countries including our own reappraise events of the past.
Indeed the jury today acquitted, but there is no guarantee that any other group of iconoclasts would be granted the same. It is a beautifully precise verdict.
The people who thought judges were enemies of the people and that activist lawyers are frustrating the noble intentions of HMG will be moving on to the juries. Who's left in the legal system to demonise, court ushers?
It's such a shame that the gammon society is upset...
Cheap shot. I don't know much about 'Save Our Statues' but they're making a substantive point that should be addressed.
It isn't open season on statues.
It does show however that juries will use their powers to acquit people if laws are used harshly to suppress legitimate dissent. Indeed that is how the original Penn case came to set the precedent.
Sorry but it strikes me as populist justice. There are plenty of ways people could show 'legitimate dissent' without having to tear the statue down.
No it is a long established principle that juries can refuse to enforce oppressive laws. It is the sort of ancient British custom that supposed patriots dislike.
Causing criminal damage is an oppressive law?
No but criminalising protest is.
As is planned via the new Police Bill.
That's a separate issue. Although the right to protest doesn't equal the right to cause disruption.
It certainly does include that, although whether it should include the right to block ambulances, say, is a different question.
Do you mean destruction?
I do mean disruption. I really don't understand our laws here. I find it bizarre that it was necessary to take out an injunction against Insulate Britain. Could they not be prosecuted under existing laws for blocking the roads?
I don't think somebody sitting on the road counts as an obstruction under the law.
I don't know much about the Colston case; but as other people have pointed out it is a feature of jury trials that this type of verdict can happen. I would rather just accept that, than have a 'better' or 'more accurate' system of justice. Generally speaking the obsession with slavery 300 years ago is curious. It is an unfortunate feature of human development and the real story is that Britain took the lead in abolishing it. It is one of the few areas in which human society progressed. The debate about the rights and wrongs of it was finished generations ago. Trying to bring all this back up is just the sign of a society that has no confidence in itself; what it is and what it has achieved; it is just sad.
No, quite specifically, fuck off about that. Why "the real story is that Britain took the lead in abolishing it" rather than "the real story is that Britain took the lead in establishing it"? Do you dispute that Britain shipped more Africans across the Atlantic than anyone except Portugal? Why does shipping 3m slaves suddenly not count because you decide not to ship any more?
Are you seriously suggesting that Britain invented slavery?
What a fucking stupid question. Are you seriously suggesting that Britain invented oppositon to slavery?
The statue was erected in 1895, I'm fairly certain in 1895 we as a nation had decided Slavery was morally repugnent.
Great minds think alike. I just asked that same question, only come to a completely different answers to you 🙂
Whoever put them up Alastair obviously making the political point it’s not morally repugnant. You see what I mean?
In 1895 who are the people putting them up? They are clearly thumbing their noses at someone as they do this? Weren’t the Liberals in 1895 nearly as Republican as Screaming Eagles now is?
The 1890's were a period of rampant, competitive statue building mania across the country. With each town furiously throwing up hideous representations of ever more obscure local "personalities". They really weren't considering why. For some reason these monstrosities are now sacrosanct.
Is that true?
Both the attempt to cover the earth in them. And the No real motivation such as to counter opponents?
1870-1914 is generally held to be the period of "statue mania". It is when various groups wanting to make a political point raised money to put a statue up. Often for long forgotten reasons. Sometimes not. There are so many of Columbus in the USA, because new Italian immigrants wanted to be included in the history of "white" America. Even though he never set foot there. They weren't really thought of as white back then. Often though they were put up because the neighbouring town had one. I dislike them as a rule. Most are of little artistic value, nor much relevance to today.
Beacon Park in Lichfield is full of them, including Captain Smith of the Titanic.
To be honest, they aren't terribly noteworthy, they just fade into the background. Or at least, they do for me. Maybe others notice them more.
Okay, following a bit of kick back from my previous comment, may I be blunt?
It's only a fucking statue of some slave trader who died 300 years ago. Nobody was hurt in the bringing down of said statue, no harm done. It's no big deal. Had I been on the jury, I'd have shrugged my shoulders and said 'not guilty', and I don't care whether the perpetrators were middle class or whatever.
One of them clearly isn't middle class. But it has been discerned that obviously isn't her real accent.
Regarding Bristol, there are two very separate issues. One is whether the statue of Colston should be there or not, the other is whether the people that the jury has just acquitted are guilty of criminal damage. I am not sure anyone can contest the second point reasonably.
Apart from the jury of course.
@Northern_Al has liked your post but his musings on the matter are definitely of the 'statue shouldn't be there variety'. Juries can nullify, but you can't argue it's applying the law properly. Any magistrate would have convicted.
You've a right to a jury trial. They found not guilty. I fail to see how that "isn't applying the law properly."
Do you ? I didn't get the option with either my speeding or red light offence.
Depends on the offence. This was triable either way, but I can’t recall if defendants have the right to a jury trial, or if it’s down to the mags to decide.
AIUI The magistrates don't get to decide triable either way on their own initiative. It's for the prosecution or, in this case, the defence to request it.
Right, so if you want crown court you can have it, but you can’t insist on magistrates if the prosecution want crown court.
No. Because magistrates can only give 6 months. All murderers would insist on it otherwise.
The people who thought judges were enemies of the people and that activist lawyers are frustrating the noble intentions of HMG will be moving on to the juries. Who's left in the legal system to demonise, court ushers?
It's such a shame that the gammon society is upset...
Cheap shot. I don't know much about 'Save Our Statues' but they're making a substantive point that should be addressed.
It isn't open season on statues.
It does show however that juries will use their powers to acquit people if laws are used harshly to suppress legitimate dissent. Indeed that is how the original Penn case came to set the precedent.
Sorry but it strikes me as populist justice. There are plenty of ways people could show 'legitimate dissent' without having to tear the statue down.
No it is a long established principle that juries can refuse to enforce oppressive laws. It is the sort of ancient British custom that supposed patriots dislike.
Well that depends on your definition of oppression. I don't think a law against destroying public monuments qualifies.
I can't help but feel there are a fair number of middle class parents on here with woke(ish) kids who are worried about the idea of Cassia or Tarquin having their collars felt. Surely that must be wrong.
My main concern is with a politicised justice system in which jury members decide to use their position to make a political point. How about a Tommy Robinson type on trial for something but the jury (probably not in Bristol) acquits because although the evidence suggests he's guilty, they're convinced he's a good 'un with the right ideas so doesn't deserve to go down.
Bearing in mind that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon has several convictions, I think the evidence is that juries are happy to convict him.
I find the use of his original name strangely irritating. Is he not allowed to use a different name because you think he is an utter shit? Would you refer to say Elton John as Reg Dwight?
Isn’t Elton John his real name?
I wonder what his friends call him. Bit like Jim Moir/Vic Reeves. (Definitely a Jim in that case).
😲
Not another one. I didn’t know that either.
Pretty sure I heard a tale of Tom Baker introducing Jim Moir to ‘Run, sodomy and the lash’ (about the Nelsonian navy) and Tom saying something like ‘Jim, you have to read this’. First time I realised he wasn’t called Vic Reeves.
I don't know much about the Colston case; but as other people have pointed out it is a feature of jury trials that this type of verdict can happen. I would rather just accept that, than have a 'better' or 'more accurate' system of justice. Generally speaking the obsession with slavery 300 years ago is curious. It is an unfortunate feature of human development and the real story is that Britain took the lead in abolishing it. It is one of the few areas in which human society progressed. The debate about the rights and wrongs of it was finished generations ago. Trying to bring all this back up is just the sign of a society that has no confidence in itself; what it is and what it has achieved; it is just sad.
No, quite specifically, fuck off about that. Why "the real story is that Britain took the lead in abolishing it" rather than "the real story is that Britain took the lead in establishing it"? Do you dispute that Britain shipped more Africans across the Atlantic than anyone except Portugal? Why does shipping 3m slaves suddenly not count because you decide not to ship any more?
Are you seriously suggesting that Britain invented slavery?
What a fucking stupid question. Are you seriously suggesting that Britain invented oppositon to slavery?
The people who thought judges were enemies of the people and that activist lawyers are frustrating the noble intentions of HMG will be moving on to the juries. Who's left in the legal system to demonise, court ushers?
It's such a shame that the gammon society is upset...
Cheap shot. I don't know much about 'Save Our Statues' but they're making a substantive point that should be addressed.
It isn't open season on statues.
It does show however that juries will use their powers to acquit people if laws are used harshly to suppress legitimate dissent. Indeed that is how the original Penn case came to set the precedent.
Sorry but it strikes me as populist justice. There are plenty of ways people could show 'legitimate dissent' without having to tear the statue down.
No it is a long established principle that juries can refuse to enforce oppressive laws. It is the sort of ancient British custom that supposed patriots dislike.
Causing criminal damage is an oppressive law?
No but criminalising protest is.
As is planned via the new Police Bill.
That's a separate issue. Although the right to protest doesn't equal the right to cause disruption.
It certainly does include that, although whether it should include the right to block ambulances, say, is a different question.
Do you mean destruction?
I do mean disruption. I really don't understand our laws here. I find it bizarre that it was necessary to take out an injunction against Insulate Britain. Could they not be prosecuted under existing laws for blocking the roads?
I don't think somebody sitting on the road counts as an obstruction under the law.
That seems to imply physical objects rather than a person.
After all, you have a right to be on the road.
What about intent?
Well, since they don't seem to have been arrested under it I'm assuming there is case law somewhere that says individual rather than physical barriers are not covered by this act. Or alternatively, several people acting together don't count as an obstruction because one of them wouldn't on their own be an obstruction.
But I am no lawyer and there may be other reasons.
Does anyone have any rough idea when gas wholesale prices may restabilise at a lower level?
Are we talking eg 3, 6, 12, 24 or 48 months?
Find some futures prices.
(It is very important to understand that futures prices are all about interest rates and borrowing costs though. However all of these things will get dragged towards future expectations if there's sufficient confidence in those expectations.)
Okay, following a bit of kick back from my previous comment, may I be blunt?
It's only a fucking statue of some slave trader who died 300 years ago. Nobody was hurt in the bringing down of said statue, no harm done. It's no big deal. Had I been on the jury, I'd have shrugged my shoulders and said 'not guilty', and I don't care whether the perpetrators were middle class or whatever.
One of them clearly isn't middle class. But it has been discerned that obviously isn't her real accent.
Regarding Bristol, there are two very separate issues. One is whether the statue of Colston should be there or not, the other is whether the people that the jury has just acquitted are guilty of criminal damage. I am not sure anyone can contest the second point reasonably.
Apart from the jury of course.
@Northern_Al has liked your post but his musings on the matter are definitely of the 'statue shouldn't be there variety'. Juries can nullify, but you can't argue it's applying the law properly. Any magistrate would have convicted.
You've a right to a jury trial. They found not guilty. I fail to see how that "isn't applying the law properly."
Do you ? I didn't get the option with either my speeding or red light offence.
Depends on the offence. This was triable either way, but I can’t recall if defendants have the right to a jury trial, or if it’s down to the mags to decide.
AIUI The magistrates don't get to decide triable either way on their own initiative. It's for the prosecution or, in this case, the defence to request it.
Right, so if you want crown court you can have it, but you can’t insist on magistrates if the prosecution want crown court.
No. Because magistrates can only give 6 months. All murderers would insist on it otherwise.
Well, murder isn’t triable either way, so not relevant to this discussion.
I don't know much about the Colston case; but as other people have pointed out it is a feature of jury trials that this type of verdict can happen. I would rather just accept that, than have a 'better' or 'more accurate' system of justice. Generally speaking the obsession with slavery 300 years ago is curious. It is an unfortunate feature of human development and the real story is that Britain took the lead in abolishing it. It is one of the few areas in which human society progressed. The debate about the rights and wrongs of it was finished generations ago. Trying to bring all this back up is just the sign of a society that has no confidence in itself; what it is and what it has achieved; it is just sad.
No, quite specifically, fuck off about that. Why "the real story is that Britain took the lead in abolishing it" rather than "the real story is that Britain took the lead in establishing it"? Do you dispute that Britain shipped more Africans across the Atlantic than anyone except Portugal? Why does shipping 3m slaves suddenly not count because you decide not to ship any more?
Are you seriously suggesting that Britain invented slavery?
What a fucking stupid question. Are you seriously suggesting that Britain invented oppositon to slavery?
I think that was Moses, but Britain was not far behind.
The statue was erected in 1895, I'm fairly certain in 1895 we as a nation had decided Slavery was morally repugnent.
Which suggests slavery wasn’t a motivating factor in putting it up.
I like where you are going with this. The politics might have been we are putting this up to score points off our wokish political opponents? The opponents were what - republican, anti Empire, anti capitalism?
The motivating factor in putting it up at the time was the elites of Bristol patting themselves on the back and pushing any discussion of the seedy origins of their wealth outside of the acceptable discourse in the city. A state of affairs that obviously continued for some time.
Do you think that all the statues of Southern generals that were erected in the US during the late C19th / early C20th had nothing whatsoever to do with the history of slavery there either? Are you actually that naïve?
Only if you are naive, because I agree with you on the last point. Isn’t there a statue of a civil war general in the middle of a motorway?
An allegory of the American South: In 1998, a fierce racist (who also happened to be the former attorney of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin) named Jack Kershaw created a monument for another bad man, Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. The resulting statue is so hilariously stupid that we should keep it forever.
It’s an interesting one art is founded upon to an extent. What you see for yourself without knowing anything. Then the knowledge behind it changing what you see.
Wow. That is so beautiful. Yes. It was invented by Satan to lead the human race astray. Oh. Does it now look as beautiful as before?
One hilarious example comes to mind.....
Tony Blair at an exhibition of Aztec items at (I think) the British Museum praised a particular bowl as beautiful example of the art of a vibrant, lost culture.
It was the bowl into which the hearts torn from the sacrificial victims were placed. Thousands upon thousands of victims (lots of slaves, incidentally) murdered in those rituals.
That’s a great example.
And yes this golden horse with Cartoon confederate on back. Yes absolutely. All the knowledge behind its creation tells you it’s malign. But do you get that from observing it, without the knowledge? You could so easily think it a pastiche of the confederates? And a joyful and funny one at that.
What you know definitely changes what you see, any argument with that bit? But should it also change your enjoyment?
For example Screaming Eagles most favourite Soccer Mom movie - can he enjoy just as much when learning its director was a racist, and funding came from brexiteer who gave the most to Brexit campaign?
From loving it, to straight in the bin. How Should knowledge of artists and creatives change your enjoyment of their art?
The statue was erected in 1895, I'm fairly certain in 1895 we as a nation had decided Slavery was morally repugnent.
Which suggests slavery wasn’t a motivating factor in putting it up.
I like where you are going with this. The politics might have been we are putting this up to score points off our wokish political opponents? The opponents were what - republican, anti Empire, anti capitalism?
The motivating factor in putting it up at the time was the elites of Bristol patting themselves on the back and pushing any discussion of the seedy origins of their wealth outside of the acceptable discourse in the city. A state of affairs that obviously continued for some time.
Do you think that all the statues of Southern generals that were erected in the US during the late C19th / early C20th had nothing whatsoever to do with the history of slavery there either? Are you actually that naïve?
Only if you are naive, because I agree with you on the last point. Isn’t there a statue of a civil war general in the middle of a motorway?
An allegory of the American South: In 1998, a fierce racist (who also happened to be the former attorney of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin) named Jack Kershaw created a monument for another bad man, Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. The resulting statue is so hilariously stupid that we should keep it forever.
It’s an interesting one art is founded upon to an extent. What you see for yourself without knowing anything. Then the knowledge behind it changing what you see.
Wow. That is so beautiful. Yes. It was invented by Satan to lead the human race astray. Oh. Does it now look as beautiful as before?
One hilarious example comes to mind.....
Tony Blair at an exhibition of Aztec items at (I think) the British Museum praised a particular bowl as beautiful example of the art of a vibrant, lost culture.
It was the bowl into which the hearts torn from the sacrificial victims were placed. Thousands upon thousands of victims (lots of slaves, incidentally) murdered in those rituals.
That’s a great example.
And yes this golden horse with Cartoon confederate on back. Yes absolutely. All the knowledge behind its creation tells you it’s malign. But do you get that from observing it, without the knowledge? You could so easily think it a pastiche of the confederates? And a joyful and funny one at that.
What you know definitely changes what you see, any argument with that bit? But should it also change your enjoyment?
For example Screaming Eagles most favourite Soccer Mom movie - can he enjoy just as much when learning its director was a racist, and funding came from brexiteer who gave the most to Brexit campaign?
From loving it, to straight in the bin. How Should knowledge of artists and creatives change your enjoyment of their art?
It will be seen that what the defenders of Dali are claiming is a kind of benefit of clergy. The artist is to be exempt from the moral laws that are binding on ordinary people.
EDIT: the provenance of the artwork makes it *better* - a stupid racist tried to honour an evil racist and made himself (the stupid racist) look like an idiot and made the evil racist look like an idiot as well. "Evil doth often evil marr"...
Now for a fun one. This makes me laugh damn hard....
But the Nazi movement in Germany was about history though, Hail Hitler = Hail Caesar (from the Holy Roman Empire)
The people who thought judges were enemies of the people and that activist lawyers are frustrating the noble intentions of HMG will be moving on to the juries. Who's left in the legal system to demonise, court ushers?
It's such a shame that the gammon society is upset...
Cheap shot. I don't know much about 'Save Our Statues' but they're making a substantive point that should be addressed.
It isn't open season on statues.
It does show however that juries will use their powers to acquit people if laws are used harshly to suppress legitimate dissent. Indeed that is how the original Penn case came to set the precedent.
Sorry but it strikes me as populist justice. There are plenty of ways people could show 'legitimate dissent' without having to tear the statue down.
No it is a long established principle that juries can refuse to enforce oppressive laws. It is the sort of ancient British custom that supposed patriots dislike.
Causing criminal damage is an oppressive law?
No but criminalising protest is.
As is planned via the new Police Bill.
That's a separate issue. Although the right to protest doesn't equal the right to cause disruption.
It certainly does include that, although whether it should include the right to block ambulances, say, is a different question.
Do you mean destruction?
I do mean disruption. I really don't understand our laws here. I find it bizarre that it was necessary to take out an injunction against Insulate Britain. Could they not be prosecuted under existing laws for blocking the roads?
I think that was around difficulty of finding serious enough offences, and also around juries making silly decisions.
So an injunction makes it a criminal breach and a prison matter, rather than a cotton-batting fine in a Magistrates' Court.
Is there a law under which jurors can be prosecuted for being a bunch of knobheads?
The joy of the jury system is that the jury can acquit for whatever reason they like.
You could flip that the opposite way and that they can convict for any reason they like.
It’s not for juries to be setting laws. That’s why we have elections.
Not so simple. Juries can indeed acquit for whatever reason they like, and don't ever give a reason. And it is generally against the law to try to find out.
But they can't just convict any old how. There is a double safety net. To get to a jury decision there has to be evidence upon which a properly directed jury can properly convict. If there isn't the judge chucks it out on application at the close of the prosecution case.
Secondly a conviction can be appealed. An acquittal can't. (Unless very exceptionally compelling new facts arise).
Is this not all simply around the idea that in our system Juries get to decide? And we accept that juries occasionally taking it upon themselves to make exceptionally good or exceptionally perverse decisions is a price we pay for not having Officials make the decisions.
Certainly you are right that there is no fail safe method, and the failings of one have to be weighted against the potential failings of the alternative.
I think - as in so much of the legal setup - the Americans are centuries behind here with their "Grand Juries", which are the wrong aspect to preserve.
Bristol is probably where you'd want to be tried if you were a lefty vegan knitting statue botherer.
Indeed, every Bristol seat was won by Corbyn Labour even in 2019. The jury verdict was always likely to favour the protestors.
Though at least the statue is still in a museum even if probably rightly no longer on public display
Mrs Thatcher almost won all 4 seats in 1987.
Mirrors the national trend. Cities have moved more to Labour since the 1980s, Northern and Midlands ex mining and industrial areas have moved more to the Conservatives
Why?
Are you saying the people there change views, or the demographic itself changed? Like children of miners now live in conorbations not their area of birth? Like me! Last 40 years have made a big movement around?
If we had babies there is no family for nearly hundred miles who could help.
I might just get a pet to piss off the pope. Is that the right Anglican thing to do HY?
And we wonder why Catholics are outbreeding Protestants in Northern Ireland...
You mean Roman Catholics, I presume. As an Anglican you are just as much a Catholic as a RC. Unless you know something about Church of Ireland Episcopalians we don't.
*edit* checked: yes, Episcopalians are Catholic too. So scratch that last.
No we are not as the Head of our Church on earth is not the Pope.
There are also plenty of Protestant evangelicals too who would not consider themselves Catholic in any sense
I rather think the chaps at the C of E know better:
"The Church claims to be both Catholic and Reformed. It upholds teachings found in early Christian doctrines, such as the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed. The Church also reveres 16th century Protestant Reformation ideas outlined in texts, such as the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer."
And their Irish colleagues:
"1. Is the Church of Ireland Protestant or Catholic?
It is both Protestant and Catholic. For this reason it is incorrect to refer to members of the Church of Ireland as ‘non–Catholic’.
The terms Protestant and Catholic are not really opposites.
There are Catholics who accept the universal jurisdiction of the Pope, the Bishop of Rome. Often in consequence they are called Roman Catholics. But there are other Catholics who do not accept the Pope’s jurisdiction or certain doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. Some are called Protestant or Reformed Catholics. Among them are members of the Church of Ireland and the other Churches of the Anglican Communion.
It follows therefore that the terms ‘Protestant’ and ‘Reformed’ should be contrasted with ‘Roman’ and not with ‘Catholic’.
The Church of Ireland is Catholic because it is in possession of a continuous tradition of faith and practice, based on Scripture and early traditions, enshrined in the Catholic Creeds, together with the sacraments and apostolic ministry. "
Yet it is still not fully Catholic as the Pope is not its Head. Evangelicals, as opposed to Anglo Catholics and most liberals within even the Anglican Church would not consider themselves Catholic in any sense.
Protestant evangelical Pentecostals, Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans etc would also not consider themselves Catholic in any sense
You are confusing Catholicism in general with the specific kind mediated through the Roman Papacy. I'm sure the nice chap in Lambeth Palace can explain it all to you.
Allegedly mediated through the Roman Papacy
(I may not be helping here)
They would consider themselves catholic, but probably using a different word, and not Catholic.
Always thought the Anglican Church was "a" Catholic church as opposed to "the" Catholic church,
I don't know much about the Colston case; but as other people have pointed out it is a feature of jury trials that this type of verdict can happen. I would rather just accept that, than have a 'better' or 'more accurate' system of justice. Generally speaking the obsession with slavery 300 years ago is curious. It is an unfortunate feature of human development and the real story is that Britain took the lead in abolishing it. It is one of the few areas in which human society progressed. The debate about the rights and wrongs of it was finished generations ago. Trying to bring all this back up is just the sign of a society that has no confidence in itself; what it is and what it has achieved; it is just sad.
No, quite specifically, fuck off about that. Why "the real story is that Britain took the lead in abolishing it" rather than "the real story is that Britain took the lead in establishing it"? Do you dispute that Britain shipped more Africans across the Atlantic than anyone except Portugal? Why does shipping 3m slaves suddenly not count because you decide not to ship any more?
Are you seriously suggesting that Britain invented slavery?
What a fucking stupid question. Are you seriously suggesting that Britain invented oppositon to slavery?
I think that was Moses, but Britain was not far behind.
I don't know much about the Colston case; but as other people have pointed out it is a feature of jury trials that this type of verdict can happen. I would rather just accept that, than have a 'better' or 'more accurate' system of justice. Generally speaking the obsession with slavery 300 years ago is curious. It is an unfortunate feature of human development and the real story is that Britain took the lead in abolishing it. It is one of the few areas in which human society progressed. The debate about the rights and wrongs of it was finished generations ago. Trying to bring all this back up is just the sign of a society that has no confidence in itself; what it is and what it has achieved; it is just sad.
No, quite specifically, fuck off about that. Why "the real story is that Britain took the lead in abolishing it" rather than "the real story is that Britain took the lead in establishing it"? Do you dispute that Britain shipped more Africans across the Atlantic than anyone except Portugal? Why does shipping 3m slaves suddenly not count because you decide not to ship any more?
Are you seriously suggesting that Britain invented slavery?
What a fucking stupid question. Are you seriously suggesting that Britain invented oppositon to slavery?
I think that was Moses, but Britain was not far behind.
Numbers game, love. We transported about 3.4m slaves. Add in the misery of their descendants, and there's a bigger crime than the holocaust. But ab fab that we thereafter decided it was a baaad thing to do. Yay for us.,
The people who thought judges were enemies of the people and that activist lawyers are frustrating the noble intentions of HMG will be moving on to the juries. Who's left in the legal system to demonise, court ushers?
It's such a shame that the gammon society is upset...
Cheap shot. I don't know much about 'Save Our Statues' but they're making a substantive point that should be addressed.
It isn't open season on statues.
It does show however that juries will use their powers to acquit people if laws are used harshly to suppress legitimate dissent. Indeed that is how the original Penn case came to set the precedent.
Sorry but it strikes me as populist justice. There are plenty of ways people could show 'legitimate dissent' without having to tear the statue down.
No it is a long established principle that juries can refuse to enforce oppressive laws. It is the sort of ancient British custom that supposed patriots dislike.
Well that depends on your definition of oppression. I don't think a law against destroying public monuments qualifies.
I can't help but feel there are a fair number of middle class parents on here with woke(ish) kids who are worried about the idea of Cassia or Tarquin having their collars felt. Surely that must be wrong.
My main concern is with a politicised justice system in which jury members decide to use their position to make a political point. How about a Tommy Robinson type on trial for something but the jury (probably not in Bristol) acquits because although the evidence suggests he's guilty, they're convinced he's a good 'un with the right ideas so doesn't deserve to go down.
Bearing in mind that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon has several convictions, I think the evidence is that juries are happy to convict him.
I find the use of his original name strangely irritating. Is he not allowed to use a different name because you think he is an utter shit? Would you refer to say Elton John as Reg Dwight?
Isn’t Elton John his real name?
I wonder what his friends call him. Bit like Jim Moir/Vic Reeves. (Definitely a Jim in that case).
😲
Not another one. I didn’t know that either.
Pretty sure I heard a tale of Tom Baker introducing Jim Moir to ‘Run, sodomy and the lash’ (about the Nelsonian navy) and Tom saying something like ‘Jim, you have to read this’. First time I realised he wasn’t called Vic Reeves.
Is Jim Moir related to Jan Moir?
And I did NOT realise that Elton John had christened himself Hercules as a middle name.
Bristol is probably where you'd want to be tried if you were a lefty vegan knitting statue botherer.
Indeed, every Bristol seat was won by Corbyn Labour even in 2019. The jury verdict was always likely to favour the protestors.
Though at least the statue is still in a museum even if probably rightly no longer on public display
Mrs Thatcher almost won all 4 seats in 1987.
Mirrors the national trend. Cities have moved more to Labour since the 1980s, Northern and Midlands ex mining and industrial areas have moved more to the Conservatives
Why?
Are you saying the people there change views, or the demographic itself changed? Like children of miners now live in conorbations not their area of birth? Like me! Last 40 years have made a big movement around?
If we had babies there is no family for nearly hundred miles who could help.
I might just get a pet to piss off the pope. Is that the right Anglican thing to do HY?
And we wonder why Catholics are outbreeding Protestants in Northern Ireland...
You mean Roman Catholics, I presume. As an Anglican you are just as much a Catholic as a RC. Unless you know something about Church of Ireland Episcopalians we don't.
*edit* checked: yes, Episcopalians are Catholic too. So scratch that last.
No we are not as the Head of our Church on earth is not the Pope.
There are also plenty of Protestant evangelicals too who would not consider themselves Catholic in any sense
I rather think the chaps at the C of E know better:
"The Church claims to be both Catholic and Reformed. It upholds teachings found in early Christian doctrines, such as the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed. The Church also reveres 16th century Protestant Reformation ideas outlined in texts, such as the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer."
And their Irish colleagues:
"1. Is the Church of Ireland Protestant or Catholic?
It is both Protestant and Catholic. For this reason it is incorrect to refer to members of the Church of Ireland as ‘non–Catholic’.
The terms Protestant and Catholic are not really opposites.
There are Catholics who accept the universal jurisdiction of the Pope, the Bishop of Rome. Often in consequence they are called Roman Catholics. But there are other Catholics who do not accept the Pope’s jurisdiction or certain doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. Some are called Protestant or Reformed Catholics. Among them are members of the Church of Ireland and the other Churches of the Anglican Communion.
It follows therefore that the terms ‘Protestant’ and ‘Reformed’ should be contrasted with ‘Roman’ and not with ‘Catholic’.
The Church of Ireland is Catholic because it is in possession of a continuous tradition of faith and practice, based on Scripture and early traditions, enshrined in the Catholic Creeds, together with the sacraments and apostolic ministry. "
Yet it is still not fully Catholic as the Pope is not its Head. Evangelicals, as opposed to Anglo Catholics and most liberals within even the Anglican Church would not consider themselves Catholic in any sense.
Protestant evangelical Pentecostals, Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans etc would also not consider themselves Catholic in any sense
You are confusing Catholicism in general with the specific kind mediated through the Roman Papacy. I'm sure the nice chap in Lambeth Palace can explain it all to you.
Allegedly mediated through the Roman Papacy
(I may not be helping here)
They would consider themselves catholic, but probably using a different word, and not Catholic.
Always thought the Anglican Church was "a" Catholic church as opposed to "the" Catholic church,
Anglo Catholic Anglicans would think that, evangelicals in the Church of England would not
The statue was erected in 1895, I'm fairly certain in 1895 we as a nation had decided Slavery was morally repugnent.
Which suggests slavery wasn’t a motivating factor in putting it up.
I like where you are going with this. The politics might have been we are putting this up to score points off our wokish political opponents? The opponents were what - republican, anti Empire, anti capitalism?
The motivating factor in putting it up at the time was the elites of Bristol patting themselves on the back and pushing any discussion of the seedy origins of their wealth outside of the acceptable discourse in the city. A state of affairs that obviously continued for some time.
Do you think that all the statues of Southern generals that were erected in the US during the late C19th / early C20th had nothing whatsoever to do with the history of slavery there either? Are you actually that naïve?
Only if you are naive, because I agree with you on the last point. Isn’t there a statue of a civil war general in the middle of a motorway?
An allegory of the American South: In 1998, a fierce racist (who also happened to be the former attorney of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin) named Jack Kershaw created a monument for another bad man, Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. The resulting statue is so hilariously stupid that we should keep it forever.
It’s an interesting one art is founded upon to an extent. What you see for yourself without knowing anything. Then the knowledge behind it changing what you see.
Wow. That is so beautiful. Yes. It was invented by Satan to lead the human race astray. Oh. Does it now look as beautiful as before?
One hilarious example comes to mind.....
Tony Blair at an exhibition of Aztec items at (I think) the British Museum praised a particular bowl as beautiful example of the art of a vibrant, lost culture.
It was the bowl into which the hearts torn from the sacrificial victims were placed. Thousands upon thousands of victims (lots of slaves, incidentally) murdered in those rituals.
That’s a great example.
And yes this golden horse with Cartoon confederate on back. Yes absolutely. All the knowledge behind its creation tells you it’s malign. But do you get that from observing it, without the knowledge? You could so easily think it a pastiche of the confederates? And a joyful and funny one at that.
What you know definitely changes what you see, any argument with that bit? But should it also change your enjoyment?
For example Screaming Eagles most favourite Soccer Mom movie - can he enjoy just as much when learning its director was a racist, and funding came from brexiteer who gave the most to Brexit campaign?
From loving it, to straight in the bin. How Should knowledge of artists and creatives change your enjoyment of their art?
The statue was erected in 1895, I'm fairly certain in 1895 we as a nation had decided Slavery was morally repugnent.
Which suggests slavery wasn’t a motivating factor in putting it up.
I like where you are going with this. The politics might have been we are putting this up to score points off our wokish political opponents? The opponents were what - republican, anti Empire, anti capitalism?
The motivating factor in putting it up at the time was the elites of Bristol patting themselves on the back and pushing any discussion of the seedy origins of their wealth outside of the acceptable discourse in the city. A state of affairs that obviously continued for some time.
Do you think that all the statues of Southern generals that were erected in the US during the late C19th / early C20th had nothing whatsoever to do with the history of slavery there either? Are you actually that naïve?
Only if you are naive, because I agree with you on the last point. Isn’t there a statue of a civil war general in the middle of a motorway?
An allegory of the American South: In 1998, a fierce racist (who also happened to be the former attorney of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin) named Jack Kershaw created a monument for another bad man, Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. The resulting statue is so hilariously stupid that we should keep it forever.
It’s an interesting one art is founded upon to an extent. What you see for yourself without knowing anything. Then the knowledge behind it changing what you see.
Wow. That is so beautiful. Yes. It was invented by Satan to lead the human race astray. Oh. Does it now look as beautiful as before?
One hilarious example comes to mind.....
Tony Blair at an exhibition of Aztec items at (I think) the British Museum praised a particular bowl as beautiful example of the art of a vibrant, lost culture.
It was the bowl into which the hearts torn from the sacrificial victims were placed. Thousands upon thousands of victims (lots of slaves, incidentally) murdered in those rituals.
That’s a great example.
And yes this golden horse with Cartoon confederate on back. Yes absolutely. All the knowledge behind its creation tells you it’s malign. But do you get that from observing it, without the knowledge? You could so easily think it a pastiche of the confederates? And a joyful and funny one at that.
What you know definitely changes what you see, any argument with that bit? But should it also change your enjoyment?
For example Screaming Eagles most favourite Soccer Mom movie - can he enjoy just as much when learning its director was a racist, and funding came from brexiteer who gave the most to Brexit campaign?
From loving it, to straight in the bin. How Should knowledge of artists and creatives change your enjoyment of their art?
It will be seen that what the defenders of Dali are claiming is a kind of benefit of clergy. The artist is to be exempt from the moral laws that are binding on ordinary people.
EDIT: the provenance of the artwork makes it *better* - a stupid racist tried to honour an evil racist and made himself (the stupid racist) look like an idiot and made the evil racist look like an idiot as well. "Evil doth often evil marr"...
Now for a fun one. This makes me laugh damn hard....
But the Nazi movement in Germany was about history though, Hail Hitler = Hail Caesar (from the Holy Roman Empire)
What’s that on his face?
Stabbed with a bayonet by an American soldier. Everyone's a critic.
The bit that makes me laugh is that Hitler hated horses, couldn't ride and generally was fairly unfit.
The next layer is that he is being depicted as one of the Teutonic Knights - the Order of the Knights being suppressed by the Nazi's. Who tried to steal their story...
That and that wearing your armour "white" (shiny and polished) was considered to be the sign of a complete twat back in medieval times. Before chrome steel, unprotected metal rusted like crazy - you'd have to have a squad of squires polishing it day and night for that.
Bristol is probably where you'd want to be tried if you were a lefty vegan knitting statue botherer.
Indeed, every Bristol seat was won by Corbyn Labour even in 2019. The jury verdict was always likely to favour the protestors.
Though at least the statue is still in a museum even if probably rightly no longer on public display
As a Bristol resident for 35+ years I think it has all worked out rather well.
The statue has been removed and now forms part of an exhibition discussion the role of these figures from the past. It is rather striking laying down with paint on especially in a museum context.
He can now forming part of a useful dialogue with how we see the past, and ironically far more known about since his removal.
The acquittal today is just a nice ending to it - jury's are great (local laws for local people 🙂)
MrBristol.
PS would quite like to see Bankys's suggestion of a new statue of the old statue being torn down by protestors
But, perhaps what should happen, MrBristol, is that some of the wealth of Bristol -- a city whose riches derive from the slave trade -- should be reallocated to those descendants of slavery?
Perhaps a tax on the wealthy residents of Clifton that goes directly to the residents of St Pauls?
I am not too surprised that wealthy West Bristolians are relieved that it can all be washed away by tipping a statue over.
Do you doubt that the residents of Clifton pay more in tax, and receive less per capita in state benefits than the residents of St Pauls?
I don't think anyone claims that addressing Britain's past is the only thing needed for racial and social justice. It is reasonable though for that to be part of the solution.
Bristol seems to me to be in an unusual position as its wealth is very directly derived from the slave trade (also Liverpool, Glasgow).
So, I expect more than the toppling of a statue ... That seems to me to be a mere displacement activity.
As for statues generally, I am happy to see all of them taken down and replaced by geometric figures.
I guess they need to address some of the street names too: Blackboy Hill, Whiteladies Road. [kicks hornets nest and waits to see what happens]
Wasn't Blackboy Hill a pub named after the young Charles II?
The people who thought judges were enemies of the people and that activist lawyers are frustrating the noble intentions of HMG will be moving on to the juries. Who's left in the legal system to demonise, court ushers?
It's such a shame that the gammon society is upset...
Cheap shot. I don't know much about 'Save Our Statues' but they're making a substantive point that should be addressed.
It isn't open season on statues.
It does show however that juries will use their powers to acquit people if laws are used harshly to suppress legitimate dissent. Indeed that is how the original Penn case came to set the precedent.
Sorry but it strikes me as populist justice. There are plenty of ways people could show 'legitimate dissent' without having to tear the statue down.
No it is a long established principle that juries can refuse to enforce oppressive laws. It is the sort of ancient British custom that supposed patriots dislike.
Well that depends on your definition of oppression. I don't think a law against destroying public monuments qualifies.
I can't help but feel there are a fair number of middle class parents on here with woke(ish) kids who are worried about the idea of Cassia or Tarquin having their collars felt. Surely that must be wrong.
My main concern is with a politicised justice system in which jury members decide to use their position to make a political point. How about a Tommy Robinson type on trial for something but the jury (probably not in Bristol) acquits because although the evidence suggests he's guilty, they're convinced he's a good 'un with the right ideas so doesn't deserve to go down.
Bearing in mind that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon has several convictions, I think the evidence is that juries are happy to convict him.
I find the use of his original name strangely irritating. Is he not allowed to use a different name because you think he is an utter shit? Would you refer to say Elton John as Reg Dwight?
Isn’t Elton John his real name?
I wonder what his friends call him. Bit like Jim Moir/Vic Reeves. (Definitely a Jim in that case).
😲
Not another one. I didn’t know that either.
Pretty sure I heard a tale of Tom Baker introducing Jim Moir to ‘Run, sodomy and the lash’ (about the Nelsonian navy) and Tom saying something like ‘Jim, you have to read this’. First time I realised he wasn’t called Vic Reeves.
Is Jim Moir related to Jan Moir?
And I did NOT realise that Elton John had christened himself Hercules as a middle name.
Bristol is probably where you'd want to be tried if you were a lefty vegan knitting statue botherer.
Indeed, every Bristol seat was won by Corbyn Labour even in 2019. The jury verdict was always likely to favour the protestors.
Though at least the statue is still in a museum even if probably rightly no longer on public display
Mrs Thatcher almost won all 4 seats in 1987.
Mirrors the national trend. Cities have moved more to Labour since the 1980s, Northern and Midlands ex mining and industrial areas have moved more to the Conservatives
Why?
Are you saying the people there change views, or the demographic itself changed? Like children of miners now live in conorbations not their area of birth? Like me! Last 40 years have made a big movement around?
If we had babies there is no family for nearly hundred miles who could help.
I might just get a pet to piss off the pope. Is that the right Anglican thing to do HY?
And we wonder why Catholics are outbreeding Protestants in Northern Ireland...
You mean Roman Catholics, I presume. As an Anglican you are just as much a Catholic as a RC. Unless you know something about Church of Ireland Episcopalians we don't.
*edit* checked: yes, Episcopalians are Catholic too. So scratch that last.
No we are not as the Head of our Church on earth is not the Pope.
There are also plenty of Protestant evangelicals too who would not consider themselves Catholic in any sense
I rather think the chaps at the C of E know better:
"The Church claims to be both Catholic and Reformed. It upholds teachings found in early Christian doctrines, such as the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed. The Church also reveres 16th century Protestant Reformation ideas outlined in texts, such as the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer."
And their Irish colleagues:
"1. Is the Church of Ireland Protestant or Catholic?
It is both Protestant and Catholic. For this reason it is incorrect to refer to members of the Church of Ireland as ‘non–Catholic’.
The terms Protestant and Catholic are not really opposites.
There are Catholics who accept the universal jurisdiction of the Pope, the Bishop of Rome. Often in consequence they are called Roman Catholics. But there are other Catholics who do not accept the Pope’s jurisdiction or certain doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. Some are called Protestant or Reformed Catholics. Among them are members of the Church of Ireland and the other Churches of the Anglican Communion.
It follows therefore that the terms ‘Protestant’ and ‘Reformed’ should be contrasted with ‘Roman’ and not with ‘Catholic’.
The Church of Ireland is Catholic because it is in possession of a continuous tradition of faith and practice, based on Scripture and early traditions, enshrined in the Catholic Creeds, together with the sacraments and apostolic ministry. "
Yet it is still not fully Catholic as the Pope is not its Head. Evangelicals, as opposed to Anglo Catholics and most liberals within even the Anglican Church would not consider themselves Catholic in any sense.
Protestant evangelical Pentecostals, Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans etc would also not consider themselves Catholic in any sense
You are confusing Catholicism in general with the specific kind mediated through the Roman Papacy. I'm sure the nice chap in Lambeth Palace can explain it all to you.
Allegedly mediated through the Roman Papacy
(I may not be helping here)
They would consider themselves catholic, but probably using a different word, and not Catholic.
Always thought the Anglican Church was "a" Catholic church as opposed to "the" Catholic church,
Anglo Catholic Anglicans would think that, evangelicals in the Church of England would not
The C of E itself officially says that Sunil is right. As I pointed out earlier this evening.
The statue was erected in 1895, I'm fairly certain in 1895 we as a nation had decided Slavery was morally repugnent.
Which suggests slavery wasn’t a motivating factor in putting it up.
I like where you are going with this. The politics might have been we are putting this up to score points off our wokish political opponents? The opponents were what - republican, anti Empire, anti capitalism?
The motivating factor in putting it up at the time was the elites of Bristol patting themselves on the back and pushing any discussion of the seedy origins of their wealth outside of the acceptable discourse in the city. A state of affairs that obviously continued for some time.
Do you think that all the statues of Southern generals that were erected in the US during the late C19th / early C20th had nothing whatsoever to do with the history of slavery there either? Are you actually that naïve?
Only if you are naive, because I agree with you on the last point. Isn’t there a statue of a civil war general in the middle of a motorway?
An allegory of the American South: In 1998, a fierce racist (who also happened to be the former attorney of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin) named Jack Kershaw created a monument for another bad man, Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. The resulting statue is so hilariously stupid that we should keep it forever.
It’s an interesting one art is founded upon to an extent. What you see for yourself without knowing anything. Then the knowledge behind it changing what you see.
Wow. That is so beautiful. Yes. It was invented by Satan to lead the human race astray. Oh. Does it now look as beautiful as before?
One hilarious example comes to mind.....
Tony Blair at an exhibition of Aztec items at (I think) the British Museum praised a particular bowl as beautiful example of the art of a vibrant, lost culture.
It was the bowl into which the hearts torn from the sacrificial victims were placed. Thousands upon thousands of victims (lots of slaves, incidentally) murdered in those rituals.
That’s a great example.
And yes this golden horse with Cartoon confederate on back. Yes absolutely. All the knowledge behind its creation tells you it’s malign. But do you get that from observing it, without the knowledge? You could so easily think it a pastiche of the confederates? And a joyful and funny one at that.
What you know definitely changes what you see, any argument with that bit? But should it also change your enjoyment?
For example Screaming Eagles most favourite Soccer Mom movie - can he enjoy just as much when learning its director was a racist, and funding came from brexiteer who gave the most to Brexit campaign?
From loving it, to straight in the bin. How Should knowledge of artists and creatives change your enjoyment of their art?
The statue was erected in 1895, I'm fairly certain in 1895 we as a nation had decided Slavery was morally repugnent.
Which suggests slavery wasn’t a motivating factor in putting it up.
I like where you are going with this. The politics might have been we are putting this up to score points off our wokish political opponents? The opponents were what - republican, anti Empire, anti capitalism?
The motivating factor in putting it up at the time was the elites of Bristol patting themselves on the back and pushing any discussion of the seedy origins of their wealth outside of the acceptable discourse in the city. A state of affairs that obviously continued for some time.
Do you think that all the statues of Southern generals that were erected in the US during the late C19th / early C20th had nothing whatsoever to do with the history of slavery there either? Are you actually that naïve?
Only if you are naive, because I agree with you on the last point. Isn’t there a statue of a civil war general in the middle of a motorway?
An allegory of the American South: In 1998, a fierce racist (who also happened to be the former attorney of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin) named Jack Kershaw created a monument for another bad man, Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. The resulting statue is so hilariously stupid that we should keep it forever.
It’s an interesting one art is founded upon to an extent. What you see for yourself without knowing anything. Then the knowledge behind it changing what you see.
Wow. That is so beautiful. Yes. It was invented by Satan to lead the human race astray. Oh. Does it now look as beautiful as before?
One hilarious example comes to mind.....
Tony Blair at an exhibition of Aztec items at (I think) the British Museum praised a particular bowl as beautiful example of the art of a vibrant, lost culture.
It was the bowl into which the hearts torn from the sacrificial victims were placed. Thousands upon thousands of victims (lots of slaves, incidentally) murdered in those rituals.
That’s a great example.
And yes this golden horse with Cartoon confederate on back. Yes absolutely. All the knowledge behind its creation tells you it’s malign. But do you get that from observing it, without the knowledge? You could so easily think it a pastiche of the confederates? And a joyful and funny one at that.
What you know definitely changes what you see, any argument with that bit? But should it also change your enjoyment?
For example Screaming Eagles most favourite Soccer Mom movie - can he enjoy just as much when learning its director was a racist, and funding came from brexiteer who gave the most to Brexit campaign?
From loving it, to straight in the bin. How Should knowledge of artists and creatives change your enjoyment of their art?
It will be seen that what the defenders of Dali are claiming is a kind of benefit of clergy. The artist is to be exempt from the moral laws that are binding on ordinary people.
EDIT: the provenance of the artwork makes it *better* - a stupid racist tried to honour an evil racist and made himself (the stupid racist) look like an idiot and made the evil racist look like an idiot as well. "Evil doth often evil marr"...
Now for a fun one. This makes me laugh damn hard....
But the Nazi movement in Germany was about history though, Hail Hitler = Hail Caesar (from the Holy Roman Empire)
What’s that on his face?
I found a better resolution and (although it's still not clear) it looks like the painting has been scratched.
I'll be honest, before I zoomed in I'd convinced myself it was Tommie Smith or John Carlos superimposed over his face, which would have been quite fun.
Wiki says a US soldier damaged it with a bayonet after the end of the war, oddly it now resides in the US Army art collection. I wonder if the soldier was tried for criminal damage..
The statue was erected in 1895, I'm fairly certain in 1895 we as a nation had decided Slavery was morally repugnent.
Which suggests slavery wasn’t a motivating factor in putting it up.
I like where you are going with this. The politics might have been we are putting this up to score points off our wokish political opponents? The opponents were what - republican, anti Empire, anti capitalism?
The motivating factor in putting it up at the time was the elites of Bristol patting themselves on the back and pushing any discussion of the seedy origins of their wealth outside of the acceptable discourse in the city. A state of affairs that obviously continued for some time.
Do you think that all the statues of Southern generals that were erected in the US during the late C19th / early C20th had nothing whatsoever to do with the history of slavery there either? Are you actually that naïve?
Only if you are naive, because I agree with you on the last point. Isn’t there a statue of a civil war general in the middle of a motorway?
An allegory of the American South: In 1998, a fierce racist (who also happened to be the former attorney of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin) named Jack Kershaw created a monument for another bad man, Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. The resulting statue is so hilariously stupid that we should keep it forever.
It’s an interesting one art is founded upon to an extent. What you see for yourself without knowing anything. Then the knowledge behind it changing what you see.
Wow. That is so beautiful. Yes. It was invented by Satan to lead the human race astray. Oh. Does it now look as beautiful as before?
One hilarious example comes to mind.....
Tony Blair at an exhibition of Aztec items at (I think) the British Museum praised a particular bowl as beautiful example of the art of a vibrant, lost culture.
It was the bowl into which the hearts torn from the sacrificial victims were placed. Thousands upon thousands of victims (lots of slaves, incidentally) murdered in those rituals.
That’s a great example.
And yes this golden horse with Cartoon confederate on back. Yes absolutely. All the knowledge behind its creation tells you it’s malign. But do you get that from observing it, without the knowledge? You could so easily think it a pastiche of the confederates? And a joyful and funny one at that.
What you know definitely changes what you see, any argument with that bit? But should it also change your enjoyment?
For example Screaming Eagles most favourite Soccer Mom movie - can he enjoy just as much when learning its director was a racist, and funding came from brexiteer who gave the most to Brexit campaign?
From loving it, to straight in the bin. How Should knowledge of artists and creatives change your enjoyment of their art?
The statue was erected in 1895, I'm fairly certain in 1895 we as a nation had decided Slavery was morally repugnent.
Which suggests slavery wasn’t a motivating factor in putting it up.
I like where you are going with this. The politics might have been we are putting this up to score points off our wokish political opponents? The opponents were what - republican, anti Empire, anti capitalism?
The motivating factor in putting it up at the time was the elites of Bristol patting themselves on the back and pushing any discussion of the seedy origins of their wealth outside of the acceptable discourse in the city. A state of affairs that obviously continued for some time.
Do you think that all the statues of Southern generals that were erected in the US during the late C19th / early C20th had nothing whatsoever to do with the history of slavery there either? Are you actually that naïve?
Only if you are naive, because I agree with you on the last point. Isn’t there a statue of a civil war general in the middle of a motorway?
An allegory of the American South: In 1998, a fierce racist (who also happened to be the former attorney of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin) named Jack Kershaw created a monument for another bad man, Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. The resulting statue is so hilariously stupid that we should keep it forever.
It’s an interesting one art is founded upon to an extent. What you see for yourself without knowing anything. Then the knowledge behind it changing what you see.
Wow. That is so beautiful. Yes. It was invented by Satan to lead the human race astray. Oh. Does it now look as beautiful as before?
One hilarious example comes to mind.....
Tony Blair at an exhibition of Aztec items at (I think) the British Museum praised a particular bowl as beautiful example of the art of a vibrant, lost culture.
It was the bowl into which the hearts torn from the sacrificial victims were placed. Thousands upon thousands of victims (lots of slaves, incidentally) murdered in those rituals.
That’s a great example.
And yes this golden horse with Cartoon confederate on back. Yes absolutely. All the knowledge behind its creation tells you it’s malign. But do you get that from observing it, without the knowledge? You could so easily think it a pastiche of the confederates? And a joyful and funny one at that.
What you know definitely changes what you see, any argument with that bit? But should it also change your enjoyment?
For example Screaming Eagles most favourite Soccer Mom movie - can he enjoy just as much when learning its director was a racist, and funding came from brexiteer who gave the most to Brexit campaign?
From loving it, to straight in the bin. How Should knowledge of artists and creatives change your enjoyment of their art?
It will be seen that what the defenders of Dali are claiming is a kind of benefit of clergy. The artist is to be exempt from the moral laws that are binding on ordinary people.
EDIT: the provenance of the artwork makes it *better* - a stupid racist tried to honour an evil racist and made himself (the stupid racist) look like an idiot and made the evil racist look like an idiot as well. "Evil doth often evil marr"...
Now for a fun one. This makes me laugh damn hard....
But the Nazi movement in Germany was about history though, Hail Hitler = Hail Caesar (from the Holy Roman Empire)
What’s that on his face?
Stabbed with a bayonet by an American soldier. Everyone's a critic.
The bit that makes me laugh is that Hitler hated horses, couldn't ride and generally was fairly unfit.
The next layer is that he is being depicted as one of the Teutonic Knights - the Order of the Knights being suppressed by the Nazi's. Who tried to steal their story...
That and that wearing your armour "white" (shiny and polished) was considered to be the sign of a complete twat back in medieval times. Before chrome steel, unprotected metal rusted like crazy - you'd have to have a squad of squires polishing it day and night for that.
My Dad traced his ancestry back into Germany so it made us all interested in the history.
So you are going to say, without knowing all that Hitler loved the painting?
The world is only going to move to more and more insistence on individuals being vaccinated. Old Novax career might be coming to an early end if he continues to defy these mandates.
Imagine if he doesn't pull ahead of Saint Rog for the most major wins because of being anti-vaxxer.
The statue was erected in 1895, I'm fairly certain in 1895 we as a nation had decided Slavery was morally repugnent.
Which suggests slavery wasn’t a motivating factor in putting it up.
I like where you are going with this. The politics might have been we are putting this up to score points off our wokish political opponents? The opponents were what - republican, anti Empire, anti capitalism?
The motivating factor in putting it up at the time was the elites of Bristol patting themselves on the back and pushing any discussion of the seedy origins of their wealth outside of the acceptable discourse in the city. A state of affairs that obviously continued for some time.
Do you think that all the statues of Southern generals that were erected in the US during the late C19th / early C20th had nothing whatsoever to do with the history of slavery there either? Are you actually that naïve?
Only if you are naive, because I agree with you on the last point. Isn’t there a statue of a civil war general in the middle of a motorway?
An allegory of the American South: In 1998, a fierce racist (who also happened to be the former attorney of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin) named Jack Kershaw created a monument for another bad man, Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. The resulting statue is so hilariously stupid that we should keep it forever.
It’s an interesting one art is founded upon to an extent. What you see for yourself without knowing anything. Then the knowledge behind it changing what you see.
Wow. That is so beautiful. Yes. It was invented by Satan to lead the human race astray. Oh. Does it now look as beautiful as before?
One hilarious example comes to mind.....
Tony Blair at an exhibition of Aztec items at (I think) the British Museum praised a particular bowl as beautiful example of the art of a vibrant, lost culture.
It was the bowl into which the hearts torn from the sacrificial victims were placed. Thousands upon thousands of victims (lots of slaves, incidentally) murdered in those rituals.
That’s a great example.
And yes this golden horse with Cartoon confederate on back. Yes absolutely. All the knowledge behind its creation tells you it’s malign. But do you get that from observing it, without the knowledge? You could so easily think it a pastiche of the confederates? And a joyful and funny one at that.
What you know definitely changes what you see, any argument with that bit? But should it also change your enjoyment?
For example Screaming Eagles most favourite Soccer Mom movie - can he enjoy just as much when learning its director was a racist, and funding came from brexiteer who gave the most to Brexit campaign?
From loving it, to straight in the bin. How Should knowledge of artists and creatives change your enjoyment of their art?
The statue was erected in 1895, I'm fairly certain in 1895 we as a nation had decided Slavery was morally repugnent.
Which suggests slavery wasn’t a motivating factor in putting it up.
I like where you are going with this. The politics might have been we are putting this up to score points off our wokish political opponents? The opponents were what - republican, anti Empire, anti capitalism?
The motivating factor in putting it up at the time was the elites of Bristol patting themselves on the back and pushing any discussion of the seedy origins of their wealth outside of the acceptable discourse in the city. A state of affairs that obviously continued for some time.
Do you think that all the statues of Southern generals that were erected in the US during the late C19th / early C20th had nothing whatsoever to do with the history of slavery there either? Are you actually that naïve?
Only if you are naive, because I agree with you on the last point. Isn’t there a statue of a civil war general in the middle of a motorway?
An allegory of the American South: In 1998, a fierce racist (who also happened to be the former attorney of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin) named Jack Kershaw created a monument for another bad man, Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. The resulting statue is so hilariously stupid that we should keep it forever.
It’s an interesting one art is founded upon to an extent. What you see for yourself without knowing anything. Then the knowledge behind it changing what you see.
Wow. That is so beautiful. Yes. It was invented by Satan to lead the human race astray. Oh. Does it now look as beautiful as before?
One hilarious example comes to mind.....
Tony Blair at an exhibition of Aztec items at (I think) the British Museum praised a particular bowl as beautiful example of the art of a vibrant, lost culture.
It was the bowl into which the hearts torn from the sacrificial victims were placed. Thousands upon thousands of victims (lots of slaves, incidentally) murdered in those rituals.
That’s a great example.
And yes this golden horse with Cartoon confederate on back. Yes absolutely. All the knowledge behind its creation tells you it’s malign. But do you get that from observing it, without the knowledge? You could so easily think it a pastiche of the confederates? And a joyful and funny one at that.
What you know definitely changes what you see, any argument with that bit? But should it also change your enjoyment?
For example Screaming Eagles most favourite Soccer Mom movie - can he enjoy just as much when learning its director was a racist, and funding came from brexiteer who gave the most to Brexit campaign?
From loving it, to straight in the bin. How Should knowledge of artists and creatives change your enjoyment of their art?
It will be seen that what the defenders of Dali are claiming is a kind of benefit of clergy. The artist is to be exempt from the moral laws that are binding on ordinary people.
EDIT: the provenance of the artwork makes it *better* - a stupid racist tried to honour an evil racist and made himself (the stupid racist) look like an idiot and made the evil racist look like an idiot as well. "Evil doth often evil marr"...
Now for a fun one. This makes me laugh damn hard....
But the Nazi movement in Germany was about history though, Hail Hitler = Hail Caesar (from the Holy Roman Empire)
What’s that on his face?
I found a better resolution and (although it's still not clear) it looks like the painting has been scratched.
I'll be honest, before I zoomed in I'd convinced myself it was Tommie Smith or John Carlos superimposed over his face, which would have been quite fun.
Wiki says a US soldier damaged it with a bayonet after the end of the war, oddly it now resides in the US Army art collection. I wonder if the soldier was tried for criminal damage..
Probably not - there was a lot of looting and smashing up of Nazi stuff and nobody gave a damn.
I thought it was dire, but because of the atrocious plot, acting, sets, continuity etc. However, I thought the male lead, an Englishman apparently, did a good Scottish accent. He’d been totally slated in social media, but I thought he was one of the less annoying features.
Didn't see it. Did they have Gregor Fisher as the ghillie, I wonder?
Is there a law under which jurors can be prosecuted for being a bunch of knobheads?
The joy of the jury system is that the jury can acquit for whatever reason they like.
You could flip that the opposite way and that they can convict for any reason they like.
It’s not for juries to be setting laws. That’s why we have elections.
Who should be deciding if people have broken the law, if not a jury of the accused's peers?
Juries will occasionally acquit for reasons we find incomprehensible.
That's a feature, not a bug.
People who know what the law is, and have much better than average education and intelligence. What is this shit about "peers"? Who should be the judge of whether I have, let's say, MS? A specialist surgeon or 12 random wankers?
How we all cheered when good old Fred was acquitted in 1993.
Awful example in terms of your argument as West was NOT acquitted by a jury in 1993 - the trial collapsed and the jury was dismissed by the very experts to whom you refer (although not blaming them - it appears key witnesses simply wouldn't testify).
I think you misunderstand the role and value of a jury. Juries are not opining on what the law is. Largely, their role is determining who to believe, and it isn't obvious that people of "better than average education and intelligence" as you put it are better at that. I would suggest that, in fact, such people are simply more likely to believe people of better than average education and intelligence. A typical jury will have more of a range - from the very intelligent and erudite to the wide-boy who gets how sometimes fights in pubs get out of hand... which is actually pretty relevant life experience for a juror, even though I don't have it myself.
Very occasionally you get a case like the Colston Four where jurors possibly (and we don't know the debate in the jury room) feel the defendant is technically guilty but just don't want them to get a criminal record as they have sympathy, don't feel it's fair, and want to throw them a bit of mercy. As has been said, I think as long as that is rare it's a feature, not a bug. Whether or not you agree with this jury (and I myself am unsure) I don't see it as a bad thing that a dozen people just occasionally do that as it maintains a sense that the courts are considering, as well as black letter law, the fairness to the individual defendant.
The people who thought judges were enemies of the people and that activist lawyers are frustrating the noble intentions of HMG will be moving on to the juries. Who's left in the legal system to demonise, court ushers?
It's such a shame that the gammon society is upset...
Cheap shot. I don't know much about 'Save Our Statues' but they're making a substantive point that should be addressed.
It isn't open season on statues.
It does show however that juries will use their powers to acquit people if laws are used harshly to suppress legitimate dissent. Indeed that is how the original Penn case came to set the precedent.
Sorry but it strikes me as populist justice. There are plenty of ways people could show 'legitimate dissent' without having to tear the statue down.
No it is a long established principle that juries can refuse to enforce oppressive laws. It is the sort of ancient British custom that supposed patriots dislike.
Causing criminal damage is an oppressive law?
No but criminalising protest is.
As is planned via the new Police Bill.
That's a separate issue. Although the right to protest doesn't equal the right to cause disruption.
It certainly does include that, although whether it should include the right to block ambulances, say, is a different question.
Do you mean destruction?
I do mean disruption. I really don't understand our laws here. I find it bizarre that it was necessary to take out an injunction against Insulate Britain. Could they not be prosecuted under existing laws for blocking the roads?
I don't think somebody sitting on the road counts as an obstruction under the law.
The statue was erected in 1895, I'm fairly certain in 1895 we as a nation had decided Slavery was morally repugnent.
Which suggests slavery wasn’t a motivating factor in putting it up.
I like where you are going with this. The politics might have been we are putting this up to score points off our wokish political opponents? The opponents were what - republican, anti Empire, anti capitalism?
The motivating factor in putting it up at the time was the elites of Bristol patting themselves on the back and pushing any discussion of the seedy origins of their wealth outside of the acceptable discourse in the city. A state of affairs that obviously continued for some time.
Do you think that all the statues of Southern generals that were erected in the US during the late C19th / early C20th had nothing whatsoever to do with the history of slavery there either? Are you actually that naïve?
Only if you are naive, because I agree with you on the last point. Isn’t there a statue of a civil war general in the middle of a motorway?
An allegory of the American South: In 1998, a fierce racist (who also happened to be the former attorney of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin) named Jack Kershaw created a monument for another bad man, Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. The resulting statue is so hilariously stupid that we should keep it forever.
It’s an interesting one art is founded upon to an extent. What you see for yourself without knowing anything. Then the knowledge behind it changing what you see.
Wow. That is so beautiful. Yes. It was invented by Satan to lead the human race astray. Oh. Does it now look as beautiful as before?
One hilarious example comes to mind.....
Tony Blair at an exhibition of Aztec items at (I think) the British Museum praised a particular bowl as beautiful example of the art of a vibrant, lost culture.
It was the bowl into which the hearts torn from the sacrificial victims were placed. Thousands upon thousands of victims (lots of slaves, incidentally) murdered in those rituals.
That’s a great example.
And yes this golden horse with Cartoon confederate on back. Yes absolutely. All the knowledge behind its creation tells you it’s malign. But do you get that from observing it, without the knowledge? You could so easily think it a pastiche of the confederates? And a joyful and funny one at that.
What you know definitely changes what you see, any argument with that bit? But should it also change your enjoyment?
For example Screaming Eagles most favourite Soccer Mom movie - can he enjoy just as much when learning its director was a racist, and funding came from brexiteer who gave the most to Brexit campaign?
From loving it, to straight in the bin. How Should knowledge of artists and creatives change your enjoyment of their art?
The statue was erected in 1895, I'm fairly certain in 1895 we as a nation had decided Slavery was morally repugnent.
Which suggests slavery wasn’t a motivating factor in putting it up.
I like where you are going with this. The politics might have been we are putting this up to score points off our wokish political opponents? The opponents were what - republican, anti Empire, anti capitalism?
The motivating factor in putting it up at the time was the elites of Bristol patting themselves on the back and pushing any discussion of the seedy origins of their wealth outside of the acceptable discourse in the city. A state of affairs that obviously continued for some time.
Do you think that all the statues of Southern generals that were erected in the US during the late C19th / early C20th had nothing whatsoever to do with the history of slavery there either? Are you actually that naïve?
Only if you are naive, because I agree with you on the last point. Isn’t there a statue of a civil war general in the middle of a motorway?
An allegory of the American South: In 1998, a fierce racist (who also happened to be the former attorney of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin) named Jack Kershaw created a monument for another bad man, Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. The resulting statue is so hilariously stupid that we should keep it forever.
It’s an interesting one art is founded upon to an extent. What you see for yourself without knowing anything. Then the knowledge behind it changing what you see.
Wow. That is so beautiful. Yes. It was invented by Satan to lead the human race astray. Oh. Does it now look as beautiful as before?
One hilarious example comes to mind.....
Tony Blair at an exhibition of Aztec items at (I think) the British Museum praised a particular bowl as beautiful example of the art of a vibrant, lost culture.
It was the bowl into which the hearts torn from the sacrificial victims were placed. Thousands upon thousands of victims (lots of slaves, incidentally) murdered in those rituals.
That’s a great example.
And yes this golden horse with Cartoon confederate on back. Yes absolutely. All the knowledge behind its creation tells you it’s malign. But do you get that from observing it, without the knowledge? You could so easily think it a pastiche of the confederates? And a joyful and funny one at that.
What you know definitely changes what you see, any argument with that bit? But should it also change your enjoyment?
For example Screaming Eagles most favourite Soccer Mom movie - can he enjoy just as much when learning its director was a racist, and funding came from brexiteer who gave the most to Brexit campaign?
From loving it, to straight in the bin. How Should knowledge of artists and creatives change your enjoyment of their art?
It will be seen that what the defenders of Dali are claiming is a kind of benefit of clergy. The artist is to be exempt from the moral laws that are binding on ordinary people.
EDIT: the provenance of the artwork makes it *better* - a stupid racist tried to honour an evil racist and made himself (the stupid racist) look like an idiot and made the evil racist look like an idiot as well. "Evil doth often evil marr"...
Now for a fun one. This makes me laugh damn hard....
But the Nazi movement in Germany was about history though, Hail Hitler = Hail Caesar (from the Holy Roman Empire)
What’s that on his face?
Stabbed with a bayonet by an American soldier. Everyone's a critic.
The bit that makes me laugh is that Hitler hated horses, couldn't ride and generally was fairly unfit.
The next layer is that he is being depicted as one of the Teutonic Knights - the Order of the Knights being suppressed by the Nazi's. Who tried to steal their story...
That and that wearing your armour "white" (shiny and polished) was considered to be the sign of a complete twat back in medieval times. Before chrome steel, unprotected metal rusted like crazy - you'd have to have a squad of squires polishing it day and night for that.
My Dad traced his ancestry back into Germany so it made us all interested in the history.
So you are going to say, without knowing all that Hitler loved the painting?
At a random guess, it probably irritated him. He was careful with his image and tried to avoid anything that could make him ridiculous. Hence there is a big pile of pictures him trying costumes and gestures in private - he would then study the pictures to help craft his image....
Is there a law under which jurors can be prosecuted for being a bunch of knobheads?
The joy of the jury system is that the jury can acquit for whatever reason they like.
You could flip that the opposite way and that they can convict for any reason they like.
It’s not for juries to be setting laws. That’s why we have elections.
Not so simple. Juries can indeed acquit for whatever reason they like, and don't ever give a reason. And it is generally against the law to try to find out.
But they can't just convict any old how. There is a double safety net. To get to a jury decision there has to be evidence upon which a properly directed jury can properly convict. If there isn't the judge chucks it out on application at the close of the prosecution case.
Secondly a conviction can be appealed. An acquittal can't. (Unless very exceptionally compelling new facts arise).
Is this not all simply around the idea that in our system Juries get to decide? And we accept that juries occasionally taking it upon themselves to make exceptionally good or exceptionally perverse decisions is a price we pay for not having Officials make the decisions.
Certainly you are right that there is no fail safe method, and the failings of one have to be weighted against the potential failings of the alternative.
I think - as in so much of the legal setup - the Americans are centuries behind here with their "Grand Juries", which are the wrong aspect to preserve.
Talking of the US and juries, I see that one of the Maxwell jurors has revealed they were sexually abused in the past, and it isn’t clear whether they failed to declare it or it was declared but they failed to look into or act on the information. Potentially it gives Maxwell’s lawyers an anomaly to knaw at, increasing the chances of an appeal being allowed.
Bristol is probably where you'd want to be tried if you were a lefty vegan knitting statue botherer.
Indeed, every Bristol seat was won by Corbyn Labour even in 2019. The jury verdict was always likely to favour the protestors.
Though at least the statue is still in a museum even if probably rightly no longer on public display
Mrs Thatcher almost won all 4 seats in 1987.
Mirrors the national trend. Cities have moved more to Labour since the 1980s, Northern and Midlands ex mining and industrial areas have moved more to the Conservatives
Why?
Are you saying the people there change views, or the demographic itself changed? Like children of miners now live in conorbations not their area of birth? Like me! Last 40 years have made a big movement around?
If we had babies there is no family for nearly hundred miles who could help.
I might just get a pet to piss off the pope. Is that the right Anglican thing to do HY?
And we wonder why Catholics are outbreeding Protestants in Northern Ireland...
You mean Roman Catholics, I presume. As an Anglican you are just as much a Catholic as a RC. Unless you know something about Church of Ireland Episcopalians we don't.
*edit* checked: yes, Episcopalians are Catholic too. So scratch that last.
No we are not as the Head of our Church on earth is not the Pope.
There are also plenty of Protestant evangelicals too who would not consider themselves Catholic in any sense
I rather think the chaps at the C of E know better:
"The Church claims to be both Catholic and Reformed. It upholds teachings found in early Christian doctrines, such as the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed. The Church also reveres 16th century Protestant Reformation ideas outlined in texts, such as the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer."
And their Irish colleagues:
"1. Is the Church of Ireland Protestant or Catholic?
It is both Protestant and Catholic. For this reason it is incorrect to refer to members of the Church of Ireland as ‘non–Catholic’.
The terms Protestant and Catholic are not really opposites.
There are Catholics who accept the universal jurisdiction of the Pope, the Bishop of Rome. Often in consequence they are called Roman Catholics. But there are other Catholics who do not accept the Pope’s jurisdiction or certain doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. Some are called Protestant or Reformed Catholics. Among them are members of the Church of Ireland and the other Churches of the Anglican Communion.
It follows therefore that the terms ‘Protestant’ and ‘Reformed’ should be contrasted with ‘Roman’ and not with ‘Catholic’.
The Church of Ireland is Catholic because it is in possession of a continuous tradition of faith and practice, based on Scripture and early traditions, enshrined in the Catholic Creeds, together with the sacraments and apostolic ministry. "
Yet it is still not fully Catholic as the Pope is not its Head. Evangelicals, as opposed to Anglo Catholics and most liberals within even the Anglican Church would not consider themselves Catholic in any sense.
Protestant evangelical Pentecostals, Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans etc would also not consider themselves Catholic in any sense
You are confusing Catholicism in general with the specific kind mediated through the Roman Papacy. I'm sure the nice chap in Lambeth Palace can explain it all to you.
Allegedly mediated through the Roman Papacy
(I may not be helping here)
They would consider themselves catholic, but probably using a different word, and not Catholic.
Always thought the Anglican Church was "a" Catholic church as opposed to "the" Catholic church,
Anglo Catholic Anglicans would think that, evangelicals in the Church of England would not
The C of E itself officially says that Sunil is right. As I pointed out earlier this evening.
'It claims to be Catholic and Reformed.'
The Anglo Catholics and liberals within the Church of England consider it to be more the former, the evangelicals within the Church of England would consider it to be solely the latter.
If the Church of England was disestablished almost all the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholics (not least as most of them are still opposed to women priests), most of the evangelicals would become Baptists or Pentecostals and the remaining liberals would support gay marriages and blessings etc much like the Episcopalian Church in the US or the Church of Wales already does.
Does anyone have any rough idea when gas wholesale prices may restabilise at a lower level?
Are we talking eg 3, 6, 12, 24 or 48 months?
Approximately six months after the US rig count reaches pre-pandemic levels.
There were - pre-pandemic - around 180-200 natural gas rigs drilling in the US. At the absolute lows 3Q2020, there were maybe two dozen actual working rigs.
We're now back over 100, and I suspect we'll reach 160-170 by the autumn. So, early Spring 2023.
Comments
It really is telling when something quite that longstanding is seen as some new threat to society by certain conservatives.
There's also a small benefit that if prices suddenly fail to go up by 50-60%, it will take some stuffing out of inflation.
And yes this golden horse with Cartoon confederate on back. Yes absolutely. All the knowledge behind its creation tells you it’s malign. But do you get that from observing it, without the knowledge? You could so easily think it a pastiche of the confederates? And a joyful and funny one at that.
What you know definitely changes what you see, any argument with that bit? But should it also change your enjoyment?
For example Screaming Eagles most favourite Soccer Mom movie - can he enjoy just as much when learning its director was a racist, and funding came from brexiteer who gave the most to Brexit campaign?
From loving it, to straight in the bin. How Should knowledge of artists and creatives change your enjoyment of their art?
Generally speaking the obsession with slavery 300 years ago is curious. It is an unfortunate feature of human development and the real story is that Britain took the lead in abolishing it. It is one of the few areas in which human society progressed. The debate about the rights and wrongs of it was finished generations ago.
Trying to bring all this back up is just the sign of a society that has no confidence in itself; what it is and what it has achieved; it is just sad.
But they can't just convict any old how. There is a double safety net. To get to a jury decision there has to be evidence upon which a properly directed jury can properly convict. If there isn't the judge chucks it out on application at the close of the prosecution case.
Secondly a conviction can be appealed. An acquittal can't. (Unless very exceptionally compelling new facts arise).
Do you mean destruction?
Both the attempt to cover the earth in them. And the No real motivation such as to counter opponents?
It will be seen that what the defenders of Dali are claiming is a kind of benefit of clergy. The artist is to be exempt from the moral laws that are binding on ordinary people.
EDIT: the provenance of the artwork makes it *better* - a stupid racist tried to honour an evil racist and made himself (the stupid racist) look like an idiot and made the evil racist look like an idiot as well. "Evil doth often evil marr"...
Now for a fun one. This makes me laugh damn hard....
Juries will occasionally acquit for reasons we find incomprehensible.
That's a feature, not a bug.
"East India Sugar not made by Slaves"
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_2002-0904-1
Boris previously said this, about Brexit: “We will be able to scrap this unfair and damaging tax” specifically in relation to VAT on fuel. He isn’t going to be allowed to forget it.
Plus there was zero need to wake someone up to do things quicker.
They should never have Lett him in.
Their credibility is a net loser. But it is ace news for Australia.
I'm here to serve (that's enough - Ed).
How we all cheered when good old Fred was acquitted in 1993.
That would have got you your day with a jury.
And perhaps a few months behind bars with Fingers and the Ice Man.
Everyone can love Alice, but not a Reginald.
I don’t think I like him anymore now I know that.
I also feel slightly uneasy about the effective introduction of a concept of "justifiable destruction", but that sort of thing is all over the criminal law; you can even be acquitted of murder if you had been subjected to lengthy and unendurable abuse - the phrase "no jury will convict you for that" is familiar. Colson's company's crimes sound utterly vile, from branding of children to organised rape, and the removal of the statue therefore sounds long overdue. I doubt if prosecution was in the public interest in this case.
"1/12. This year's 16 candidates set sail from Portsmouth, their first task being to come up with marketing campaigns for a new cruise liner."
Well, there's a task. Can't think why marketing a cruise liner would be an issue...
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1980/66/part/IX/crossheading/obstruction-of-highways-and-streets
That seems to imply physical objects rather than a person.
After all, you have a right to be on the road.
It would have read
“As a high official of the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, Edward Colston played an active role in the enslavement of over 84,000 Africans (including 12,000 children) of whom over 19,000 died en route to the Caribbean and America.
“Colston also invested in the Spanish slave trade and in slave-produced sugar. As Tory MP for Bristol (1710-1713), he defended the city’s ‘right’ to trade in enslaved Africans.
“Bristolians who did not subscribe to his religious and political beliefs were not permitted to benefit from his charities,”
On the other hand, in its favour, it's quite a nice statue.
It shouldn't have come down. It should have been joined by something that gave it its proper context. We should be a generation that adds to the discussion, not one that tears down public art because we're too weak-minded and pathetic to tolerate the sight of something we disagree with.
And it is interesting how the history of juries being free to come to a verdict of their choosing is intertwined with democracy - all the way back to the first mentions of democracy in the ancient world.
Does anyone have any rough idea when gas wholesale prices may restabilise at a lower level?
Are we talking eg 3, 6, 12, 24 or 48 months?
Not another one. I didn’t know that either.
There are so many of Columbus in the USA, because new Italian immigrants wanted to be included in the history of "white" America. Even though he never set foot there.
They weren't really thought of as white back then.
Often though they were put up because the neighbouring town had one.
I dislike them as a rule. Most are of little artistic value, nor much relevance to today.
(I may not be helping here)
They would consider themselves catholic, but probably using a different word, and not Catholic.
Indeed the jury today acquitted, but there is no guarantee that any other group of iconoclasts would be granted the same. It is a beautifully precise verdict.
To be honest, they aren't terribly noteworthy, they just fade into the background. Or at least, they do for me. Maybe others notice them more.
But I am no lawyer and there may be other reasons.
And with that, good night.
(It is very important to understand that futures prices are all about interest rates and borrowing costs though. However all of these things will get dragged towards future expectations if there's sufficient confidence in those expectations.)
What’s that on his face?
So an injunction makes it a criminal breach and a prison matter, rather than a cotton-batting fine in a Magistrates' Court.
And I did NOT realise that Elton John had christened himself Hercules as a middle name.
The bit that makes me laugh is that Hitler hated horses, couldn't ride and generally was fairly unfit.
The next layer is that he is being depicted as one of the Teutonic Knights - the Order of the Knights being suppressed by the Nazi's. Who tried to steal their story...
That and that wearing your armour "white" (shiny and polished) was considered to be the sign of a complete twat back in medieval times. Before chrome steel, unprotected metal rusted like crazy - you'd have to have a squad of squires polishing it day and night for that.
Good start to 2022.
So you are going to say, without knowing all that Hitler loved the painting?
Imagine if he doesn't pull ahead of Saint Rog for the most major wins because of being anti-vaxxer.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt13070602/fullcredits/cast?ref_=m_ttfc_3
I think you misunderstand the role and value of a jury. Juries are not opining on what the law is. Largely, their role is determining who to believe, and it isn't obvious that people of "better than average education and intelligence" as you put it are better at that. I would suggest that, in fact, such people are simply more likely to believe people of better than average education and intelligence. A typical jury will have more of a range - from the very intelligent and erudite to the wide-boy who gets how sometimes fights in pubs get out of hand... which is actually pretty relevant life experience for a juror, even though I don't have it myself.
Very occasionally you get a case like the Colston Four where jurors possibly (and we don't know the debate in the jury room) feel the defendant is technically guilty but just don't want them to get a criminal record as they have sympathy, don't feel it's fair, and want to throw them a bit of mercy. As has been said, I think as long as that is rare it's a feature, not a bug. Whether or not you agree with this jury (and I myself am unsure) I don't see it as a bad thing that a dozen people just occasionally do that as it maintains a sense that the courts are considering, as well as black letter law, the fairness to the individual defendant.
One of the direst airports I've ever been to.
The Anglo Catholics and liberals within the Church of England consider it to be more the former, the evangelicals within the Church of England would consider it to be solely the latter.
If the Church of England was disestablished almost all the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholics (not least as most of them are still opposed to women priests), most of the evangelicals would become Baptists or Pentecostals and the remaining liberals would support gay marriages and blessings etc much like the Episcopalian Church in the US or the Church of Wales already does.
There were - pre-pandemic - around 180-200 natural gas rigs drilling in the US. At the absolute lows 3Q2020, there were maybe two dozen actual working rigs.
We're now back over 100, and I suspect we'll reach 160-170 by the autumn. So, early Spring 2023.
Will they be deported toute suite?