In the news

I'd say it is a waste of public money if they are investigating every single street name that may or may not have links to historically questionable practices.

I dont need or want to know who the panel are though.

Would be up for all the statues of English royals being lobbed in the Forth ;o)

I think the toppling of Colston was a good moment; as an act of iconoclasm, it sent a signal that was valuable. However, I think that campaigners should now try to concentrate on something other than statues. If they change the big picture in the wake of this starting gun, the symbols and icons will follow naturally, brought down by mere locals, in due course. Wasting enormous energy on things like the Rhodes statue in Oxford or the Geffrye statue in Shoreditch is only going to leave campaigners trailing again. Statues are definitely not the first line of defence to concentrate on. I realise that the momentum may already have been lost again.

So do I.

Robert Jenrick, a qualified solicitor, on Twitter arguing that a jury trial somehow undermines the rule of law.

He either qualified as a solicitor somehow without learning what the rule of law is and is too thick to realise it, or he is deliberately talking shite to grift and dog whistle.

I know which I'd put my money on.

He's definitely high on the list of tory venal cunts. But it's a long list.

He has subscribed to the Matt Hancock 'Path back to Public Office' program.

I’m a solicitor and it does not surprise me at all that someone could qualify and not have a firm grasp of the rule of law.

"Those kids have no idea whatsoever of what went on at Stalingrad"

Does the Colston trial mean there Willoughby no Skuse for future juries, as they realise the responsibility incumbent uPonsford them to...aGraham a just verdict?

Sorry, pretty laboured.

legit thought your autocorrect had gone bonkers for a minute until I got that..!

I think there's an implied stereotyping that assumes that you don't have educated articulate black people. The comparisons jump straight to poor black kids.

Good point. However in this instance the point I was making is that what got these kids off was their privileged status and access to good legal support, which poor black kids wouldn't enjoy.

Similarly, Rhian, Milo, Sage and Jake enjoyed a great deal of tacit support from BBC/Guardian Hampstead dwelling journo types, no doubt because they are so similar to the type of kids their own children would have met at prep, or maybe ballet class. Poor Black kids would have reminded them of their cleaners, or the people who deliver their shopping, and hence would have elicited way less support.

In general, I think we should read the news critically. If I'm right, and this is just a bunch of posh kids that got a bit carried away on a jolly, they are a bunch of absolute twats for co-opting the BLM movement in their defence.

Whenever the middle classes start appropriating someone else's culture they need to be resisted, not hero-worshipped. Look at the mess they made of Football.

Christ, it is fucking eating you alive that the people who toppled Colston might actually not come from council estates.

Christ, it is fucking eating you alive that the people who toppled Colston might actually not come from council estates.

It really isn't. What's eating me alive is that if they had come from council estates, they would be behind bars now.

Do you think Joshua Molnar would be walking about if he'd been a bit council?

As far as I'm aware, their class or how they funded their defence isn't in the public realm? So all we are seeing here is lazy assumptions and biases.

Look at the mess they made of Football.

Not really into football. But given that I recently discovered that all the racist songs I remember children singing when I was a kid came from the terraces, I don't think dads in Filson jackets is that big of an issue.

all the racist songs I remember children singing when I was a kid

Can't help you with that, sorry.

Just picking one of them at random...

https://www.doughtystreet.co.uk/news/edward-colston-statue-toppling-trial-liam-walker-represents-acquitted-defendant

Regardless of how her defense was funded, her representation came from a set known for human rights and immigration. Not your average criminal barrister.

We get it - your schtick is that you hate women and middle-class people. Now hush - it went beyond embarrassing some time ago.

What does that have to do with what I said?

We get it - your schtick is that you hate women and middle-class people.

Neither of those things are true. What I hate is inequality.

And "posh birds"...

Even if you don't know whether they're actually posh or not

So all we are seeing here is lazy assumptions and biases.

Not just "here"

And "posh birds"...

Even if you don't know whether they're actually posh or not

What I have attempted to allude to is that people are treated very differently 'in the news' according to their racial / sexual / financial background.

My initial use of the term 'Posh Bird' was used to refer to a women - who was undoubtedly wealthy - who was bemoaning the fact that since Brexit she could no longer get Eastern European people to work for cheaps. She was presented in the press as some sort of angel who through no fault of her own had fallen on hard times because those simple people who don't understand things like macro-economics had voted for Brexit.

My use of the term 'Posh Bird' wasn't meant to be mysogynistic, but to highlight the fact that things can be read, and looked at differently. Had that been a story about a brown man struggling to get people from Bangladesh to work in a factory for minimum wage, I think it would have been reported rather differently.

Similarly, I believe the "Colston Four' have been treated differently, both by the press and by the legal system, because they are white and - at least a bit - middle class.

That doesn't mean I have a problem with either women, or middle class people - it just means that I think it's important to question everything. I also try - and often fail - to convey meaning epigramatically.

So do you think that the 4 being found not guilty was the right decision?

So do you think that the 4 being found not guilty was the right decision?

I think it can be appraised from a multitude of positions, and I really wish it was possible for us - on the Forum and in our wider society - to be able to discuss the full spectrum of those positions without descending immediately into trench warfare.

You are so anti-middle-class that you're coming across like a plain old Daily Mail-reading right winger.

Perhaps that's not what you are but whatever you're trying to say isn't really getting through.

So anyway... the juror who may just have f*cked up the Maxwell trial...

Stupid or manipulated? Seems very odd.