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So the chaps that tear down a statue and throw it in the harbour because there was slave trading involved in the making of the fortune (unforgivable) that lead to enormous philanthropy toward Bristol are acquitted? Could you just not add a plaque with information?

I tell you what, J M Barrie had a very dodgy relationship with the small boy that was the inspiration for Peter Pan. Quick! Go tear down the statue of Peter Pan in Regents Park.

Churchill was misogynist and racist. Rip them all down and rename the streets and pubs!

Where does it end? Education, yes. Provide further information, yes. Revise history on the fly by destroying monuments? (Umm, wasn’t that one of the big things that ticked people off about the Taliban and Daesh?)

Not that in anyway I can forgive Colston for his involvement in the slave trade, but find me a single major figure without a blemish on their soul. Ghandi and Mother Theresa did some pretty horrible things.

Where does it end

When all the cunts aren't on big plinths being celebrated but are stuck in a museum with a plaque saying why they were cunts and why it took so long to move them here.

Absolutely right that they were acquitted.

I was trying to think of a snappy response to @RagnarHairybreeks colonialist pearl clutching and you go and say it so much better than I could manage...

Revise history on the fly by destroying monuments?

This is bullshit too, history isn't changed by getting rid of a statue, it all still happened. Now maybe it's being recalled more honestly in places and monuments to it's most successful monsters are rightly being evaluated as to whether they should be on prominent display in front of the descendents of people they may have owned.

Well put

Then pretty much every statue that isn’t abstract art needs to be in that category.

And, I’m not pearl clutching. It is the principle not the incident that annoys me.

If you had statues raised of yourself in your lifetime, then tear ‘em down by all means come the revolution (Stalin, Kim etc)

So, just give us your reasons for keeping Colston's statue up then.

Would it not be more (going back to the Bristol incident) useful to add an information plaque to the plinth detailing his crimes against humanity?

Nah, he was better off in the river.

I just don’t believe in destruction. I prefer to believe in continuous improvement.

I thought it was now on display again elsewhere? complete with graffiti and a plaque explaining how much of a cunt he was.

So it’s a win win right? The people of Bristol no longer have to look at it, and those that do want to go see him and pay homage will be reminded/informed of what a belter he was.

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Elizabeth Holmes is very good at acting. And that's pretty the whole story. I'm glad she didn't con the jury. They didn't buy the coercive control defence, for which there's no evidence. But she's still conning other people, including the naive hotel heir who married her just in time for him to pay her legal bills, and got her pregnant just in time to get sympathy in court. She'll exploit it to the max to get a cushy sentence.

I just don’t believe in destruction. I prefer to believe in continuous improvement

In some circumstances they're the same thing.
Besides, people had been trying to get rid of it by other means and it was going nowhere, they took matters into their own hands and did something beautiful.

Exactly, the whole argument about history being "erased" or "revised" when statues are gone, or when the funding sources of National Trust properties is revealed is such utter shite.

The name Colston is so much more familiar to people now than it would have been if they'd added a small plaque to the statue or left it alone - people now understand more rather than less about how much of the wealth of some British cities was built up on the backs of Africans. That can only be bad for history if you want to cover your ears for the bad bits and present some nationalist bullshit.

The "where will it end?" is a misnomer too - we're talking about somebody who made huge wealth from brutal kidnap and trafficking.

I think it's worth having an honest debate about Jan Smuts, Churchill, etc, and what message their statues give - but for slave traders I don't think there's a debate necessary.

“Tonight they can throw him in a dungeon, tomorrow they can put him in chains. The truth is he is like water and water paves its own path. Novak is the Spartacus of the new world which won’t tolerate injustice, colonialism and hypocrisy.”

I like the Colston verdict, but is there a legal basis for it?

Jury nullification I presume.

Jury nullification (US/UK), jury equity(UK), or a perverse verdict (UK) refers to when members of a criminal trial's jury believe that a defendant is guilty, but choose to acquit the defendant anyway.
...
Nullification is not an official part of criminal procedure, but is the logical consequence of two rules governing the systems...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

Maybe I'm an old cynic, but to me this just looks like a story about how four nice white middle class people can drop a few pills, go on the rampage at a demonstration, and then get decent legal help to get off with it.

No way would they have walked had they been poor black kids.

This time next year, Rhian, Milo, Sage & Jake will be opening a tattoo parlour in Shoreditch and pressing their own almond milk, just you wait.

Revise history on the fly by destroying monuments?

This is bullshit too, history isn't changed by getting rid of a statue

My biggest bugbear about the "changing history" argument, asides from it not making sense, is that I never hear anyone complaining about quite major revisionist history that is happily spread in general discourse.

There are lots of examples, but the casual undermining of THE extent of the Soviets role in WWII in favour of the USA and Britain is an obvious one.

Colston statue was put up 170yrs after he had died. He wasn't a famous figure in the city and he was chosen as part of a rebrand.
So on this case the removing history argument doesn't really work. None really gave a f*CK about Colston now or when the stutue was put up.

OK . I admit I was unaware of that wrinkle.

How do you think the Soviet Union would have done without Lend Lease?

I share your basic sentiment about vandalism. But I think you're missing the back story.

There was a long standing campaign to have a plaque explaining his role in the slave trade (~5yrs iirc) that was essentially ignored.

It's hard to think of a justifiable reason why the local authority of a city (that only is what it is because of the transatlantic slave trade) would do that. It's such an obviously reasonable way to balance the history of the city.

They erected a couple of information boards in St Andrews Square in Edinburgh to explain Henry Dundas. There was graffiti and a call to remove him as it seems on the surface he helped to extend the legality of the slave trade. However, it can readily be argued he in fact helped to end it.

I believe those allegations have all but disappeared now, as most of these things do, people move onto other things and forget all about it.

He's such a prick, good riddance