Hard to disagree with this assessment considering the number of commenters here who completely misunderstand (or willingly misrepresent) the verdict and circumstances of the case.
Quite amusing listening to supporters of this government suddenly now talk about the integrity of the law.
Yup that’s definitely the case.
This whole trial result has been blown massively out of proportion.
Idiots crying about a statue they had to Google to find out who it was lol
The Right are so desperate for this ‘culture war’ nonsense. It’s just sad
Like many things this is a result of dumbing down education.
The standard of education in this country is abysmal and has been for decades.
The vast majority of education in this country isn’t about learning, it’s a memory test.
If you aquire good grades it’s not because you are intelligent, it’s because you have a good memory.
Sheer lack of critical thinking skills is absolutely stunning.
Watching people go off the deep end time and time again simply because they lack the most basic understanding on how to make any kind of informed decision by evaluating different sources of information objectively is actually terrifying.
It was right that the statue went down. A little worried/confused as to why they were not punished though. Does this mean other statues can be toppled given the person in question? For example if people toppled the nelson Mandela statue would those people be not guilty as well?
It shouldn’t matter what your opinion on the case is, having the AG effectively cast doubt on the idea of trial by jury is dangerous.
>Woke is actually a colloquial term for being aware of social injustice – it’s been appropriated by the right as a way to demonise young people who care about equality and making the world a better place.
Excuse me, but who gave them ownership of a word?
This is what happens when the country has a dog shit education system, both sides thick as pig shit trying to out-outrage each other instead of learning from history.
DM readers applauded Saddam’s statue being pulled down in a “heroic act”, but draw the line at pulling down a statue of a slave trader who used to brand slave children with a red hot poker.
Hypocrites.
The test could be if you try and pull down a statute and the British public stops you in your tracks , your views on that statue are in the minority and you should pipe down
Eg Coulson – no opposition
Mandela / Churchill / Nelson’s column – good luck you’ll get bashed
They deliberately vandalised it so there shouldn’t have been an acquittal, I’m sure they will be retried and convicted soon 😊
A highly left leaning platform (this one) has many people disagreeing the Jury’s decision. This isn’t a left vs right debate, no matter how ideologically driven the person or people behind the article is/are
They were charged under the Criminal Damage Act 1971, which in Section 5 states:
> (2) A person charged with an offence to which this section applies, shall, whether or not he would be treated for the purposes of this Act as having a lawful excuse apart from this subsection, be treated for those purposes as having a lawful excuse—
> (a) if at the time of the act or acts alleged to constitute the offence he believed that the person or persons whom he believed to be entitled to consent to the destruction of or damage to the property in question had so consented, or would have so consented to it if he or they had known of the destruction or damage and its circumstances;
Their defence had two parts: that as the statue’s plaque said it had been erected “by citizens of Bristol”, and as petitions had for 30 years been sent by Bristol residents demanding that the statue be removed, they reasoned it both belonged to and was desired to be removed by the people of Bristol.
The other part depended on Articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR, which asserts rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and association except for reasons:
> such as are prescribed by law and are necessary in
a democratic society in the interests of national security or public
safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection
of health or morals or for the protection of the rights and freedoms
of others.
The charge was a breach of the Criminal Damage Act, so most of this doesn’t apply, but also wouldn’t apply to many charges that could have been brought. Obviously there was no concern for national security, or the protection of health or morals.
The prevention of disorder also doesn’t chime in this instance: the statue had stood for over a hundred years, despite multiple petitions for the “democratic society’s” executive organisation, the council, to remove it. It was hardly a spurious attack on a random object.
> The defence provided a frame for the actions that placed them within an ongoing community dialogue about the slave trade, Bristol’s role within it and the veneration of a mass murderer.
> The jury, plainly, agreed. And they did so on legal grounds provided for by parliament and directed by the trial judge.
Absolutely. Culture wars benefit the Tories because their ideologies are founded on ignorance. Immigrants aren’t people seeking refuge from war-torn chaos, they’re ‘job-stealers who want to have Shariah Law.’ Benefit claimants aren’t people who don’t earn enough from employment or are too ill to work, they’re ‘benefit scroungers living off taxpayers’. Corbyn doesn’t want more class equality and resources for all, he’s a ‘communist who thinks everything grows on trees.’
Misrepresenting things like this are part of Tory tactics. Take stereotypes, embellish them and attribute them to the left. A lot of people don’t question it because it plays on ignorance, and before you know it we have power-mad tyrants like Johnson.
15 comments
Hard to disagree with this assessment considering the number of commenters here who completely misunderstand (or willingly misrepresent) the verdict and circumstances of the case.
Quite amusing listening to supporters of this government suddenly now talk about the integrity of the law.
Yup that’s definitely the case.
This whole trial result has been blown massively out of proportion.
Idiots crying about a statue they had to Google to find out who it was lol
The Right are so desperate for this ‘culture war’ nonsense. It’s just sad
Like many things this is a result of dumbing down education.
The standard of education in this country is abysmal and has been for decades.
The vast majority of education in this country isn’t about learning, it’s a memory test.
If you aquire good grades it’s not because you are intelligent, it’s because you have a good memory.
Sheer lack of critical thinking skills is absolutely stunning.
Watching people go off the deep end time and time again simply because they lack the most basic understanding on how to make any kind of informed decision by evaluating different sources of information objectively is actually terrifying.
It was right that the statue went down. A little worried/confused as to why they were not punished though. Does this mean other statues can be toppled given the person in question? For example if people toppled the nelson Mandela statue would those people be not guilty as well?
It shouldn’t matter what your opinion on the case is, having the AG effectively cast doubt on the idea of trial by jury is dangerous.
>Woke is actually a colloquial term for being aware of social injustice – it’s been appropriated by the right as a way to demonise young people who care about equality and making the world a better place.
Excuse me, but who gave them ownership of a word?
This is what happens when the country has a dog shit education system, both sides thick as pig shit trying to out-outrage each other instead of learning from history.
DM readers applauded Saddam’s statue being pulled down in a “heroic act”, but draw the line at pulling down a statue of a slave trader who used to brand slave children with a red hot poker.
Hypocrites.
The test could be if you try and pull down a statute and the British public stops you in your tracks , your views on that statue are in the minority and you should pipe down
Eg Coulson – no opposition
Mandela / Churchill / Nelson’s column – good luck you’ll get bashed
They deliberately vandalised it so there shouldn’t have been an acquittal, I’m sure they will be retried and convicted soon 😊
A highly left leaning platform (this one) has many people disagreeing the Jury’s decision. This isn’t a left vs right debate, no matter how ideologically driven the person or people behind the article is/are
They were charged under the Criminal Damage Act 1971, which in Section 5 states:
> (2) A person charged with an offence to which this section applies, shall, whether or not he would be treated for the purposes of this Act as having a lawful excuse apart from this subsection, be treated for those purposes as having a lawful excuse—
> (a) if at the time of the act or acts alleged to constitute the offence he believed that the person or persons whom he believed to be entitled to consent to the destruction of or damage to the property in question had so consented, or would have so consented to it if he or they had known of the destruction or damage and its circumstances;
Their defence had two parts: that as the statue’s plaque said it had been erected “by citizens of Bristol”, and as petitions had for 30 years been sent by Bristol residents demanding that the statue be removed, they reasoned it both belonged to and was desired to be removed by the people of Bristol.
The other part depended on Articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR, which asserts rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and association except for reasons:
> such as are prescribed by law and are necessary in
a democratic society in the interests of national security or public
safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection
of health or morals or for the protection of the rights and freedoms
of others.
The charge was a breach of the Criminal Damage Act, so most of this doesn’t apply, but also wouldn’t apply to many charges that could have been brought. Obviously there was no concern for national security, or the protection of health or morals.
The prevention of disorder also doesn’t chime in this instance: the statue had stood for over a hundred years, despite multiple petitions for the “democratic society’s” executive organisation, the council, to remove it. It was hardly a spurious attack on a random object.
As *[The Conversation](https://theconversation.com/we-attended-the-trial-of-the-colston-four-heres-why-their-acquittal-should-be-celebrated-174481)* puts it:
> The defence provided a frame for the actions that placed them within an ongoing community dialogue about the slave trade, Bristol’s role within it and the veneration of a mass murderer.
> The jury, plainly, agreed. And they did so on legal grounds provided for by parliament and directed by the trial judge.
Absolutely. Culture wars benefit the Tories because their ideologies are founded on ignorance. Immigrants aren’t people seeking refuge from war-torn chaos, they’re ‘job-stealers who want to have Shariah Law.’ Benefit claimants aren’t people who don’t earn enough from employment or are too ill to work, they’re ‘benefit scroungers living off taxpayers’. Corbyn doesn’t want more class equality and resources for all, he’s a ‘communist who thinks everything grows on trees.’
Misrepresenting things like this are part of Tory tactics. Take stereotypes, embellish them and attribute them to the left. A lot of people don’t question it because it plays on ignorance, and before you know it we have power-mad tyrants like Johnson.