Democracy in action

✒ LETTER-WRITER Kevin Hill has his basic facts wrong again in his recent rant against the removal of the statue of slave-trade financier Edward Colston.

He says that over 100 people died in Bristol on the day that people took down the statue of Colston, rolled him through the city in shame, dragged him along the harbourside and threw him into the water.

This is not correct. More than 260 people have died in total from Covid-19 in Bristol, but it is a lie to say that over 100 died on the day that “people power” toppled Colston.

Mr Hill is fully entitled to his view on the statue, but is not entitled to make up his own facts.

If Mr Hill and others feel so strongly about the Colston statue, why not start a petition to have it reinstated rather than put on display in a museum? Then we can see how that compares to the 11,000 people who signed a petition calling for the statue to be removed.

Most people in Bristol (60%+) wanted that statue removed and put in a museum, that’s what the surveys showed. And most people now want it put in a museum (60%+). That’s the will of the people.

Hopefully Mr Hill and others will applaud the energetic actions of the statue-topplers in fulfilling the wishes of most of the people of Bristol. That’s democracy in action, folks. Colston was not a local hero.

What people think about that statue reveals what they think about race and power in modern Bristol. Steve Mansfield Bristol