Most people are glad to finally see the back of that wretched statue

IT’S great that the statue of Edward Colston has gone on display in the M Shed museum, having been fished out of the drink whence he was dunked a year ago.

Most people in Bristol are glad to see the back of that wretched statue. Good riddance to it in the city centre, it’s much better off in the museum. And the display looks very good and very popular.

Colston, we know, helped finance slavery. He financed some of the ships that sent captured African slaves to America. 19,000 people died on those trans-Atlantic voyages.

Do we really think this merited a statue to the person who financed all of this?

What should go on the plinth? Well, a series of rotating statues sounds good, since ideas always change. Maybe we could do some kind of digital projection and create changing images.

One person we should remember is the social psychologist Henri Tajfel.

He did pioneering research into prejudice here in Bristol, in the late 1960s.

He demonstrated that human beings prefer our own “in-groups” at the expense of other “outgroups”, and we even prefer to discriminate against other groups. This arises from social perception and misperception.

The best that we can hope for is to minimise the prejudice and to have rules in place which counter discrimination.

It is then vital that we enforce those rules, or we make a mockery of the rule of law.

Tajfel himself lost 40 of his friends and family in the Holocaust, so he knew all about discrimination and prejudice.

People who suffer discrimination can take legal action and bring about change.

Jon Elbert Bristol