Statue mob verdict a monumental folly
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A VIRTUESIGNALLING academy that “cancelled” JK Rowling as a name for one of its houses due to her stance on trans issues has become the subject of open ridicule after the person they chose to replace her has also been found to have strong views on the subject.
The Boswells School, Chelmsford, Essex, dumped the Harry Potter creator in favour of Olympic champion Dame Kelly Holmes, only to discover she has in the past warned about the fairness of trans athletes competing in certain events and even suggested a “trans games”.
As yet there’s no comment from the school, although one unnamed teacher is quoted as saying it will not “be commenting”.
You bet it won’t! Go straight to the bottom of the class, you woke dunces, and here’s a lesson even you should be able to comprehend: You’re here to teach, not preach.
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IN A bid to get as many shots into as many arms as possible, the amount of time a worker can take off sick without medical certification was increased last month. It went from a week to 28 days, which effectively meant many could take a month off work with no need to back up their claim of being sick. The nation’s largest public sector union Unison circulated the news to its 1.4million members.
The Government’s goal was admirable, but sadly it has been abused. While we are blessed with our “armies” of health and care workers and school staff, please don’t pretend there aren’t some in those sectors who haven’t taken advantage. Scrap it without delay.
ITWAS a decision that was baffling in the extreme – well, certainly to those with any shred of common sense. A group of protesters who defaced a statue in full view of watching police officers, helped rouse and then orchestrate a cheering crowd to roll it from its rightful place down to the harbour side and heave it into the murky depths below escaped any form of censure when they were cleared last week by a jury.
The evidence against the three men and one woman – who have earned the nickname “The Colston Four” after they toppled the statue of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol in June 2020 – seemed compelling.
There was CCTV footage of some of them passing ropes around the statue and then pulling it, and encouraging others to join in, until it crashed to the ground. They were also clearly seen plotting a course to its ultimate destination in Bristol harbour.
By now the statue was dented, damaged and covered in paint and slogans which, you would have thought, made a conviction for criminal damage a mere formality.
However, in less than three hours the jury decided they had committed no crime, leaving legal experts, politicians and some commentators open jawed in amazement.
In truth, the rationale for this decision, which is as ridiculous as it is wrong, is simple. The jury mistakenly thought it was Colston on trial, and not the four demonstrators who claimed they were “illuminating history” and putting right a “hate crime” with their actions.
Quite how a statue is a hate crime is confusing enough, but when you also throw in the defence team’s claim that their clients effectively “owned” the statue, as it belonged to the people, and they couldn’t be found guilty of damaging their own property, the trial gets closer to descending into farce.
It’s nigh on impossible to see a judge deciding all of the accused could walk free in a case such as this, but he or she would be far more in tune with the law than they would with the current mores of society.
But that is precisely what a jury, which is a rightly hallowed principle of our judicial system, can always turn up.
Much as it did last year when six Extinction Rebellion protestors were cleared of similar charges after an attack on Shell’s London headquarters.
None of us know what went through the jurors’ minds. But it seems fair to suggest that at a time when protest and toxic dissent are so rife, a streak of anarchy is likely to have run through their deliberations.
But let’s get one thing straight: this is not how a democracy works.
While I carry no brief whatsoever for Colston, whether his statue needed to be removed or not, or have an explanatory plaque attached, is to be decided through debate and possibly even a local referendum, not at the hands of a baying mob inciting the mood of a modern day witch-hunt. There’s a fair
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A UNIQUE red to warm up these brisk nights. The Finca Moncloa is from the part of Spain famed for its sherry, but this ruby, aromatic red is also a true credit to the region and is £16.99 at Ocado. ■
NEVER before has there been such a hostile reaction to the impending award of an honour.
The decision to bestow a knighthood on Tony Blair has promoted a storm of protest and a petition demanding it is rescinded that, as this is written, has more than 700,000 signatures.
This is one of those rare moments where both sides have extremely valid cases to put forward. Like or loathe him, Blair will go down as one of the most successful politicians of his, and indeed almost anyone else’s, generation and was prime minister for 10 years.
Domestically he achieved much of which he should be justly proud. But, his disastrous decision to follow the US into the Iraq conflict will hang over him forever.
Remember the 2016 Iraq inquiry found he presented the case for war with “a certainty which was not justified”. He also stands accused of appeasing the IRA over the Northern Ireland process – credit for which probably lies more at the door of his predecessor Sir John Major – and introducing the questionable PPI initiative to finance the building of hospitals.
Ultimately, the best course of action could be for “Sir” Tony to graciously decline the honour, citing the public reaction and not wishing to bring the system into disrepute.
But, what do you suppose are the chances?
‘This is not how a democracy works’
chance the folk of Bristol would have voted for its removal – surely that’s the way forward.
On the very day the jury reached its questionable verdict, English Heritage – which now seems to operate as a quasipolitical organisation far more interested in politics than our palaces – declared Sir Joseph Banks was an “enabler of slavery”.
Sir Joseph was an 18th-century botanist and director of Kew Gardens, so does this mean we can now destroy the greenhouses at that historic site to “put history right?”
Some misguided souls see Sir Winston Churchill as a war criminal and a racist. It’s just a short “roll” from Parliament Square to the River Thames in central London, so is that where his statue could end up?
Last week was another nail in the coffin of respect for law, order and our history. The jury’s verdict will come to be seen as a monumental folly.