Bristol riot: there seem to be a huge number of images showing the police attacking members of the public – and none at all of police being on the receiving end. Just why were they on the streets with their batons, their dogs and their horses?

Isn’t it curious that, days after making a big song and dance about police suffering broken bones and a punctured lung at the Bristol riot (that they may have caused), the claims were retracted days later?

Avon and Somerset Chief Constable Andy Marsh admitted in a press conference that no officer of his had suffered a punctured lung.

And the force’s publicity department admitted that neither of the officers taken to hospital actually turned out to have broken bones.

The damage had been done, though – the public outraged at this apparent thuggery by people who had congregated in Bristol to protest against police mistreatment of women.

How will the police take back this:

https://twitter.com/chloeglinn/status/1375583273712226306

Or this:

Or this:

Or – especially – this?

https://twitter.com/MichaelEast1983/status/1375612429460242434

And, having consideration of all the above, shouldn’t Lord Ian Austin reconsider his position in public life, hand back his peerage, and go home to spend more time with his prejudices?

Just look at the state of this:

Austin, formerly a Labour MP, was ennobled by Boris Johnson to sit as a non-affiliated peer after he quit the party as led by Jeremy Corbyn, claiming that it had a “culture of extremism, anti-Semitism and intolerance”.

Strange. He seems to be both extreme and intolerant. If Labour under Corbyn really had been like that, he should have fitted right in.

Current evidence shows the police inflicting extreme violence on people – many of whom were sitting down and/or offering no resistance, while suffering very few injuries themselves (and how many were self-inflicted or accidental?).

Austin has indicated that he supports this brand of extreme violent activity against people who are defenceless.

That is unacceptable in a public representative.

Ah, but we live in an unaccountable dictatorship, don’t we? He’ll ignore all his critics and continue with his offensive ways.

Source: Police retract claims that officers suffered broken bones at Bristol protest