Hanged in effigy: how many people wished the statue’s head would snap off after a rope was strung around its neck in order to allow a crane to place it on its plinth?
We now know that the man who threw eggs at Grantham’s new statue of Margaret Thatcher was an arts centre deputy director who lives on the street where she was born.
According to Metro, Jeremy Webster proclaimed that he was “the first egg thrower” on social media shortly after doing it.
But the paper’s claim that the 59-year-old made a “call to arms” may have been exaggerated. He had tweeted, “Grantham unveils Thatcher statue, so guess where we are going?” That could have referred simply to himself and his partner, who filmed the egging.
The Telegraph also claimed that he put up a now-deleted post on Instagram which said: “South Wales miners are heading up to Grantham to remove her head.”
It is certainly known that the statue is a target for vandals:
After a large-scale £100,000 unveiling ceremony was approved by South Kesteven District Council in 2020, a Facebook group proposed an ‘egg-throwing contest’ at the event.
More than 2,400 people confirmed they would take part in ‘egg throwing’ and ‘potentially graffiti art’.
As a result of the warning, the council installed a CCTV camera directly opposite the statue.
Call it a hunch, but This Writer doesn’t think CCTV is going to stop anybody from expressing themselves.
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Stretching her neck: some commenters have suggested the only appropriate element of the statue’s placement was the fact that a rope was fastened around its throat, making it appear that the controversial former prime minister was being hanged.
Council workers have placed a controversial statue of Margaret Thatcher on its specially-high plinth, behind a (temporary) wall, in an unannounced move – and still failed to prevent the public having its say.
The £300,000 statue was offered to South Kesteven District Council after plans to erect it in Parliament Square in London were rejected.
It has been placed on a 10ft (3m) high plinth under CCTV surveillance to minimise the risk of vandalism.
However, within two hours of it being put in place someone had thrown eggs at it.
That’s true:
Some might say it would be appropriate for bright businesspeople – in the spirit of enterprise that Thatcher supported – to launch guided tours of Thatcher’s history in Grantham, culminating in a visit to the statue… with eggs provided and included in the cost.
Council leader Kelham Cooke said that, as Grantham was Thatcher’s home town, it was appropriate that the debate on her legacy should take place there.
It seems clear her critics have passed the first comment.
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Over it goes: the toppling of the Colston statue, in June 2020.
A jury has cleared four people of criminal damage, despite their admission that they took the statue of Edward Colston off its plinth during a protest in 2020.
And I reckon I know why.
To remind you: on June 7 last year, during a protest march involving 10,000 Bristolians that was triggered by the death of George Floyd and the subsequent Black Lives Matter movement, a statue of the local slaver Edward Colston was torn down and thrown into the nearby city docks.
The statue had been hugely controversial for decades because of Colston’s history as a trafficker in human slaves. Campaigners have made many pleas to the City Council for its removal – only for them to fall on deaf ears as the sculpture remained in place.
Four people – Rhian Graham, 30, Milo Ponsford, 26, Sage Willoughby, 22, and Jake Skuse, 33 – were made to face a criminal damage trial at Bristol Crown Court for their alleged parts in what happened to the statue.
But criminal damage is a crime that can only be committed on property belonging to other people.
Bristol City Council – an organisation that exists entirely to represent the people of that city and carry out their wishes – was responsible for the statue. So did the statue, in fact, belong to the people of Bristol?
As we’ve seen, people in Bristol had been trying to get rid of it for decades because it depicts a slaver and – from all accounts – a murderer.
So the defendants may have been entirely within their rights to tear down that statue because it was theirs to tear down if they so pleased, in the absence of a response – that represented the will of the majority – from the council.
I was also glad to see that the protestations of prosecutor William Hughes QC – that the fact that Colston was a slave trader was “irrelevant” to the issues that had to be decided in the case – turned out to be, themselves, irrelevant.
The question that remains after the trial is, why didn’t Bristol City Council comply with the wishes of the vocal majority who had demanded its removal for many years previously? If that had happened, the statue would not have been present to infuriate protesters against the murder of another black man in 2020.
One more point: this is proof that ordinary people can still challenge the Establishment and win, if faced with trial by a jury of their peers and natural justice is allowed to run its course.
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Yes: the attack on a statue by police fulfils at least two of the 14 signs of fascism: protection of corporate power, and disdain for intellectuals and the arts.
It seems attacking statues is only bad if it represents something the Conservatives support – like slavery.
A statue that was adopted by Extinction Rebellion in the campaign group’s protest and blockading of printing plants owned by Rupert Murdoch’s media organisations last Autumn is fair game, it seems –
– even when it is displayed as part of an arts charity’s competition.
The police were called in – and more than 40 personnel broke into the building where the statue had been installed.
Here’s artist Damien Meade with the story:
You get 10 years in prison for protest of historical statues, but someone erects something subversive and the full muscle of the state comes knocking.
The building was ransacked and three people were arrested, but released without charge the following day.
The structure was designed by the collective @probunnyrabbit who submitted it for the annual @antepavilion annual architectural open competition, and it is installed on the roof as part of that competition.
XR were planning further protests against Murdoch last weekend. The police intended to remove it (but failed). It takes a certain skill-set to erect it, and anyone with such skills would have been a target of the raid.
The Police were simply operating as stooges for Murdoch.
When the owner of docks came to complain about the raid on our premises, he was promptly arrested and charged with "attempted assault" and "dangerous driving". He was not be released till 5am the next morning! #PoliceBrutality#art#hackneycanal#canalartpic.twitter.com/BRghc4T8fL
All this happened at the beginning of the month but This Writer didn’t hear about it until today.
It remains well worth reporting because of the Tory hypocrisy evident in the raid, and the suggestion that both the police and the Conservative government were acting for a media corporation rather than upholding any law.
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Over it goes: the toppling of the Colston statue, back in June 2020.
It seems the Conservative government has a new enemy to put alongside Priti Patel’s “activist lawyers” – but the theme of racism is the same.
Patel attacked “activist lawyers” who stopped her from deporting people as part of the “hostile environment” policy.
Robert Jenrick – the Tories’ bent housing and communities minister – has set his sights on anti-racism protesters, whom he described as “woke worthies”.
He was referring to people who tore down statues of racists and slave traders during the Black Lives Matter protests last summer.
But the plans he announced did not target people who vandalise public monuments – they are already covered by the criminal damage laws.
No – he wants to stop
left wing Labour councils and mayors from tearing down statues, and changing controversial street names.
He reckons such behaviour is an attempt to erase parts of the nation’s history – but this is clearly hogwash. It is an attempt to change the way our national history is perceived, by de-glorifying people who never deserved any recognition in the first place.
By launching this attack, Jenrick is announcing to the world that the Conservative Party supports racism; that the Tories condone slavery.
And he may have a surprise, if his legislation gets through Parliament.
Under his plan, neighbourhoods will have to be consulted on plans to remove statues of racists and slavers.
But campaigners in Bristol
pointed out they had tried for years without success to get Bristol authorities to launch an official process to debate Colston’s influence in the city.
So in fact, it seems he’ll be handing anti-racism activists exactly the tools they need to get rid of these stains on our streets.
I would suggest that we don’t tell him, but…
He’s a Tory. There’s no reasoning with them and they’ll never accept they’re making a blunder.
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Over it goes: the toppling of the Colston statue, back in June. By a curious coincidence, nobod involved in pulling it down could be seen in this image.
People who toppled – and then sank – a statue glorifying slavery during the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the summer are to be offered a bizarre punishment.
The five, who pulled down the statue of slaver Edward Colston in Bristol, will have to pay a fine that would go to a charity supporting people from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities in Bristol – which is more than Colston ever did.
They will also have to complete a questionnaire by Bristol City Council’s history commission, explaining their reasons for attacking an exploiter who considered black and minority ethnic people to be property during a week of protests against their mistreatment.
That’s going to be an uncomfortable read for these history commissioners.
This Writer would be unsurprised if every answer contained harsh criticism of them for even asking such a stupid question.
Worse still is the fact that four more people – three men and a woman – may face criminal charges over the incident:
Avon and Somerset police said its investigation had been completed.
It said: “Following a review of the evidence, detectives will now approach the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision against four people – three men, aged 32, 25 and 21, and a 29-year-old woman.”
Meanwhile, the Home Office is reportedly resuming deportation of asylum-seekers after it was prevented from sending a flight to Spain a few weeks ago.
Lawyers for the deportees demonstrated that the government had rushed the flight in order to deny the refugees their right to appeal.
It’s a direct correlation with the attitude of slavers like Colston, who also refused to allow foreign people any rights.
So we have to ask ourselves:
Who should really be explaining their actions – the protesters who tore down a statue of a historic slaver, or Priti Patel, the home secretary who treats people like slaves today?
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After the statue of slaver Edward Colston was toppled by protesters last month, artist Marc Quinn replaced it with a resin sculpture of a Black Lives Matter protester in a pre-dawn operation that caught authorities by surprise.
Slave trader statue replaced by ‘unofficial’ sculpture of Black Lives Matter protester pic.twitter.com/QaG3cDVvMS
Now calls have been made for the city to keep the new statue standing on the formerly-vacant plinth.
The artist said he had based the statue on the moment activist Jen Reid stood on top of the empty plinth on June 7, raising her fist to the skies.
Authorities in Bristol are receiving calls for the statue to be kept, even though it was raised without permission. Mayor Marvin Rees has previously said any replacement would be decided democratically through consultation.
This is a big step forward against the attitude that said slavers should be celebrated, and against the right-wing loons who tried to protect statues like this after Colston’s was pulled down and dumped in the River Avon.
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The statue of Nancy Astor at Plymouth Hoe – that was only unveiled last year by Theresa May – has been sprayed with the word “Nazi”.
This Writer can’t understand why that word wasn’t included on the plaque.
I wrote about it when former prime minister Theresa May unveiled the statue, quoting from Joseph Kennedy and the Jews:
“Despite her anti-Catholicism, Nancy Astor was friends with US Ambassador to Britain Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. Their correspondence is reportedly filled with anti-Semitic language. Edward J. Renehan, Jr. notes:
“As fiercely anti-Communist as they were anti-Semitic, Kennedy and Astor looked upon Adolf Hitler as a welcome solution to both of these “world problems” (Nancy’s phrase). … Kennedy replied that he expected the “Jew media” in the United States to become a problem, that “Jewish pundits in New York and Los Angeles” were already making noises contrived to “set a match to the fuse of the world”.
She may have been the UK’s first female MP but she was an anti-Semite and a supporter of Nazis.
And that makes Theresa May a supporter of Nazism by proxy, of course. She’s the second (current) Conservative Parliamentarian This Writer has had cause to describe as a Nazi – or worse – in 24 hours.
So when people do this…
A statue of Nancy Astor, the first female MP to take her seat in parliament, has become the latest monument to be targeted by vandals.
The word ‘Nazi’ has been spray painted on the plinth of the statue, along with an Antifascist Circle, a political symbol associated with the Social Democratic Party of Germany in the 1930s.
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Nazis: it seems Tory MP Henry Smith shares their view.
People often forget that Karl Marx was Jewish.
Isn’t it interesting, then, that among all the clamour for statues of racists across the UK to be removed from positions glorifying them, a Conservative MP thought it was appropriate to have a stab at Marx?
Tories 2015-2020: Let's deflect from all the racism and bigotry in our own party by banging on about how bad antisemitism is.
Tories now: Let's desecrate a Jewish grave because we hate his critique of capitalism. https://t.co/nuLMgVuRPb
The typical claim is that “socialist”* regimes have killed “100 million” people. This always includes famines and other things that are blamed on socialism and its supposed inefficiency, for instance, the 36 million people that died during the Chinese famine.
UNICEF, RESULTS, and Bread for the World estimate that 15 million people die each year from preventable poverty, of whom 11 million are children under the age of five. ( one of many sources)
So in 10 years, capitalism kills more children under the age of 5 than socialism did in 150 years.
“But that’s not capitalism’s fault! That’s just scarcity/underdevelopment!”
So why are you blaming 36 million deaths of the Chinese famine on socialism and its inefficiency?
Has a Communist society ever existed as determined By Karl Marx?
No. Even Marx distanced himself from those who had already began distorting his writings in the late 1870’s. Communism as determined by Karl Marx has never existed and would take centuries post revolution to create.
Henry Smith, Tory MP, has a Union Flag symbol on his Twitter handle – which explains a lot:
Will the Conservative authorities take action against their rogue agent here?
No.
But if they don’t, then we can cheerfully conclude that there is at least a group within the Parliamentary Conservative Party that supports the Nazism we saw on our streets yesterday.
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This story will be full of apparent contradictions. It is, in fact, about betrayal.
It features Nazis making stiff-armed salutes next to the Cenotaph, and claiming to be supporting Churchill.
The same people, who say they love the rule of law, have attacked police.
And while claiming to deplore violence at the Black Lives Matter demonstration in London last week, they flew to it within minutes of starting their own demonstration.
There is sense to it – although it’s hard to see because people in authority would prefer you to remain confused – and the mass media support them in that.
This story is best told from the response to the removal of Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol last week – triggering a movement to remove other statues glorifying slavers and racists including calls for the removal of the statue to World War II prime minister Winston Churchill in London – and its actual defacement. In fact, the story started decades ago, as we will see.
The threat to Churchill’s effigy seems to have brought every far-right-wing lunatic in the United Kingdom out of the woodwork to demand action to protect a man they claim as an inspirational, ideological leader. Figureheads demanded that every “patriot” – take note of the language – should be in London to defend the statue during the next scheduled Black Lives Matter demonstration in London – on June 13 (today).
Black Lives Matter organisers weren’t having any of that; their demos are always intended to be peaceful and there was a clear threat of violence in the so-called “patriots”‘ call to action. They pulled out and left London to the lunatics.
Meanwhile, the authorities boarded up the statue, leaving nothing for the “patriots” to protect.
They went anyway – and caused scenes that have been branded in the mildest possible terms as a “national disgrace”.
To learn why the far right thought it necessary to scandalise the country – possibly the world – we need to go back many decades, to examine the career of their idol Churchill.
The claim is that they are protecting the legacy of the man whose leadership saved us from Nazism and the politics of Hitler. But the people saying that are the same people who, today, threw Nazi salutes at the cenotaph in an insult to everybody who died to protect us in the 1939-45 war.
These people are not celebrating a victory over fascism!
So what are they celebrating?
Churchill was a racist and an oppressor of his own countryfolk. That is the Churchill the far-right revere.
Look at the Tonypandy riots massacre in Wales in 1910. As Home Secretary, Churchill sent first Metropolitan police officers, then the 18th Hussars – who shot down the striking miners. It is widely believed that he ordered the use of live rounds, although he denied it.
Or shall we talk about his actions in Liverpool, the following year?
How in the name of all that is holy is this the first time I have ever heard about this? I knew about the Welsh miners. I had no idea about this whatsoever. https://t.co/6iguOH2efz
— CrémantCommunarde#ActivistLawyer ⚖️ 😷 ✋ (@0Calamity) June 12, 2020
I’m sure there are other examples but let’s look at the racism:
According to his biographer, John Charmley, Churchill believed in a racial hierarchy and eugenics, and that at the top of this were White Protestant Christians.
He said it was ‘alarming and nauseating’ seeing Gandhi ‘striding half-naked up the steps of the vice-regal palace’ in India. He also said ‘I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion’. So it should be no surprise that he allowed three million people to die in the Bengal famine of 1943, in which Churchill refused to deploy food supplies.
The Bengalis starved because their grain had been sequestered as back up supplies to feed British troops. In the end they weren’t needed. Churchill also said that the famine was their fault for having too many children.
I'm not allowed to say Churchill was responsible for the deaths of 3 million people in Bengal without mentioning his leadership in WW2, but I am allowed to mention his leadership in WW2 without mentioning the 3 million deaths he helped cause. Apparently.
— Jessie is so tired. (@TheJessieKirk) June 12, 2020
This racist also said that ‘Keep Britain White’ was a good slogan for the Tories to go into the 1951 general election.
Let’s look at his attitude to World War II. Boris Johnson has claimed that the former prime minister “saved this country and the whole of Europe from a barbaric fascist and racist tyranny, and our debt to him is incalculable”.
But according to historian of fascism Martin Pugh, Churchill wasn’t opposed to fascism in itself; he was simply concerned that Nazi Germany threatened British interests in the North Sea.
And Peter Hitchens has pointed out that Churchill wasn’t interested in saving the Jews; he was simply honouring treaties with Poland and France. He knew about the extermination camps but neither said nor did anything about them until they were liberated during the allied invasions of Germany and Poland.
My 92 year old father is an expert on Jewish history and anti-Semitism. He has never forgiven Winston Churchill for knowing about the Nazi death camps but failing to act on that knowledge. FDR and the Red Cross were similarly grossly negligent.
So it should be unsurprising that people of good conscience have reached the logical conclusions about Churchill:
The way Churchill is remembered in the UK has always been tied up with ideas of white superiority. Why do you think so many people of colour are critical of the way he's celebrated? The way the far-right are behaving today is terrifying but not surprising.
I have already mentioned Boris Johnson’s history-denying defence of Churchill as a fighter against fascism, when he was no such thing. Is it any surprise, then, that after he was told to “grow a pair” and defend the continuance of the statue (by people like the boxer Tyson Fury), he leapt to it?
“The statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square is a permanent reminder of his achievement in saving this country – and the whole of Europe – from a fascist and racist tyranny,” he wrote on Twitter yesterday.
“It is absurd and shameful that this national monument should today be at risk of attack by violent protestors. Yes, he sometimes expressed opinions that were and are unacceptable to us today, but he was a hero, and he fully deserves his memorial.
“We cannot now try to edit or censor our past. We cannot pretend to have a different history. The statues in our cities and towns were put up by previous generations.”
Sadly, here he is undermined by the UK government itself, which has indeed edited and censored the UK’s collective past:
British Establishment:
“People cannot just go around erasing British history if they don’t like it!”
The news story refers to the destruction of records detailing crimes committed by the British Empire in its colonies, during its final years. Apparently Mr Johnson thinks it is perfectly acceptable to edit and censor the past when it reveals inconvenient facts.
He has attracted appropriate criticism:
Johnson clearly anxious here that any possible future statue of himself not be immediately thrown in the sea. https://t.co/zX7iWjJRXj
What conclusions may we draw so far? That far-right-wingers in the UK made an issue of defending Churchill’s statue because they are racists, just as he was? That they hoped to disrupt the planned Black Lives Matter demonstration in order to beat up black people? That they relied on Boris Johnson for support because he is a racist (“picaninnies with watermelon smiles”, remember. “Letterboxes” and “bank robbers”, remember)? That the Nazi salutes in London today were as much for Johnson as they were for Churchill?
That they were relying on a rise in racism in the UK caused and promoted by successive Conservative governments since 2010 – most especially around the UK’s membership of the European Union and Brexit?
From ‘legitimate concerns’ about immigration to Nazi salutes at the Cenotaph in four years flat. These goons are just a symptom. The disease begins with media & politicians.
The UK urgently needs to recognise what has been unleashed and normalised by Brexit because that is a vital context for what is happening today. Sure, EDL etc have been around for much longer, but the fact is that the far right has never been more emboldened.
— Prof Tanja Bueltmann (@cliodiaspora) June 13, 2020
We should also take note of another aspect of the far-right-wing malady: exceptionalism. They adopt what it suits them to adopt and ignore the inconvenient facts – such as the fact that their ally in support of Winston Churchill, Boris Johnson, also presided over the ejection of Churchill’s grandson from the Conservative Party:
This exceptionalism is especially strong with regard to statues of slavers, racists and other oppressors who, we are told, made Britain “great”:
The statue obsession is another bit of English exceptionalism. We know all about Communist propaganda statues, about the Nazis – some even know about the history of the Conferederate statues in the US – but don’t see that ours are in any way the same.
See, Katarzyna b-m was saying anyone who is uncomfortable with the way people behave in their home (or indeed, home country) – such as their choice of decoration – is welcome to leave. The comment may be considered dog-whistle racism towards Ash, who is a person of colour. But Ash just batted it away with the pertinent observation that, when the British invaded other people’s homes in the time of Empire, they did the exact opposite; instead of leaving, the British changed those other nations and didn’t give a fig about the feelings of the natives.
With these statues, of course, it is native Britons who want rid, so the argument is nonsense. But that’s right-wing exceptionalism for you.
We’re getting close to the events in London today, but should first consider two more elements in this mix: the police and the press. Both have been put between a rock and a hard place.
The police, you see, were prompted into action last week against Black Lives Matter demonstrators – although members of Avon and Someset Constabulary wisely avoided a confrontation with those who pulled down Edward Colston’s statue, even though it was done illegally. The far-right extremists who planned to challenge any demonstration this weekend were claiming to be upholding the rule of law – but their subsequent actions made it clear that this was not true. What were the police supposed to do with them?
And the news media have been instrumental in supporting the rise of racism in the UK over the last few years – faithfully reporting the Tory governments’ claims that immigrants have been responsible for many of the nation’s ills, among other questionable practices. The extremist demonstration in London today was a logical result and progression of these reports – but what sort of treatment did reporters expect if they pointed their cameras at the violence that happened today?
Right-wingers are doing Nazi salutes in front of the Cenotaph … yet the media want you to believe it's the left who don't respect British history!pic.twitter.com/wzqlDoY1vQ
It tells us that racism is still alive and well in the UK and that most of the people in this video clip are there to stick it to the blacks.
Next thing we knew, these people who claimed to be celebrating Churchill the man who led us to victory over the Nazis were performing Nazi salutes in front of the police (and also in front of the cenotaph in an insult to the people whose deaths that monument represents):
Far right thugs, emboldened by their pin up boy Boris Johnson, attacking police. This is what happens when you vote a man into office who has not only said many racist things, but who has declined any opportunity to apologise for them pic.twitter.com/MpLRj3SLDM
Interestingly, the Nazis doing the saluting were again contradicting themselves; they’re all for police brutality against black people (because they’re racists) – but if the cops turn a heavy hand to them, it’s a different story and they react with violence:
I thought they loved the Police and wanted to protect them?
How are you defending Churchill’s statue on the basis that he defeated the Nazis and then doing Nazi salutes in front of his statue?!? The state of it all.
Just to make this clear #BLM in London was cancelled. So no one try to say the peaceful protests are in anyway connected to this 👇 at all. Ever. https://t.co/RDB9fnt22H
— Юридически привилегированный Londongrad (@LPrivileged) June 13, 2020
Bottles, cans and smoke bombs thrown in the last half hour at police and their horses in Parliament Square by football firms/far-right protesters. Anyone who is thought to be media is also being threatened. pic.twitter.com/m0nv91uAsO
Turns out it's the far-right who are the thugs after all. You'd think the opposite from Britain's media, especially of the last 5 years. https://t.co/QbucIzYWAd
A photographer has just had his nose broken at Parliament Square by far-right anti-BLM protestors. I’ll be waiting for the condemnation from the PM and the media.
Right-wing thugs on their anti-black protest in London have broken a journalist's nose. Others shout "wanker" at him and throw stuff as he moves to safety.
Wow the BBC have not reported the Nazi salutes at all and are even giving Paul Golding a quote….wtaf? They are promoting the far right+ still saying BLM are the violent group.
BBC News – Black Lives Matter: Police impose restrictions on London protests https://t.co/g2ilTL0lPf
The United Kingdom remains a hopelessly racist nation.
It is racist because the history we learn reeks of it. Our monuments venerate it. Our government promotes it. And our (white) people take their cue from all three.
This situation will not change because our government – and the most powerful people in the UK – want to keep it the way it is.
It puts us at each others’ throats instead of at theirs.
And why is it about betrayal?
Simple. This overt racism is a betrayal of everyone who has been led to believe that Britain is better than that.
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
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Over it goes: the toppling of the Colston statue, in June 2020.
