Spineless Leadership Of The Uk

[thesshhh]

I’ve spent a lot of time in France, Italy and Australia, and I can tell you that those countries would not tolerate mob rule, and demands for the destruction of its history. They’d clamp right down on it very rapidly. Why do the UK government and authorities cave in so pathetically to protesters and allow them to decide on which statues etc stay or go, for example? Give them an inch - which they more than did re the Colston statue in Bristol - and the protestors take a mile. So now we look likely to use memorials to key historical figures because Boris and co show no resistance, no backbone. It’s a dangerous precedent cos the govt aren’t really running this nation now, the mob are. If only we had a leader with the strength and integrity of Churchill and Thatcher....

[iluvmargie]

Thanks Bobbi. I'm very disillusioned.

[Ken4155]

Boris was elected because there was no viable alternative and the Conservatives were the only party who had vowed to 'Get Brexit Done'. Now, on the back of the lawlessness witnessed over the last week or so, some of those who gave/lent him their vote are asking themselves if they have voted for a one trick pony. However, instead of venting your spleens on AB, have any of you actually written to your MPs in protest at what has been - and is being - allowed to happen? Surely, if you feel as strongly as you appear to, that ought to be your first course of action.

[woofgang]

Bobbi I was answering the OP, not your post

[Bobbisox1]

Arh okay, just with me mentioning France

[ToraToraTora]

gromit: "One statue out of hundreds was attacked." - yes and now the spineless authorities are doing the mob's work for them.

[vulcan42]

The mob doesn't have to destroy any more statues, having produced the list of potential targets, the statues are already being removed, Baden-Powell has already gone.

[Gromit]

Tora
In 2018 the local MP, democratically elected by Bristol citizens, asked the local authority to take down the statue. If they had, it would not be at the bottom of Bristol Harbour.
As it is, the statue is to be recovered and placed in a museum, which is what should have happened in the first place.

[Bobbisox1]

Ken if I vented my spleen to my MP here in the NE it would be like manna from heaven ,I live in a very tight Labour region , anyone admitting to voting Conservative is a traitor haha but joking aside, I might actually voice my opinions by going to the top, Boris himself

[thesshhh]

I get the impression that a certain bunch, further motivated by what they’ve been allowed to get away with thus far, are feverishly going through everything they can find on commemorated historical figures looking for negativity on them to feed to the mob. With all the rubbish written on the Internet alone, no-one is safe.

[Gromit]

I am bemused that you are blaming Boris.
You are attributing so called ‘mob rule’ to his weakness.
I agree Boris is a weak and poor leader, but not because a statue has been toppled, but because he has allowed 41,000+ people to die because of his dithering.

[thesshhh]

That is another, more serious, failing by Boris, definitely Gromit. But a different topic

[Gromit]

// no-one is safe. //

There you go again with your alarmist twaddle. Calm down.
The contentious statues have been identified long ago, Rhodes et al. People have been asking for them to be removed for years. It is not a hit list that has suddenly been draw up this week.

[ToraToraTora]

gromit 09:45, I believe they had a city wide vote and the majority wanted it to remain. Still the left hate democracy don't they? They've spent 4 years trying to turn over the result of the Brexit vote.

[dannyk13]

Gromit //The contentious statues have been identified long ago//
Have they?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8407797/78-statues-monuments-risk-torn-Topple-Racists-campaign.html

[vulcan42]

Gromit, the Baden Powell statue is going because it "might" be on a list.

[Ellipsis]

Maybe, just maybe, the selected course of action is to take the statues down, store them away somewhere safe and out of harm's way, deal with the killer pandemic, then figure out what to do with the statues ...

It's not as if they're being melted down.

[vulcan42]

\\ It's not as if they're being melted down.//
Give them time.

[diddlydo]

Spicerack @ 8.45 I merely wanted to point out that the Cecil Rhodes demo/protest in Oxford was peaceful as many people on this site seem to think that a hooligan element is behind every movement to get an offensive statue removed.

[Old_Geezer]

It should be fixed & replaced on it's plinth with CCTV covering, not hidden away in a museum in order to reward and encourage the antisocial vandals of the mob.

[jno]

not catered for as if it was a democratically arrived at decision

how many statues were put up in the first place after democratically arrived at decisions? How many people would even recognise more than one in a hundred?

I wouldn't miss a single one of them and that includes Dr Johnson's cat.