Police faced questions for failing to intervene when the statue of Edward Colston was thrown into Bristol harbour. Colston profited greatly from slavery in the 17th, so it's not clear why police should protect his statue as well as any other slaves and drug dealers (opium traders) at all.
Boris Johnson said last night that anti-racism rallies had been “subverted by thuggery” on the day that protesters toppled a statue of a slave trader in Bristol and daubed graffiti on one of Winston Churchill in London.
The prime minister condemned the violence as a small number of protesters hurled bottles, fireworks and traffic cones at police in Whitehall.
He wrote on Twitter: “People have a right to protest peacefully but they have no right to attack the police. These demonstrations have been subverted by thuggery - and they are a betrayal of the cause they purport to serve.”
A statue of Edward Colston, a 17th-century slave trader, was daubed with paint and pulled down by demonstrators in Bristol. They rolled it to the harbour.