It’s about time Bristol’s protestors grew up

As a citizen of Bristol who was kept awake all night, again, by a circling police helicopter, I am growing weary of the riots. Outside of London, we must be the most rioted-in city in mainland Britain. As Robert Gore-Langton writes, we riot with monotonous and increasing regularity, with major events in 1793, 1831, 1932, 1944,1980, 1981, 1987, 1992, 2011, 2019, and in 2020, when the statue of Edward Colston was toppled and dumped in the dock. Apparently, our tendency to become disorderly in public spaces – so marked it has been investigated by sociologists – dates back at least 700 years to the St James’s Fair, where people gathered to drink an excess of cider. The fair used to be held just yards from where things kicked off on Sunday night.

But the more recent the riot, the less justified it seems to be. The Old Market riot of 1932, for example, arose from lengthy deprivation caused by terrible unemployment.