By John Serpico

In a country that every month lurches ever further into Right-wing authoritarianism with nary a whisper being raised, where queues at foodbanks become ever longer, where homelessness is accepted as being normal, where huge swathes of workers are one pay day from destitution, where nurses are clapped then slapped, where foreign aid is slashed and spending on nuclear defense multiplied, where police attack and kill women, where protest is criminalised, and where its government presides over 127,000 Covid-19 deaths – with nary a whisper being raised and all with the tacit support of Labour – for people then to express shock and outrage at the “horrendous and disgusting” scenes in Bristol is fucking lamentable.

The burning of a police van is the lighting up of a beacon of hope that’s going to be seen all over the world. Welcome back, Bristol, it’s been a long time.