Remember the Black Lives Matter protest in Bristol? The one where the mob tipped the statue into the harbour? In court this week, one of its organisers admitted fraud, after £30,000 in donations from Black Lives Matter supporters went missing.

Those donors will be shaking their heads. But I suspect they won’t be the only ones. Because, three years on, it feels like an appropriate time to reflect on what happened during that mad summer of 2020 – and to ask: what exactly came over us?

We all recall what happened. For almost a month, mass protests raged all over Britain. Outside Downing Street, a policeman took the knee while on duty. The Labour leader, and his deputy, posed for a photograph in which they solemnly took the knee inside Parliament.

Then the England football team started taking the knee, too. In fact, they continued to perform this American gesture long after American sportsmen had stopped. Hence the peculiar spectacle before the England v USA match at last year’s World Cup. The England team took the knee – but the US team didn’t.

[Fools? Not all of us, buddy. ~ Beege]