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Birmingham grew on the back of slavery and colonialism – and, indeed, the city’s gunmakers and chain-makers were the main suppliers of slavers and imperialists. One day there may perhaps be a Bristol-like reckoning of this, or perhaps not. The city is also the home of those remarkable political creeds “liberal imperialism” and “liberal unionism” – which meant elevated rights for those fortunate enough to be on this island, and no rights if you were under this island’s power. Now forgotten, those political ideas put Birmingham – and the house of Chamberlain in particular – at the heart of British politics for sixty years from c. 1880 to 1940. And you can perhaps trace back British exceptionalism to the “liberal imperialism” and “liberal unionism” of Joseph Chamberlain and his supporters.

Hong Kong was under British colonial rule for more than 150 years, from 1841 after the First Opium War between Britain and Qing Dynasty until July 1, 1997, when the city’s sovereignty was handed over to the People's Republic of China. The news about the death of the 96-year-old Queen triggered strong emotional reactions on Hong Kong social media over the weekend. September 12 was a public holiday to celebrate the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, but instead, thousands of Hongkongers flocked to offer flowers and place condolence messages outside the British Consulate-General.

Some pro-Beijingers were upset about Hongkongers’ praise of the late British Queen, accusing them of whitewashing the repressive nature of the city’s colonial history.

after the 1967 riots, the colonial government stopped using the Sedition Law to repress government critics, and it fell into obscurity. Ironically, in the aftermath of the 2019 anti-China extradition protests, the colonial relic was resurrected to punish dissents in Hong Kong, as exemplified in the sedition charges of Stand News staff members in 2021. The most recent case is the sentencing of five to 19-month imprisonment for a set of children’s book