David Gilmour says he has “forgiven” Keir Starmer for jailing son Charlie for attack on war memorial 

David Gilmour has looked back at the time his son, Charlie, was jailed for an attack on a war memorial, and said that he has “forgiven” Keir Starmer for the arrest.

It comes after Charlie was arrested and subsequently jailed for 16 months after admitting to violent disorder during a 2010 student protest against loan fees.

During the demonstration, the then-21-year-old was seen hanging from a Union flag on the Cenotaph, as well as leaping onto the bonnet of a Jaguar that formed part of a royal convoy and hurling a rubbish bin at the vehicle.

At the court hearing, the jury heard that the student had drunk and taken drugs after being rejected by his biological father – writer Heathcote Williams – and had taken LSD and valium in the hours leading up to the violence.

He was released from his 16-month sentence after serving four months, and his appeal judges heard that he had “successfully reformed and rehabilitated himself”, as well as had addressed the “underlying drug and alcohol problems”.

Since then, Charlie – who is the biological son of Gilmour’s wife Polly Samson – has gone on to become an esteemed writer, and has had his work featured in outlets including The Evening Standard, Vogue, The Guardian, The Sunday Times and more.

In 2020, he made his literary debut with the memoir Featherhood. It was described by Vogue Italia as “a story about fathers and an exploration of masculinity’s limited emotional palette.”

“It is also a splendid account of what it means to care for another being, human or otherwise, where different worlds collide and intersect in a whirlwind of uncanny coincidences,” it continued. “Ultimately, it’s a book about the power of relationships to shape us, for better or worse.”

Now, while promoting his forthcoming studio album ‘Luck and Strange’, Gilmour has looked back at the incident, and said that he has “forgiven” Keir Starmer for the jailing.

“Keir Starmer seems like a statesman, despite the fact that he was director of public prosecutions when Charlie was jailed for attacking the war memorial [during a 2010 student protest against loan fees],” he said during a new interview with The Independent. “But we’ve forgiven him!”

The new album, which marks his fifth solo release, features lyrics contributed by Charlie, as well as a snippet of David and Polly’s other son Joe (now aged 29) on tape as a child, and vocals and harp from their daughter Romany. It is set for release this Friday (September 6) via Sony Music. Visit here to pre-order.

In other David Gilmour news, in a separate interview with Rolling Stone around the album, the artist revealed that he thinks it would be a “dream” to sell Pink Floyd’s catalogue, to distance himself from the “mud bath” with Roger Waters.

He also added that he finds it “boring” talking about his disagreements with the former bandmate. “As I said before, he left our pop group when I was in my 30s, and I’m a pretty old chap now, and the relevance of it is not there. I don’t really know his work since. So I don’t have anything to say on the topic.”

The tension between the two former Pink Floyd members has gone on for decades, and came to a head again recently when Gilmour attacked Waters with claims of antisemitism.

In February last year, Gilmour’s wife Polly Samson shared a tweet in which she accused Waters of being “antisemitic to [his] rotten core”, as well as “a Putin apologist and a lying, thieving, hypocritical, tax-avoiding, lip-synching, misogynistic, sick-with-envy, megalomaniac”.

Waters himself issued a statement in response, which saw him describe Samson’s comments as “incendiary and wildly inaccurate” and continued that he “refutes [them] entirely”. He added that he was “taking advice as to his position” regarding the claims.

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