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Peter Mandelson gets green custard thrown in the face
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7927668.stm
A few thoughts though: security was absolutely piss-poor (is Brown sending a message to more violent attackers that Mandelson is an easy target?). And she's able to walk away as well!
Also, hasn't she broken some law or other? I see that not only she has not been arrested, but she's already giving TV interviews to the news channels.
Is it quite legal to throw food products into the face of politicians then?
*goes off to buy plenty of pies*
A few thoughts though: security was absolutely piss-poor (is Brown sending a message to more violent attackers that Mandelson is an easy target?). And she's able to walk away as well!
Also, hasn't she broken some law or other? I see that not only she has not been arrested, but she's already giving TV interviews to the news channels.
Is it quite legal to throw food products into the face of politicians then?
*goes off to buy plenty of pies*
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
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Comments
With apologies in advance to Michael Winner, "calm down dear, it's just some green custard". Besides, our Immigration Minister, the very sinister Phil "Cream Pie" Woolas got hit recently - yet I don't recall the Beeb screaming from the rooftops about MPs security needing to be tighter. The only thing today's story proves is that the green hippies seem to have a rather unhealthy fetish for custard.
Perhaps all those people who are against the new Heathrow runway can be bought off if they are given shares in Ambrosia? Never mind pies, I wouldn't mind seeing a size 12 steel-toe capped boot thrown in Gordon Brown's direction.
If the politicians won't listen, people have to go to those means.
Perhaps they are listening - just not to her....
To big businesses.
:rolleyes:
Obviously not to the road haulage industry and railway companies or come to that shipping.
They're not listening to Plane Stupid, perhaps they would if they could come up with economic arguments as strong as the aviation industry instead of silly stunts and petulant whines.
I take it you don't agree with:
then?
It was more a comment to explore the idea of whether it's fair to throw pies and custard in people's faces if they're public figures. Consider that if you were on your way to work and someone did that to you for some perceived slight you would be outraged. The proper way to show your disatisfaction with members of parliament is to write letters, peaceful protests and if it comes to it, vote them out of office.
Obviously this was a one off, but there is a reason MPs should be safe to conduct their affairs without protestors thinking they're doing the country a service and throwing custard or something on people. I mean if we had a MP trying to push through reforms to ban guns and loads of right wing gun people go and rather than just protest go and hit him or throw something at him or something like that, would you not agree that it's allowing intimidation to become part of our political process? That MPs can't do the policies they believe are right for fear of people throwing custard on them or worse.
I think anyone MP or office worker or labourer should be free to go to work and do a day's work without people chucking stuff at them.
I guess as public figures, and as politicians in particular, their reaction and any action taken against the perpetrator are going to be scrutinised, and as such most of them just put up with it. Then again some don't, as John Prescott demonstrated a few years ago.
I'm unsure as to what offence such acts might constitute... common assault perhaps?
My point is that there is a line, and this is crossing that line. I'm not necessarily saying the protestor should be arrested because that would be daft really. But I don't think we should condone her actions because really she is stepping in and saying she believes our democratic system doesn't work and she'd rather resort to bullying by throwing stuff at the representatives of the people in order to get them to do things her way.
Of course it's a far cry from places where you will be hacked up if you vote the wrong way but that's not to say we can't make the distinction in this country between what is acceptable (protest, lobbying, etc.) and unacceptable. After all for every cause I agree with and would go 'yea take that politicians' if someone went and slapped Gordon Brown with a fish because they disagreed with the idea of ID cards, there is another nutter out there who would slap him with a fish because they want him to bring back slavery.
I think it's important to just rise above all the individual issues and just draw a line where our system of governance must rely on the fact that our MPs are free from intimidation and bribery and anything contradicting that mustn't be condoned as it undermines our whole system - it's bigger than any single issue. Although I think there are lines the government could cross that would give people the right as human beings to force a change of governance but that's just to clarify my position, we are nowhere near that.
You might wish to know that Leila Deen has written about this over at Dolly Draper's LabourList website. So far, not a single person who has left a comment there supports her action. Perhaps unsurprising on a Labour-supporting website, of course. Apparently, it was okay to gunge him on the grounds that "this is an intensely feminine struggle, against the destruction of our eco-system, a problem created by patriachy".
Does anyone have the faintest idea what the fuck she's on about?
haha