Enough is enough. Following a long, hot summer of delays and travel frustrations caused by Extinction Rebellion and their preposterous protesters, fed-up Londoners yesterday took matters into their own hands.
After two protesters attempted to shut down the Jubilee Line by climbing on top of a train at Canning Town, they were dragged down by furious commuters. An uprising at last! Hurrah.
The well-dressed men — in nice jackets and shoes, one of them had a bouncy ponytail — had scrambled up to unfurl a banner that read: ‘Business As Usual — Death.’
That was enraging enough in itself: it was in reference to the commerce carried out in the nearby City of London. While eco-warriors may turn their noses up at capitalism, this is what stops this country from turning into one giant mud field, with a few turnips rotting in the gutters where Kent once stood.
Enough is enough. Following a long, hot summer of delays and travel frustrations caused by Extinction Rebellion and their preposterous protesters, fed-up Londoners yesterday took matters into their own hands
After two protesters attempted to shut down the Jubilee Line by climbing on top of a train at Canning Town, they were dragged down by furious commuters. An uprising at last! Hurrah
The well-dressed men — in nice jackets and shoes, one of them had a bouncy ponytail — had scrambled up to unfurl a banner that read: ‘Business As Usual — Death’
However, the only business going down at Canning Town was the bubbling frustration of the commuters. Who are as mad as hell and are not going to take this any more.
Look at them. They are the normals, the everyday civilians, the overlooked ordinary Joes just trying to get to work. Or desperate to get home after a draining night shift.
Hard-working people who never get a favour or a lucky break or the opportunity to smugly tell everyone about how they have just offset their carbon footprint and have solar panels on the swimming pool roof.
The only footprints they make are on the commuter trudge to and from work — only this time to find themselves thwarted by smug do-gooders protesting about the state of the planet. Somebody threw a cup of tea over them right at the beginning, so matters were clearly fraught.
One of the rabble was Mark Ovland, 36, who gave up his full-time Buddhist teacher training studies this year to join XR as a ‘full-time protester’. Full-time waste of space, more like. I wonder who is funding his disputatious lifestyle? You don’t need me to tell you. Probably all of us.
However, the only business going down at Canning Town was the bubbling frustration of the commuters. Who are as mad as hell and are not going to take this any more
Furious commuters drag Extinction Rebellion protesters from the roof of a DLR train after they converged on Canning Town station
Ovland was booted off the train roof by a furious-looking bloke in a tracksuit top. Even Buddha himself couldn’t save him from falling into the maw of the crowd.
He could have been beaten to a pulp by travellers driven mad by the fact they had missed their connection, had not other commuters formed a protective ring of padded jackets around him.
I mean, hang on chaps. We might be angry but we are still British.
I don’t condone the violence and the ugly scenes, but I have to be honest. I wanted to cheer the pugnacious commuters to the rafters. For ordinary citizens were doing what the police have so dismally failed to do this year, which was to stop one of these XR events in its tracks. One has to wonder why this XR mob were always treated with such kid gloves, even as the city ground to a halt around them.
One thrilled-looking granny who had glued herself to the top of a train yesterday had a safety helmet popped on her head, a harness wrapped around her body and clearly a nice chat and a laugh with the police officers who unglued her.
These demonstrators put themselves in harm’s way. They should not be treated by the police like naughty children while law-abiding citizens are expected to suck up the disturbance without complaint.
The right to protest ends when you violate the rights of others to go about their daily business. That is not protest, it is civil disobedience.
Writer George Monblot is arrested by police in Trafalgar Square on Wednesday
There is no way that holding up commuters is going to make them sympathetic to your cause — surely Extinction Rebellion and their pathetic celebrity eco-terrorist chums must see this is a warning of what is to come?
Certainly, my patience ran out long ago. There is a lot of good in their cause, but they preach an apocalyptic rhetoric of death, claiming billions of people are going to die soon because of climate change.
Billions? Come off it. Co-founder Roger Hallam even promises that ‘your children are going to die of starvation’ unless the economy is completely transformed in five years.
They talk of imminent catastrophe, mass suffering and deaths, but science doesn’t back this up. (Hallam has said it is ‘great fun taking down capitalists’. So at least he’s honest about that.)
The alarmist language is bad enough, but a lot of goodwill is being washed away by their hardline stance and the utter ghastliness of many of their supporters.
The well-to-do grandparents, the trust fund kids, the anarchists, the Octavias, the Ruperts, the Buddhist students, the grungsters, the unemployed, the bored, the Benedict Cumberbatches and the rest.
The elites are on the wrong side on this one, supporting this mass, inchoate movement so fond of hysterics and superglue.
Once, XR fought against public indifference. Now, they must contend with public rage. Good.
A regal lesson in dignity for Harry and Meghan
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge can consider their tour of Pakistan an unqualified success. Actually, it has been more than that, it is a sensation. They looked wonderful, said all the right things, wore all the right clothes and made all the right choices.
Whether smiling under traditional feathered headdresses, chatting in dusty village squares, throwing cricket balls, pressing the flesh, cutting cakes, visiting hospitals or making speeches about global-warming, William and Kate have excelled in all areas.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge can consider their tour of Pakistan an unqualified success. Consider their stately progress with the petulance and introspection that shimmers through the endeavours of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex (pictured)
They are a class act. They may have made missteps in the past, but the Cambridges have now struck on a winning royal formula.
They espouse modesty in all things, especially dress, behaviour and attitudes. They focus on the job. They give their hosts the honour of their full attention, as is only proper. They understand it is all about the country and the people they are visiting, never about themselves.
Of course, they have their own problems and worries. Yet, on foreign soil, on official duty, is not the time to air them. Particularly as they are travelling in their capacity as the Queen’s representatives.
Consider their stately progress with the petulance and introspection that shimmers through the endeavours of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex (pictured), who seem to think everything is about them.
The older and wiser Cambridges could teach them a thing or two, if that is not too bullying to say so.
At breakfast in a Glasgow hotel this week, I noticed that quite a few children were eating their cornflakes in the dining room while still in their pyjamas. I saw the same thing in a café in London not so long ago. Perhaps this is not as bad as mums shopping in Tesco in their fleece dressing gowns and what we in Scotland call baffies — which the English refer to as bedroom slippers. However, I hope it’s not going to become a thing. It might be perfectly harmless, but if everyone else has made the effort to get washed and dressed, so should the children. It is the battle of the baffies all over again. Never mind Bannockburn, remember Baffie-burn.
Channel 4’s dangerous game
Many of us will have hoped that balaclava-wearing IRA members being interviewed on TV news programmes was a sight consigned to the dustbin of history.
Not so fast. Channel 4 News gave airtime to a New IRA member on Wednesday, as he threatened violence from the depths of his dirty kitchen. Against a scary backdrop of draining crockery, yer man was wearing a stocking under his balaclava, perhaps mindful of technical advances such as high-definition broadcasting since the old paramilitary heyday. Or maybe he had a kink? Perhaps he was just cold.
The point is, was it irresponsible of Channel 4 to show pictures of this goon as an actor voiced his threats that any post-Brexit, Northern Ireland customs points would be seen as a legitimate threat?
Indisputably, yes. Giving a platform to a masked dissident uttering vague nonsense shows just how desperate the anti-Brexit Channel 4 has become. Not to mention the New IRA themselves.
Treat female yobs like MEN
There is one area of gender equality worth further examination: sentencing criminals. Sisters Kylie, 26, Kirsty, 31, and Danielle Peck, 33, attacked a barmaid who had previously refused them entry to a pub.
Their victim, Kylie Yorke, 30, was out celebrating her birthday when the sisters grabbed her hair, pulled her to the ground and smashed a wine bottle across her face.
Miss Yorke suffered terrible injuries and was left with permanent scarring. One might have hoped the full weight of the law was brought to bear on these vicious women — yet two were given suspended sentences and one a community order. One sister was initially jailed, but successfully appealed, on account of being pregnant.
Dear God. Miss Yorke could have been killed. As it is, she has given up her job because she is ‘embarrassed’ by her scars. It is hard to imagine that a band of brothers would have been treated quite so leniently. Unless of course, they identified as pregnant women.
We need to nip this tuck show in the bud
Caroline Flack is to be the face of new Channel 4 show The Surjury, which will encourage contestants to try to win plastic surgery treatments.
How the heart sinks.
To win, they must convince a jury that their need for an appearance-altering treatment is the greatest. ‘From bum-lifts to nose jobs, sculpted abs to breast enlargements, The Surjury allows people to explore their choices more thoroughly,’ says the blurb.
Surely Caroline will be appalled? Afraid not.
‘Over the mooooooon to be hosting my first Channel 4 show The Surjury,’ she burbled on social media.
The 39-year-old (right) made a point of declaring that she doesn’t judge anyone for opting for plastic surgery.
Neither do I, but I can’t support a show that offers it as a prize.