RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: JSO and the anti-Israel rabble do not speak for Britain
Fingers on buzzers. Here’s your starter for ten. How many of the 61 Just Stop Oil headbangers arrested in London yesterday were also on the anti-Israel march at the weekend?
It’s not a trick question and there’s no definitive answer. But my guess would be: all of them.
And if not all of them, then almost certainly some of them. All those, that is, who weren’t pushing a shopping trolley round B&Q, stocking up on orange emulsion in anticipation of their latest mindless act of vandalism.
For once the police pulled their fingers out and were on the scene within four minutes. Not before time.
For the past couple of years, the Met has been indulging these overgrown toddlers with mental health issues, who appear to believe they have a divine right to disrupt the rest of us going about our lawful business.
Fingers on buzzers. Here’s your starter for ten. How many of the 61 Just Stop Oil headbangers arrested in London yesterday were also on the anti-Israel march at the weekend? It’s not a trick question and there’s no definitive answer. But my guess would be: all of them (pictured: a JSO activist during a protest on October 30)
And if not all of them, then almost certainly some of them. All those, that is, who weren’t pushing a shopping trolley round B&Q , stocking up on orange emulsion in anticipation of their latest mindless act of vandalism
Not that having their collars felt will make much difference. They actually want to be arrested. It feeds their inflated self-righteous sense of martyrdom.
And even if they’re hauled up before the Beak in the morning, they know perfectly well the worst they can expect is a slap on the wrist. The courts repeatedly refuse to hand down exemplary sentences.
Only last week, the Just Stop Oil morons who sprayed orange powder on the cricket pitch during the Lord’s Test were let off with a little light community service.
READ MORE: They’re back! Moment van driver begs ‘please let me by’ as Just Stop Oil brings traffic to a halt in central London as eco activists kick off three weeks of disruption hell
What kind of deterrent is that? No deterrent whatsoever, judging by the fact that 24 hours later JSO loons were spraying orange paint on the Wellington Arch at Hyde Park Corner and defacing a dinosaur skeleton at the Natural History Museum.
Even the eco-mob which smashed up a motorway service station on the M25, causing £100,000 damage, were spared jail.
Peaceful protest is one thing. This is premeditated criminality, pure and simple. Yet magistrates continue to treat those responsible as harmless, misguided idealists, not the selfish sociopaths most of them are.
Think I’m being too harsh? Then how else would you describe someone who deliberately blocks a road preventing the sick from getting to hospital, or a child getting to school?
They may parade their compassion for the environment, but they don’t give a fig about the misery they inflict on their fellow humans.
Any more than those screeching for ‘jihad’ and ‘intifada’ in Trafalgar Square could care tuppence for the 1,400 innocent Israeli men, women and children slaughtered by Hamas terrorists.
I’m prepared to bet good money that many of those regular Just Stop Oil protesters were on the streets waving Palestinian flags on Saturday.
Protest is what they do, what they live for. And for all they claim their sole concern is the alleged ‘climate emergency’, they’ve already expanded into other areas. Last week, a group from JSO attempted to stop a bus transporting migrants to the Bibby Stockholm barge at Portland.
For the past couple of years, the Met has been indulging these overgrown toddlers with mental health issues, who appear to believe they have a divine right to disrupt the rest of us going about our lawful business
Peaceful protest is one thing. This is premeditated criminality, pure and simple. Yet magistrates continue to treat those responsible as harmless, misguided idealists, not the selfish sociopaths most of them are
I’m prepared to bet good money that many of those regular Just Stop Oil protesters were on the streets waving Palestinian flags on Saturday
What the hell has that got to do with global warming?
Precisely nothing.
Performative political protests are football hooliganism for trustafarians and the Guardian-reading classes, any excuse for a punch-up in the name of ‘social justice’.
If you could be bothered to go along to any demo, any day of the week, you’ll bump into the same old faces. The cause is largely irrelevant – Stop Brexit, Stop Oil, Stop The War, unless it’s Hamas’s war on Israel, of course.
READ MORE: London’s day of protest: Dramatic moment police arrest man ‘for attack that left officer in hospital’ at Pro-Palestinian march in London – as hundreds of demonstrators stage sit-in at Waterloo
The agitprop Left is a multi-headed hydra, which travels under an assortment of banners. Extinction Rebellion, Animal Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, Ocean Rebellion, HS2 Rebellion, Planet Patrol, Fossil Free London, Plane Stupid, Insulate Britain, Reclaim The Streets . . .
Back in the dim and distant, when I used to present a late night show on London Weekend Television, I interviewed a bloke from Reclaim The Streets.
He wanted to ban all motor vehicles within the M25 and grass over the roads — which, come to think of it, is what London’s two bob chancer of a Mayor, Genghis Khan, is trying to do now.
When I asked him how he’d got to the studio, he admitted he’d travelled by car from Manchester. Collapse of stout party.
No doubt that clown is still around, slow walking along the Strand in a hi-viz jacket. Or, if it’s Saturday, in an intifada headscarf.
The Hard Left has always set up a series of front organisations to exaggerate the extent of its support. Most of them are run from a flat above the same kebab shop in Hackney.
Years ago, I was having a drink with my old mate, the late Terry Duffy, then president of the AEU engineering union. Terry was a patriotic former paratrooper from Wolverhampton who, with others, trounced the Hard Left to take back control of the union.
Someone was trying to explain all the groups he was up against: Militant Tendency, Workers Revolutionary Party, the Socialist Workers Party, the International Socialists and so on.
If you could be bothered to go along to any demo, any day of the week, you’ll bump into the same old faces. The cause is largely irrelevant – Stop Brexit, Stop Oil, Stop The War, unless it’s Hamas’s war on Israel, of course
You can bet your bottom dollar that among the crowd were supporters of Just Stop Oil along for the ride
‘I don’t care what they call themselves,’ said Terry. ‘They’re all Communists.’
Spot on. And although the pro-Palestine demos in London right now contain some seriously sinister elements, particularly the Islamist variety, most of the marchers are simply there for the day out.
You can bet your bottom dollar that among the crowd were supporters of Just Stop Oil along for the ride.
I’m not being complacent, but while a ranting mob of 100,000 people on the streets of London seems intimidating, especially to British Jews and other supporters of Israel, in the scheme of things we should not overstate its significance.
Don’t forget the 67 million British citizens who aren’t marching, either against Israel or in support of Just Stop Oil.
The Hard Left demonstrators might make the most noise and nuisance of themselves, but we are the many, they are the few.
The courts and police would do well to remember that, too.
Back in August, it was revealed that the BBC’s wildlife botherer Chris Packham was being investigated by police for unlawful bird sniffing.
They had received a complaint from a viewer who had seen him sniff a goshawk chick on live television. Apparently, you need a licence to sniff birds of prey. Now, though, after making extensive inquiries, police have decided against bringing criminal charges.
It is believed that specialist officers concluded no crime had been committed because ‘bird sniffing’ — like jihad — can have a number of different meanings.
Radio 2’s audience has nosedived since Ken Bruce was forced out of his popular mid-morning slot in March. His successor Vernon Kay has lost 1.3 million listeners since taking over in March.
Meanwhile, Ken has increased the audience for his new show on Greatest Hits Radio by 800,000 to 3.7 million. Long-term Radio 2 stalwarts, like me, have been deserting in droves since the Old Guard, including Steve Wright and Simon Mayo, were put out to grass.
Boom Radio, also aimed at a more, er, mature audience is also adding listeners, including thousands of young people brought up on their parents’ record collections. I was invited to do a sort of Desert Island Drunks turn for them earlier this year. It was great fun.
Radio 2’s desperation to chase a younger demographic has backfired. You alienate your loyal audience at your peril. It’s no secret why Boom and GHR are booming. Boomers. There’s a lot of us about.
Here’s one you may have missed, buried beneath the avalanche of depressing news lately. Midweek dinner parties are making a comeback.
Popular in the 1970s, the dinner party is enjoying a renaissance because so many people are working from home these days. Ocado reports a boom in home deliveries of wine, food and chocolate eclairs.
Makes a change from Hobnobs, I suppose. Wednesday is now the busiest day of the week, which makes sense if you’re not planning to go in to work on Thursday. Or Friday, for that matter.
Leaves the weekend free for a bit of ‘me’ time. I have visions of suburban get-togethers like Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party, with Alison Steadman’s Beverly passing round the cheesy-pineapple bits on sticks and mixing the G&Ts, while listening to Demis Roussos on the music centre.
‘OK, so I’m working from home, Lawrence is working from home, Sue’s working from home, Ange is working from home, and Tone’s working from home. Ice and lemon, Tone? It’s from Ocado . . .’
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