Woman found guilty of 'insulting' Cameron

[NicholasTeakozy]

Guardian link. Apparently holding up a placard stating that Cameron has blood on his hands is insulting. Whatever happened to freedom of speech? Or does it only work one way?

[Darkesteyes]

Lovely to see the free speech that this country fought so hard for in the past in action

[VerySmallSqueak]

Protest has been increasingly criminalised since the 80's.
This has been a successful direct action in that the heavy handed treatment of this woman has resulted in her cause being publicised.
I am a lot more at the rough treatment she claims to have received than the inevitable over- reaction of the 'justice' system.

[glenthebattleostrich]

Hmm so now the bastard is going after our freedom of speech, it is starting to look reminicent of a fucking dictatorship.

[scaevola]

I think her scaling of a security barrier was part of the offence for which she was convicted.

[VerySmallSqueak]

I agree scaevola that it reads to me that her behaviour (in scaling the security barrier) would also be part of the reason for her arrest.
It doesn't excuse the (alleged) rough treatment that she received,though.

[edam]

Arrest is very different to charge and conviction, though. Maybe the police were justified in arresting her, I don't know, but for a judge to make such a meal of it is ridiculous. As if politicians are such fey, delicate creatures they can't cope with an actual voter criticising them! Good grief.

[crazynanna]

[VerySmallSqueak]

Don't hide it crazynanna.
I'll make a matching one.

[lottieandmia]

Theresa May is trying to scrap the human rights act.

[Tau]

Frightening and dangerous. Stupid stupid judge. He should be fired.
I grew up in a country where you had to watch your words, even in school, shops, on the market - never say anything that might offend the commander and his allies, or you risked your dad getting captured/questioned/beaten, or even shot. I can still feel the permanent anxiety, the fear of letting the wrong words slip out in front of the wrong people.
I wonder if that is what the judge wants for the U.K.? Is that how he wants U.K.'s children to grow up?

[flatpackhamster]

Hang on a minute. Cameron is in Witney, standing on a stage with a Santa Claus, there's a children's choir singing and he's about to switch on the christmas lights. Suddenly somebody tries to scale a security barrier, shouting, and lunge at him waving a placard? That's not a legitimate political protest, that's a visible attack which the security services were right to halt.

What did she expect was going to happen when she made a physical advance on the PM? Did she think his security detail were just going to stand there? How are they supposed to tell the difference between a screaming jihadist with a rucksack bomb and a deluded unemployable socialist?


[[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9716735/Oxford-graduate-charged-over-David-Cameron-Christmas-lights-incident.html
Look at the Telegraph story.]] Their photo is a shot from a moment before the unemployable socialist (sorry, Oxford graduate and poet) tried to attack him. It's rather different to the situation implied by the Guardian's photo. The Guardian's photo gives totally the wrong impression of her 'protest'.

And the hypocrisy of the Guardian running this story the way they have while backing press censorship and supporting Private Law for the super-rich (Hacked Off and Leveson) would be breathtaking, if my breath hadn't already been tooked often enough by their hypocrisy.

[Shinyshoes1]

I thought this thread was about our Custy lol

[VerySmallSqueak]

flatpackhamster.

There is a poem which starts 'First they came for the Jews' - perhaps you should look it up.

We (even deluded unemployable socialists) need to be able to protest in this country.

Otherwise maybe no one will be able to speak out for you should you ever need it.

[greencolorpack]

Verysmallsqueak, it is a poem by Paster Niemoller. Should make it easier to look up.

flatpackhamster, the Telegraph link doesn't work.

[ohthedandy]

No, the Telegraph link doesn't work, but even by The Guardian's report, I don't think this was the time and place for the woman's protest.

I thought the charge was very odd - I'm sure politicians have heard much worse - I'd have thought disorderly conduct would have been the charge. Police response (by the woman's account) very heavy handed.

The photo accompanying The Guardian's report is somewhat disingenious........

[flatpackhamster]

VerySmallSqueak

There is a poem which starts 'First they came for the Jews' - perhaps you should look it up.

I've seen it referenced twice today. Once by you, when you try to draw an equivalence between a totalitarian regime killing people and a dullard Oxford graduate being a dick at a Christmas party. And once by someone who claimed that we should all support the teachers in their demands for more money and bigger pensions, even though the teachers didn't support us when we had our salaries cut and our pensions destroyed.

Solidarity works both ways.

We (even deluded unemployable socialists) need to be able to protest in this country.

You can, and people manage it every day. There is a world of difference between someone protesting, and someone making an aggressive move against the head of state at a christmas event. This woman did the latter and she was grabbed by the rozzers for it. If they hadn't grabbed her, they weren't doing their jobs.

She wasn't punished for insulting Cameron, as the delusional headline claims. She was punished for disorderly behaviour, not insulting behaviour. Here's a quote from the judge:

District Judge Tim Pattinson said: ?It is difficult to think of a clearer example of disorderly behaviour than to climb or attempt to climb a barrier at a highly security-sensitive public occasion.?

Otherwise maybe no one will be able to speak out for you should you ever need it.

Where's the solidarity been, Comrade, over the last 10 years? Why have you been so quiet, Comrade, as the Labour party criminalised dissent? As it quietly stripped our liberties, where were you? But now it's Teh Evil Torays in power, and we all know how bad they are, so the braying trots, who were so quiet under Labour, all line up to decry the loss of freedoms.

flatpackhamster, the Telegraph link doesn't work.

Fixed link

[weegiemum]

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

By Pastor Martin Niemoller of the German Confessing Church (where Dietrich Bonhoeffer also served.

[ohthedandy]

Thinking about it, the charge - of "using threatening words or behaviour to cause harassment, alarm or distress" - doesn't that mean causing harassment, alarm or distress to anybody there, not specifically Cameron? If so, it probably did.

[Nancy66]

God, I hate it when people constantly quote that poem. It's as naff and twee as that 'dance like nobody's watching ' shit...another MN favourite.

[flatpackhamster]

ohthedandy

Thinking about it, the charge - of "using threatening words or behaviour to cause harassment, alarm or distress" - doesn't that mean causing harassment, alarm or distress to anybody there, not specifically Cameron? If so, it probably did.

The offence does cover everyone there, not specifcally Cameron.

[VerySmallSqueak]

So,been at work,but to address your post that left me wondering why you are so angry....

The poem is and will always be relevant as far as I am concerned.My opinion- to which I have the right.
The situation that I am trying to point out is that so many actions can now be categorised under a heading in the Public Order Act (1986,I believe) should they wish to employ it.
It is my belief that the wording can be readily interpreted to provide a catch all.
It makes it easier to arrest people who are peacefully protesting.I am not saying that protestors should be immune to arrest regardless of their actions- I am saying that it has become harder to protest without exposing yourself to the possibility of arrest.
There are times when the law is broken in the full knowledge that arrest (even imprisonment) will be the consequence.This still would require the use of minimum force (if any at all) in the course of that arrest.
I am unsure whether it is I to whom you were referring as Comrade?
My point of view is nothing to do with political party.

[VerySmallSqueak]

And listen to what Tau is saying...

[flatpackhamster]

VerySmallSqueak

So,been at work,but to address your post that left me wondering why you are so angry....

Because on the very day that Parliament is voting to give itself control over the press, we get this non-story. And the Guardian - which has been instrumental in this scandalous abuse of the Free Press, merely in order to smash the Mail and Murdoch - has the gall, the temerity, to try to turn it in to a big deal. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

The poem is and will always be relevant as far as I am concerned.My opinion- to which I have the right.

As Wesley Snipes said so eloquently in Demolition Man - "You can't take away people's right to be assholes." Wouldn't dream of depriving you of it.

The situation that I am trying to point out is that so many actions can now be categorised under a heading in the Public Order Act (1986,I believe) should they wish to employ it.
It is my belief that the wording can be readily interpreted to provide a catch all.

It makes it easier to arrest people who are peacefully protesting.I am not saying that protestors should be immune to arrest regardless of their actions- I am saying that it has become harder to protest without exposing yourself to the possibility of arrest.

This wasn't a peaceful protest.

[infamouspoo]

best call him a cockwomble now then. while we still can