Climate Zealot Id Block The Road

[fender62]

ths guy is totally selfish and probably insane, if i had a sick relative in my car or an ambulance id drag these bug@ers off the road or worse.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10056407/Now-eco-mob-block-Blackwall-Tunnel-Insulate-Britain-launch-ELEVENTH-day-protests.html

[Mamyalynne]

He's beyond despicable.

[bookbinder]

Here's a picture of him, just in case any of us happen to meet him:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Hallam_(activist)

[andy-hughes]

You cannot take people like this seriously.

This man has clearly lost any semblence of reason he may have been born with, and become so obsessed with his deluded idea that the task of saving pensions and the planet has somehow fallen to him.

Anyone with a sense of perspective would be asking themselves - why is this my job?

And answering themselves a nano-second later - actually, it's not.

[Lie-in King]

He is a thoroughly contemptible man.

[naomi24]

If the police lack powers to deal with them that needs to be addressed urgently - now!

[andy-hughes]

naomi - // If the police lack powers to deal with them that needs to be addressed urgently - now! //

Clearly this man cannot be stopped fom pedaling his arrant nonsense via the media, and enjoying his fifteen minutes - that's part of the price we pay for free speech.

But if, as you refer to, the police are unable to stop him from turning that appalling attitude into potentially life-threatening action, then they do indeed need to be provided with legal powers to do so - today rather than tomorrow.

[Mozz71]

Judging by his résumé on Wiki, he's a professional activist looking for a cause. Utter ***.

[naomi24]

I would have no problem with him - or any of them - being dragged from the road abs hauled off to jail. Bu&&er their rights. Other people have rights too.

[andy-hughes]

naomi - // I would have no problem with him - or any of them - being dragged from the road abs hauled off to jail. Bu&&er their rights. Other people have rights too. //

The problem is, if you start denying one person's rights because, in your judgegment, it infringes on the rights of someone else, then the first person's rights cease to be rights at all.

It's a complex situation, where the exercise of one person's right to peaceful protest impinges on the rights of others to go about their business, which is clearly the entire object of the action in the first place.

I'm glad I don;t have to frame and execute laws, it's seriously complicated.

And yes, I know someone will leap to their keyboard and say "It's not complicated, lock them up ..." but I reiterate my point, if you stop one person exercising their right on the basis that it inteferes with the rights of another, then the first person's rights are removed.

Sadly, I don't know what the answer is, I can only illustrate what I see as a part of the problem.

[gness]

I'm in complete agreement with Naomi on this. I'm pleased to see that motorists have had enough and are dragging them off the road. Yes, they return immediately but the more motorists who do this the better.
Since when did anyone have the right to prevent a sick person getting medical treatment for god's sake.

[davebro]

I think it's only a matter of time before some of them get seriously assaulted by angry motorists. Bring it on!

[gness]

You say that, Davebro and many of us might, in anger, say the same.
But then of course the injured or dead person becomes a martyr and the motorist who's had enough is punished.

Best I can think of at the moment is to use water cannons to spray them with something harmless but unbearably disgusting.

[sunny-dave]

Anyone who hides behind "this is a complex situation" and witters about erosion of the right to protest wants their bumps felt.

This is not legitimate protest ... This is a bunch of rent-a-mob usual suspects out for a bit of fun and a ruck with the police - aided and abetted by some simple-minded and easily led members of the "nice but dim" brigade who can't see that their actions are actually profoundly damaging the very cause that they think they are supporting.

One stoppage of the M25 might have made a point (possibly), the repeated jamming of important roads (impeding the emergency services in the process) is a disgrace.

[webbo3]

There's footage on Twitter of a man dragging them off the road, I'd love to post it but it has some very naughty language.

[royfromaus]

https://twitter.com/sophielouisecc/status/1445086066155872264

[andy-hughes]

Sunny Dave, I am neither 'hiding nor 'wittering.

The abject misuse of the right to protest is just that - misuse, and it should be punished by law.

But misuse of any right should never impinge on the right itself, especially when most of them are won at massive cost.

[sanmac]

I just watched that twitter feed that Roy posted. Why in Hell can't your cops do that? Is the default position of the UK Police just to stand around in ineffectual groups twiddling their thumbs behind their backs. I really can't see those blockades lasting long here or in the States.

[Bobbisox1]

They shouldn’t be giving him a platform to vent his bilge on the public and arrest him under the public order act , then bang him up !!

[sunny-dave]

AH - if you had started by agreeing that this idiotic action is a blatant misuse of the "right to protest" then I'd not have been so dismissive of the mealy mouthed ramblings which followed - but you hid behind "complex situation" and sat so firmly on the fence it must have hurt your behind.

Of course we mustn't let the right to protest be eroded - but (in all actuality) the people eroding the right to protest are the people misusing it so egregiously here.

So - enough of the prevarication - would you support the right to block traffic in this situation ... if a member of your family was sat in the ensuing traffic jam in an ambulance?