24
FROM THE SHARP END
July 2019 Truck & DriverChange of climate
A
ll are equal but some are more equal
than others. How apposite are
George Orwell’s prophetic words.
Look at the chaos in London, when
those so-called environmentalists
Extinction Rebellion held the city to ransom
and got away with it. The Met Police stood and
watched instead of enforcing the law while the
mayor, Sadiq Khan, thanked them for being
“extremely cooperative”. So cooperative they
closed down his city!
What’s more, they demand, demand mind
you, talks with the government. That’s what
happens when anarchists posing as
environmental protesters are treated to the
softly, softly approach by the authorities. The
police arrest them, over a thousand, charge 69
and then open the revolving door and out they
go to rejoin the protest, only to be arrested
again... maybe. If anyone doubts that, in
London, the lunatics are running the asylum,
there’s the evidence.
On St George’s Day, Elliott Cuciurean was
given a conditional discharge at Westminster
Magistrates’ Court for his part in the disruption;
he had been arrested on the previous Saturday
and Sunday. Outside court, Cuciurean said it
was “quite a relief to avoid a fine” and that he
was planning to rejoin the protest at Marble Arch.Police stood and watched
instead of enforcing the law
Traffic chaos in the capital hits the
pockets of hauliers yet climate-change
protesters get the ear of the government
ALEX SAVILLE
Truck driverShutterstock
The judge told him: “This country has a
longstanding respect for people to protest but
when it crosses into criminal law then the
courts have to take action.” So why did you not
treat this twice-arrested man as a criminal
instead of giving him a slap on the wrist?
It’s acceptable for Londoners and others
stuck in the traffic to lose money but not the
accused? Next time you get a ticket for your
trailer sticking out onto a box junction, just tell
the court you were making an ‘environmental
protest’ and see if you get away with it.
In a video that went viral, a lorry driver said
of these self-appointed climate vigilantes: “How
is this helping, stopping traffic and causing
fumes? Look at the traffic.” He also commented
that, unlike the protesters, if he parked his truck
there he would get shifted by the police.Class difference
Remember the fuel protests in 2000 that shook
Tony Blair’s government? Nothing happened
because the government and politicians
couldn’t care less about the cost of fuel to road
transport and the fishing and farming
industries. If the fuel protesters had blocked
London as Extinction Rebellion had, the world
would have fallen on them. Of course, the fuel
protesters were people who got their hands
dirty, unlike the present-day middle-class
protesters to whom a hard day’s work would be
‘environmentally unfriendly’.
Few in Britain would dispute that Brexit has
become a shambles because the politicos, of
all parties and factions, have thrown the dummy
out of the pram. So, what’s the politicians’
priority? They had a wee Swedish lassie to give
their attention to; meanwhile, London was in
chaos while they pandered to her opinions.
Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish
schoolgirl behind school ‘climate strikes’, was
allowed to meet Corbyn, Milliband, Gove,
Cable, Lucas and other politicians to lecture
them on what they should do. Lucas (Greens)
told her: “More than ever, politicians have our
ears open to your message”; Gove (Tory)
added: “Greta, you have been heard.”
Why are politicians falling over themselves to
give her credibility? Thunberg told Radio 4’s
Today programme that “if your house is on fire
then that does require some level of panic”. It
sure does, especially if the fire brigade are
stuck in a traffic blockade.
If the working folks in Britain could get the
same attention from those who live in the
political bubble, wouldn’t that be something?
Instead they treat a silly wee lassie as if she is
some kind of messiah; virtue signalling is the
order of the day. Politicians? Ugh!