RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Not another demo! What has it got to do with us?
RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Not another demo! How is chucking bottles at the police in a London suburb going to force Tehran to scrap the hijab? Send in the SAS
Around midday on April 30, 1980, I was working on the newsdesk at London’s Evening Standard when we received a call from a tipster claiming that a copper had been kidnapped in Knightsbridge.
This turned out to be the start of the six-day siege at the Iranian Embassy, opposite Hyde Park. Iraqi-backed gunmen overpowered PC Trevor Lock, of the Diplomatic Protection Squad, stormed the building and took staff and visitors hostage.
They were members of something called the Democratic Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Arabistan, demanding independence for the Iranian province of Khuzestan.
Quite what they expected to achieve was anyone’s guess, but over that Bank Holiday weekend a territorial dispute thousands of miles away was played out on live TV in London and beamed around the world.
In next to no time, hundreds of Iranian protesters descended on the embassy, waving pictures of Ayatollah Khomeini, and became involved in violent clashes with the police. Where had they all come from, at such short notice? A Standard reporter tracked them to a former church somewhere off the Edgware Road, on the other side of the park.
Who knew there were so many supporters of the Iranian revolution living in London?
The siege rumbled on until the evening of Bank Holiday Monday, when it was ended in spectacular fashion by the SAS.
The siege of the Iranian Embassy in 1980 rumbled on until the evening of Bank Holiday Monday, when it was ended in spectacular fashion by the SAS
It was riveting to watch as the action unfolded in real time on television.
But that didn’t prevent the BBC receiving thousands of complaints about interrupting coverage of the World Snooker Championships to cover the dramatic assault. Missing out on Cliff Thorburn versus Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins was a minor inconvenience compared to the disruption in West London.
Although we had become used to noisy demonstrations against foreign governments, notably over America’s war in Vietnam and Russia’s invasion of Czechoslovakia, this was the most extreme example of the world’s battles being fought out on Britain’s streets.
The Iranian embassy siege was followed four years later by the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher during a protest outside the Libyan embassy in St James’s Square.
These days it seems no dispute about anything, anywhere in the world, is complete without demonstrators here in Britain having to get in on the act.
This weekend, the Iranian embassy was front and centre again, as hundreds of protesters attacked the building after a Kurdish woman living in Iran was arrested and reportedly tortured to death for wearing her hijab too loosely.
These days it seems no dispute about anything, anywhere in the world, is complete without demonstrators here in Britain having to get in on the act
The Iranian Embassy building in Knightsbridge had paint thrown on it and windows smashed as protesters gathered outside
Riot police attempting to keep order were attacked with missiles, including bricks and bottles. Several officers were treated for their injuries and a dozen arrests were made.
The mayhem spread to Marble Arch and further north to Kilburn, where an Islamic Centre bankrolled by Iran also came under attack.
Such is the rapidly changing face of London. Last time I looked, Kilburn was heavily Irish. Now it’s home to an Islamic Centre, housed appropriately in a former Mecca dance and bingo hall.
The treatment of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in Iran was appalling. But how is chucking bottles at police officers in a North-West London suburb supposed to make the slightest difference?
The mad mullahs in Tehran are hardly going to scrap the hijab because someone has lobbed a brick through the window of a building in Kilburn.
Elsewhere recently, we have seen violence on the streets of Leicester and Smethwick between Hindu and Muslim gangs, stirred up by rabble-rousers such as our old friend Ram Jam Choudary, Captain Hook’s sidekick, and someone who goes by the name of Mohammed Hijab.
Riot police attempting to keep order were attacked with missiles, including bricks and bottles. Several officers were treated for their injuries and a dozen arrests were made
You couldn’t make him up.
But what has Leicester done to deserve becoming another battleground over the war in Kashmir?
It was always inevitable that mass immigration would mean some people would also import their tribal and cultural grievances with them.
That shouldn’t mean we have to put up with demos and disruption caused by faraway disputes which are absolutely none of our business.
Take the insane Black Lives Matter marches, which sprung up in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer over 4,000 miles away. What did that have to do with us? Yet hundreds of demonstrators, many of them in paramilitary garb, thought it was justification for parading through London, chanting ‘Hands up, Don’t Shoot’ at unarmed coppers in Whitehall.
In the face of these tantrums, everyone from politicians and police chiefs to Premier League footballers started taking the knee in supplication to the mob. Since then we’ve seen statues toppled and streets and colleges renamed.
Yes, the right to peaceful protest should be sacrosanct. But not the right to cause mayhem over something which happened on the other side of the world, and over which we have no influence.
The treatment of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in Iran was appalling. But how is chucking bottles at police officers in a North-West London suburb supposed to make the slightest difference?
At least the Stop The War and Poll Tax protesters had tangible, achievable aims. They had specific goals.
The same can’t be said for the eco-mentalists planning yet another tiresome round of disruption on London’s streets.
Extinction Rebellion and its offshoots such as Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain intend to close roads and bridges, bringing the city to a standstill.
But this isn’t legitimate protest, it’s virtue-signalling anarchy aimed at causing the maximum possible chaos and making miserable the lives of millions of law-abiding people.
And for what? The Government is already committed to Net Zero, even though the new Truss administration is easing restrictions on fracking in the face of a global energy crisis.
How does smashing up petrol pumps on the A2, or stopping ambulances reaching hospital, help persuade China to stop opening a new coal-fired power station every ten minutes?
If these Back-to-the-Stone-Age maniacs got their way, the lights would go out across Britain, factories would close and half the country would starve to death. Yet the courts continue to indulge them because they ‘mean well’.
The Government is already committed to Net Zero, even though the new Truss administration is easing restrictions on fracking in the face of a global energy crisis
Try telling that to the commuters prevented from getting to work, the mums stopped from taking their kids to school, the holidaymakers missing flights.
The Iranian protesters in Knightsbridge and Kilburn and the Kashmir war re-enactors in Leicester are a bloody nuisance.
But far more sinister are the deranged trustafarian XR gangsters who are hell-bent on ruining our lives day in, day out.
The new Met Commissioner Mark Rowley has promised a robust response to the eco demos. Let’s hope he’s as good as his word and the courts start handing down exemplary sentences for once.
But I wouldn’t hold your breath.
It’s a pity Mother Theresa stopped Boris using those water cannon when he was London mayor. They’d come in handy for dealing with the eco-terrorists.
I suppose there’s no chance of calling in the SAS.
Labour supporter Gary Neville (right) has slammed as ‘immoral’ the mini-Budget, which cut taxes and lifted the lid on bankers’ bonuses
- Barrack room lawyer Gary Neville has slammed as ‘immoral’ the mini-Budget, which cut taxes and lifted the lid on bankers’ bonuses. Labour supporter Neville is reportedly paid up to £1.5 million a year by Sky Sports, to add to the riches he earned at Manchester United. He also has multi-million-pound property interests and was himself investigated for tax avoidance a few years ago. So how dare he say it is wrong to let other people keep more of their own money. And if it’s fine for footballers to earn fat win bonuses linked to results, why is it wrong for bankers?
- Today’s edition of Mind How You Go comes courtesy of the Metropolitan Police, which has just ordered 7,300 pairs of XXL trousers, some with a 56in waist. West Midlands cops have bought another 1,850 pairs, size 40in to 52in. That’s what I call the Heavy Mob!
The Metropolitan Police, which has just ordered 7,300 pairs of XXL trousers, some with a 56in waist (stock image)
- When I read that plans have been drawn up to import electricity from the Sahara desert, I had to check the date to make sure it wasn’t April Fool’s Day. But no, even though we’re sitting on enough shale gas to last 50 years and the North Sea still has ample reserves of both gas and oil, Whitehall really is considering piping solar and wind power nearly 2,000 miles from Morocco. Is there no end to this Net Zero madness?
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