By Barry Speker OBE
Far from being a blow to the right to ‘peaceful protest’, the long prison sentences imposed on the five Just Stop Oil protesters are a triumph for the rule of law.
Five years imprisonment for Roger Hallam and four years each for his co-conspirators. Their antics in 2022 in clambering on gantries and sitting in the fast lane of the M25 brought the motorway to a halt for four days. The criminal disruption caused economic damage of £765,000 and cost to the Metropolitan Police of £1.1million. For people who missed flights, were unable to receive cancer treatment or attend family funerals, those antics were totally unacceptable.
Even in Court the protesters continued to harangue the jury.
In sentencing them Judge Christopher Hehir told them they had crossed the line ‘from concerned campaigners to fanatics’ and appointed themselves as the sole arbiters of what should be done about climate change.
That some Labour backbenchers and climate activists were among those describing the sentences as ‘draconian’ and calling for Government intervention, is no surprise. Sagely and constitutionally, ministers say that is impossible. New laws aimed at stopping attempts to paralyse cities, deface public monuments or disrupt public life will not be repealed. This is a strong message that Just Stop Oil is not above the law.
After a Euros campaign in which England battled to the final again without producing aesthetically pleasing football, Gareth Southgate did not bask in his achievement or lose his cool with the barrage of armchair experts, challenging his every decision.
With dignity he called it a day but with a record making him the most successful England manager since Sir Alf Ramsay in 1966. To quote Rudyard Kipling ”Risk everything, face disaster and never breathe a word about your loss”.
What he did do was instil national pride in his players and give the nation a cause to support until the last few minutes of the final.
The Prince of Wales spoke for many in his message of thanks to Gareth – ‘not as President of the FA but as an England fan’ – in creating a team which stands shoulder to shoulder with the finest and ‘for showing humility, compassion and true leadership under the most intense pressure and scrutiny’.
No doubt this is some comfort in the face of the press barrage and the anonymous multitude on social media.
I recommend the film The Commandant’s Shadow, a documentary which follows Hans Jürgen Höss, the 87-year-old son of Rudolf Höss, the Camp Commandant of Auschwitz who master-minded the murder of more than a million Jews. The life is Höss and his family was recently fictionalised in the Academy Award-winning ‘The Zone of Interest’.
Now The Commandant’s Shadow tells the story of the real people who lived beside the camp. It culminates in Hans meeting Anita Laker-Wallfisch who survived because she could play the cello and was seconded to the camp’s orchestra, playing as prisoners went to their deaths.
The film shows Hans belatedly acknowledging what happened in the death camp, catalogued in the autobiography written in German by Rudolf Höss whilst awaiting his execution.
Anita Laker-Wallfisch laments that the story and the Holocaust lesson of ‘never again’ remain harshly relevant in the wake of October 7th and the level of anti-semitism.
Starmer-geddon arrived on 4th July, and the arrival of 335 new members of Parliament, a larger number of political freshmen and women than even the Labour landslide of 1945. It is appropriate and reassuring that the Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, reminded honourable members – the men, that is – that they should wear a tie in the Palace of Westminster, and certainly in the chamber of the House of Commons. “Wear a tie or you might not catch my eye”.
This is a reminder of the pushback against the attempts of predecessor John Bercow who in 2017 declared ties were not necessary – and we remember what became of him.
Ties still have their place in public life and convey respect for one’s office, the institution of which a member is part and to the voters. A degree of humility in submitting to a dress-code is no bad thing. Tradition, but not necessarily conservatism!
How will this be interpreted by deputy PM, Angela Rayner, who once described herself as ‘Prescott in a skirt’? No doubt the 44 year old grandmother from Stockport will still keep the red skirt flying.
barryspeker@hotmail.com