I must confess I am greatly concerned by the Mail on Sunday’s front page story today. I don’t mean the ‘King Charles III tea towel’ offer – mercifully we have plenty of tea towels in our house already – but the story, if that’s what it is, about the “Extremists vile plot to spook the King’s horses with rape alarms” during the coronation. So called “eco warriors and republican fanatics” could cause injury or death. On the face of it, if the horses did get spooked it could have devastating consequences, not least for Charles and his wife Camilla Parker-Bowles who, perish the thought, could find the royal carriage careering off down the Mall leaving carnage in its wake. I’m strongly opposed to any form of terrorism at the best of times, whatever I mean by that, and as someone who likes to do his bit to protect the environment and would rather there wasn’t a royal family, I’d rather the coronation went ahead smoothly without any issues. But there’s another aspect of the ‘story’ which concerns me more than anything: the sources the Mail claims to have based it’s story on.
The Mail claims that the information comes from “senior security sources”, which suggest MI5, Special Branch or, possibly Bodie and Doyle’s CI5 have been busy leaking confidential security information to a newspaper whose politics hover uneasily between the hard right of the Conservative party and Britain First. If it’s CI5, I would suggest Major George Cowley will be livid.
It’s one of those things you read that leads you to think – well, it leads me to think – that the man or woman on the Clapham Omnibus could easily come up with a scenario whereby various anarchist types could cause serious disruption at the coronation, so it stands to reason that a Mail on Sunday journalist (yeah, I know the term Mail on Sunday journalist would appear to be an oxymoron) could do the same, by making it all up. If there really are “senior security sources” dishing out national secrets to the gutter press, I’m worried that Putin might come along and ask for more secrets in exchange for a large wad of cash. If you’d happily compromise national security to the Mail, then do you really have any principles at all?
What the Mail is good at doing is projecting fear across the nation and this, I have no doubt, is from the same play book. If it’s not migrants, Europe, judges, lefty lawyers and did I mention migrants, destroying the country – spoiler alert alert for the hard of thinking: they aren’t – then it’s hardly a great stretch of the imagination to suggest “eco warriors and republican fanatics” are about to do the same.
Coronation day will probably be the right time to do something illegal in your area because every copper in the land will doubtless be summoned to London to allow thousands of people the once in a lifetime experience of seeing Charles and Ms Parker-Bowles wave at them.
My view, for what it’s worth, which isn’t much, is that I would prefer it for the whole coronation show to go ahead as planned and for those who fight for various causes, many of which I support in my roundabout, woolly, non-aggressive way, to put across their views in smarter and indeed legal ways. That, surely, is how to get ordinary folk on your side? I have not met one person who has seen the Just Stop Oil protests and thought, well, that’s a method of protest I truly support. Now where’s that rape alarm to throw at the nearest horse. On the contrary, the natural reaction may be to go and buy a large diesel-powered gas guzzling 4X4 or some such massive vehicle in order to aid the destruction of the planet.
I’d like to think the Mail on Sunday made this story up, but we’ll never know. I just hope it didn’t give the so-called protestors new ideas that they could then use at the coronation. If there were protests and people were injured or even killed, it’s not hard to imagine a scenario whereby some folk might decide to kick back, literally.
What we really need is moderation but sadly we have a government which only deals in extremes. I hope the coronation turns out to be as boring as I have long expected it to be. There are surely better ways to change the way the country is run. Aren’t there?
1 comment
5
Comments are closed.