Anyone else growing very tired of this new breed of self absorbed protestors, the ones who seem to have endless time on their hands yet absolutely no patience for the serious business of making a proper argument?
What on earth are they teaching them at university these days? Instead of debate and persuasion they appear to be turning out a crop of graduates who believe that throwing pudding at national treasures is an acceptable substitute for thought.
And so we arrive at the Tower of London, that ancient fortress of our history, where the Crown Jewels stood minding their own business until a group of online crusaders marched in with a tray of apple crumble and a tub of custard. Up went the crumble, down slopped the custard, and out came the carefully rehearsed lines about democracy crumbling. It was all terribly dramatic… and terribly silly.
These people are not making a political point, they are producing a spectacle. They are not building a movement, they are engineering a moment of publicity. And frankly, once they do it, they lose any sympathy the British public might have had for them. We do not admire them, we do not rally to their cause, we simply look at them and think what absolute plonkers.
The instant they throw food at the Crown Jewels or glue themselves to a motorway or deface a statue or slash a painting, their credibility evaporates. They imagine they are shaking the system. In reality most people just side with whoever they are attacking and get on with our day.
It raises a serious question. Should we not be tougher on these stunts? The current crop of activists seem to believe that if they shout loudly enough or throw custard in the right direction the law will simply pat them on the head and send them on their way. Perhaps if there were firmer consequences they might rediscover the lost art of democratic engagement. Talk to your fellow citizens, persuade them, stand for something, do the long and dreary work of building support. That is how change is made in a democracy, not by turning our national institutions into the set of a budget cooking show.
This is what is so maddening. These young activists often care about genuine issues, but they undermine their own cause the moment they resort to dessert based vandalism. They imagine they are heroic outsiders challenging power, but the rest of us simply think they are weirdos performing for social media.
Until they trade crumble for commitment, until they put down the custard and pick up a serious argument, they will remain what this latest sorry episode has revealed. Not courageous voices of reform, not champions of the people, just yobbos with custard.
