Hurting two families won’t solve anything
My rebel stunt turned in tents
I DRESSED up as an Extinction Rebellion protester this week for Sky TV’s debate show, The Pledge, where I was going to say what a pain-in-the-backside, waste of time they are.
I’d donned a wig, a beanie hat, grungy clothes and was sitting in a tent in the middle of the Sky car park, blocking it.
No sooner had we started filming than a bloke working on some adjoining land screamed: “Are you one of those **** ing protesters?”
What followed was a string of expletives that shocked even me. But it pretty much illustrated my point that Extinction Rebellion’s protests aren’t persuading anyone of anything. All they’re doing is peeing off hard working people who last week were desperately trying to get to work/appointments/ hospitals - and couldn’t.
XR isn’t a remotely serious Green movement. It’s a cult which preaches death and destruction and whose only solution to climate change is to take us back to the Dark Ages.
And why protest here? Britain’s cut its carbon emissions by 44 per cent since 1990 and produces just 1 percent of global C02 emissions, which I’d say means we’re doing our bit. AS for the young man called Kai who a few days ago glued his bum to the road and told us he was “saving the planet”, I’d very much like him to explain exactly how sticking his ass on to tarmac might do that.
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HARD to believe that Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy having a bust up makes front page news - but it has.
It’s all to do with Coleen setting a trap for whoever was leaking stories about what’s on her personal Instagram account and blaming
Rebekah.
Coleen says the leaks have been about her private business, her life, her family and friends.
The thing is, I couldn’t care less what’s happening in Coleen’s life. She’s got enough to cope with being married to The Dope.
However, a word of advice Coleen: If you want to keep stuff about your private life private, don’t post it on social media.
Just a thought...
IT’S impossible to listen to Harry Dunn’s parents, Charlotte and Tim, talk about the loss of their son without being consumed by their pain. Without wanting to cry with them knowing that their lives are broken - possibly forever. Their beloved boy Harry was knocked off his motorbike and killed in a headon crash outside an RAF base. The car suspected of hitting him was on -the wrong side of the road and allegedly being driven by American diplomat’s wife Anne Sacoolas.
Mrs Sacoolas, who has diplomatic immunity, was interviewed by Northants police at the time but soon after fled the country and is now in America with her husband and three children.
Obviously Tim and Charlotte want her back in Britain because they desperately need answers about how their son died.
They’ve pleaded with Mrs Sacoolas to return - not with vengeance or hate in their hearts - simply because they cannot properly grieve until their questions are answered.
And in the midst of their grief an ugly transatlantic row has blown up between Britain and the US with Boris Johnson demanding Mrs Sacoolas return to face justice and President Trump saying no.
Now, I’ve thought long and hard about what I’m about to say so please hear me out before you say I’m wrong. Anne Sacoolas has three children; her 12-year-old son was in the car when the accident happened.
If she were to come back here and be convicted she could go to jail which would leave her kids without their mum – potentially for years.
You might well say she deserves it but her kids don’t deserve to be punished. Mrs Sacoolas is an American who, police believe, mistakenly drove on the wrong side of the road.
We’ve all done it when abroad. The difference is her alleged mistake cost a young man his life. And while Tim and Charlotte will never get over Harry’s death neither, I suspect, will she. So, I suppose what I’m asking you - and myself - is what would YOU do in her situation if you had kids? Would you leave them without their mum if diplomatic immunity allowed you to potentially escape jail? Are we all so fantastically principled that we’d face the consequences even if it meant those paying the highest price would be our kids?
I’m not for a second saying diplomatic immunity should be seen as a get out of jail free card. In fact, maybe now’s the time to revise a system that has been abused by people here trying to avoid charges of rape, human trafficking, death threats and drunk driving.
WHAT I am saying is while I’d usually be the first shouting for “justice” I don’t see that justice will be served by slinging Anne Sacoolas in jail. Because just as Tim and Charlotte will be in a living hell for years to come, so will she. As a mother she knows what she has taken from them and the guilt will haunt and torment her.That will be her hell.
Tim and Charlotte are decent, lovely people who I don’t believe are looking for vengeance or even punishment. So wouldn’t a better way to deal with this be to get all three together on neutral ground in a place where, without anger, without recriminations, they can talk.
I don’t know what will help Tim and Charlotte cope with the horror of what’s happened. But I know jailing Anne Sacoolas won’t.
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A NEW study says a handshake that lasts longer than three seconds causes anxiety. Dr Emese Nagy from Dundee University says: “Handshakes have long-lasting consequences for the relationships we form.”
How does he know? This study involved a few people shaking hands with researchers for up to six seconds.
I don’t know who this bloke is but if he is a doctor then he needs to be doing something more useful. IN his autobiography Rod Stewart tells of the time Elton John bought him a Rembrandt drawing for Christmas and all Rod had bought him was a £300 portable fridge that lit up. Now, I know it must be hard to buy the man who has everything a Christmas gift but a mini-fridge?
If I’d been Elton I’d have made Rod wear it as an earring. Still, the Tartan-loving star didn’t amass a £183million fortune by chucking his money around.