Singer in stoush with taxi driver over migrant views
English singer Lily Allen says she was verbally abused by a London black cab driver, who told her to ‘‘find an immigrant to drive you, you stupid tart’’, following her call for Britain to take more refugees from Calais.
Allen tweeted about the incident, which she said happened when she and her children flagged down a taxi yesterday. She called on people to ‘‘stamp out this horrible ignorance together’’.
The 31-year-old added: ‘‘Having lived a life of privilege, that interaction has given me a tiny glimpse of what it feels like to be discriminated against.’’
She was immediately accused of being a liar by several Twitter users. To one who suggested that the incident did not happen because she did not have photographic evidence, she replied: ‘‘I had both my hands full with children, couldn’t get to my phone fast enough.’’
Another cab driver wrote: ‘‘As a fellow cabby if this is fact I can only apologise for him were not all like that not acceptable.’’
The incident is the latest vitriol to be directed at Allen following her outspoken views on the treatment of refugees.
This week she waded into the debate over the ages of some of the child refugees accepted by Britain, saying ‘‘it shouldn’t matter’’, and drew parallels between the country’s failure to act and the actions of Nazi Germany.
After visiting a Calais refugee camp to volunteer in a charity warehouse, Allen was bombarded with abuse online and labelled an ‘‘indulged idiot’’ by the British tabloids for a video of her apologising ‘‘on behalf of my country’’ to a 13-year-old Afghan boy.
‘‘It just seems that, at three different intervals in this young boy’s life, the English in particular have put you in danger,’’ she told Shamsher Sherin, who had been attempting to jump on the back of trucks to cross the English Channel and be reunited with his father, who is living in Birmingham.
‘‘We’ve bombed your country, put you in the hands of the Taliban, and now put you in danger of risking your life to get into our country.’’