More chump than chum

Convicted criminal Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who goes under the pseudonym of Tommy Robinson, was bizarrely allowed by police to mount scaffolding outside the Old Bailey this week to address his followers. No one knows why the authorities agreed to this, unless it was to remind us what his racist friends would build in every city after lynching certain minorities if they ever gained power. Which seems unlikely looking at pictures of last Saturday’s EDL march in Manchester.

One showed fewer than 20 of them being kettled by five times as many police, prompting a stream of mickey-taking tweets – the best one being “there have been more members of the Sugababes”. Yaxley-Lennon, on his scaffolding, spoke about us journalists being “the enemy of the people”.

For someone who thinks he’s their friend, he can’t seem to attract many.