Vegan activist rants at Jeremy Vine in Radio 2 studio ... over DJ’s ham and cheese sandwich!
‘There’s a dead pig in there’
THE BBC’s Jeremy Vine yesterday became embroiled in a row with a militant vegan who was offended by a ham and cheese sandwich in the studio.
The Radio 2 presenter was interviewing Joey Armstrong on his show when the vegan activist became upset at the sight of the sandwich.
His guest suddenly said: ‘I’m a bit upset to see your sandwich has a piece of pig’s body in there. A dead pig that didn’t want to die.’
He went on to declare ham was a ‘euphemism’ for the flesh of a dead pig.
The veteran presenter calmly replied: ‘What would you rather call it?’
Mr Armstrong, a former convict, suggested ham should be called ‘the dead body of an animal that didn’t want to die’. A former gangland drug dealer from Australia, the 31-year-old was once addicted to meth before becoming an animal rights campaigner.
He claims to have had an ‘epiphany’ leading him to veganism while he was in prison for gang-related crime.
He goes by the name Joey ‘Carbstrong’ on social media, where he has tens of thousands of followers thanks to his campaigning. He was invited to speak on the show following recent complaints by farmers who have received death threats from militant vegans. Mr Vine went on to ask if he also took offence to the cheese in the sandwich.
Mr Armstrong said: ‘The cheese comes from a mother who had her children taken from her, and had hands shoved in her anus and was artificially inseminated with bull semen. This is probably why vegans would say a dairy farmer is akin to a rapist.
‘I wouldn’t call a farmer a rapist. I wouldn’t use any of those words without explaining to them the process and why they involve themselves in these types of practices.’
Mr Vine, 52, later admitted he would no longer eat that particular sandwich – but pressed Mr Armstrong over whether it was offensive simply to see it.
Mr Armstrong replied: ‘I believe it’s more offensive to actually show me the piece of an animal who didn’t want to die than it is to call someone out for it.’
When questioned on social media about his extreme reaction to the sight of Mr Vine’s lunch, Mr Armstrong replied: ‘Would it offend you seeing a dog sandwich?’
After the interview aired, Mr Vine joked on Twitter: ‘Tip: When interviewing a militant vegan, don’t leave a ham sandwich in view.’
The interview came after Alison Waugh, a trainee farmer who works in Northumberland, said militant vegan protesters had called her a ‘murderer and rapist’ and sent death threats. Mr Armstrong previously said he dropped out of school at 14 and fell into ‘serious, hardcore, organised crime gangs’.
He said he then had a ‘revelation’, causing him to give up work and ask for donations so he could become a ‘full-time animal liberation activist’.
He now travels the world to confront meat eaters and preach his radical philosophy, sharing videos with his 43,000 YouTube subscribers.
Mr Armstrong also set up a crowd-funding page where 426 people have given him money. It is not known how much money he has raised, but for £35 a month he offers a private Skype session to discuss ‘ideas’. For £70 a month, he will give followers his mobile number so they can call him to discuss ‘projects or concerns’.
Explaining why he could no longer work, he wrote: ‘Dedicating even three days a week to a job supporting someone else’s business while animals are being tortured and killed by the trillion seems like a great injustice to me, especially considering all the work that still needs to be done.’
In another interview, Mr Armstrong compared animals’ plight to that of human cotton-pickers in the 19th century. He said: ‘I’m speaking for animals. If abolitionists didn’t speak up for what happened back then with slaves, it would never had been abolished.
‘I’m sure it made some slave owners a little bit angry to not have their slaves picking their cotton for them.
‘But it’s not about the slave owners, in the same way it’s not about the animal farmers.’