M25 protest mob need to win the public over… not drive us crazy

CALL me old-fashioned, but I thought a police officer saying: “Let me know if you’re in any discomfort or need anything,” was the soothing reassurance they’d offer to a victim.

But no, this offer of assistance was extended to the Insulate Britain protesters currently holding the country to ransom on our motorways.

Whether the police dispensed cushions and M&S sandwiches to make their stay more comfortable is anyone’s guess but, consequently, some of the protesters have felt bold enough to rejoin the blockades after being released on bail for taking part in previous protests.

Isn’t breach of bail an offence? But I digress.

Woke teens get a lot of stick for being “attention seeking” but they’ve got nothing on this bunch, many of whom are middle-aged or older.

With their high-vis jackets and smug expressions, they’re clearly enjoying the national attention a little too much as they continue to wreak havoc.

Today they were at it again, running on to the M25 during rush hour and forcing drivers to do emergency stops in an effort not to hit them.

It highlights the lunacy of what the police — at risk of being hit by traffic themselves — are having to deal with.

From one perspective, it can seem almost comedic — such as the insulation fitter stopped from doing his eco-friendly job because he was stuck in one of the tailbacks caused by these zealots.

But mostly, their actions are not only hugely irritating but deeply irresponsible.

An elderly stroke victim was left paralysed after her distraught son’s car got stuck in the chaos while he was trying to take her to hospital.

“I was there with my mother for six hours, watching her slip away in front of my eyes, and I could do nothing,” says the man, known only as Chris.

A spokesman for Insulate Britain says: “We have to cause serious disruption to get our voice heard, nothing else works.

“In doing this, we are heartbroken. We are sorry, we are devastated, we do not know what else to do.”

Spare us the theatrics. What you can do is pack up, go home and follow the example of other environmental groups that bring the masses onside with intelligent debate and co-operation.

It is a work in progress but, according to the World Population Review, the UK is already the fourth most eco-friendly country in the world, with an Environmental Performance Index (EPI) score of 81.3 out of 100.

It says: “The UK has a perfect score of 100 for sanitation and drinking water, and management of solid household fuels.

"The country also ranks second for climate change and first for pollution emissions. These rankings are quite impressive, considering the UK’s population of 66.52million.”

Of course, if the Insulate Britain mob decided to block the roads in, say, China (EPI ranking 120) the police would drag them off by the scruff of the neck and throw them in prison until further notice.

But here, frontline officers (who are probably as frustrated as the rest of us) have to follow orders from on high about how to tackle this scourge on the morning commute. And clearly the current guidance is “softly softly”.

TOUGHEN THEIR STANCE

So, if the police aren’t going to toughen their stance, then I have a suggestion.

A cursory Google of “temporary bridges” initially brought up a lot of dental options, but then I chanced upon a company called Janson Bridging.

“Are you looking for a bridge? Tell us what is challenging you and we’ll contact you ASAP to work out the best solution for your project,” it says on the website that shows a selection of bridges to hire or buy.

So let’s commission one with just enough curve to clear the head of a seated human being and bring it in on a low loader every time these idiots glue themselves to the road.

Then we can just drive over the top of them and get on with our day.

Password scrap

MICROSOFT is allowing customers to scrap passwords and use facial recognition instead.

To which I say Hallelujah432987!&?

In the early days of the internet, I started out with a simple five-letter word I used for everything.

Then, certain sites started demanding a capital letter, others insisted it must be at least eight characters long, and then “special characters” were added.

My password now looks like something typed by a pigeon pecking at a seed- strewn keyboard.

John a delight 

RIP the delightful John Challis, who made us all laugh in Only Fools And Horses.

As The Bloke is a huge fan of the sitcom, he booked “Boycie” to do a personal appearance at our wedding and John rose to the occasion with great wit, opening his raincoat to reveal rows of hooky watches as “last-minute gifts for the happy couple”.

He was an absolute delight to everyone he met and my sympathy goes to his widow Carol, who will miss him greatly.

May Buy Any Car

WE Buy Any Car has been fined for sending unsolicited marketing and texts.

If my elderly mother’s experience is anything to go by, perhaps Trading Standards should take a look at the company name too.

When her car’s MoT ran out, she parked it off road and decided to sell it.

But when she visited the local WBAC office, they told her they would only buy it (for a pittance) if she drove it to their forecourt.

When she said she couldn’t because it wasn’t MoT’d, they said there was nothing they could do.

So she sold it to a scrap dealer, who took it away on a low loader and actually paid her more than “We Buy Some Cars” offered her.

Meanwhile, they have continued to bombard her with emails ever since.

Low-cut dress a big boob

PRINCE ANDREW is currently holed up in Balmoral where, handily, his accuser Virginia Giuffre’s lawyers will struggle to serve him directly with a lawsuit.

But Andrew’s eldest daughter Beatrice has just had her baby in a London hospital and speculation centres around whether her father will stay put or make the 500-mile journey to see her.

Meanwhile, the TV show Hunted is currently accepting applications for the sixth series.

The blurb reads: “If you had to disappear tomorrow, for whatever reason – with some of the world’s best investigators looking for you, and some of the most cutting-edge technology tracking you, could you just vanish?”

Just saying.

Grylls dinner woe

BEAR GRYLLS says his friends won’t come for dinner at his house because they’re fearful he will serve them bear poo or goat’s testicles.

As even pork, chick- en and crumpets are in danger of running out in supermarkets right now, chance would be a fine thing.

All the same boat at theme parks

FOUR LIONS is a satirical black comedy about a group of laughably idiotic lads from the UK who decide to travel to Pakistan to train as jihadi fighters.

When they arrive in Pakistan, one of them expresses doubts and the ringleader uses a theme park as a metaphor for why they should get involved.

“It’s like being in the queue at Alton Towers,” he says. “Do you want to be in the queues or do you want to be on the rides? You want to be on the rides, don’t you? You want to be on Nemesis or Oblivion.”

“Rubber dinghy rapids,” interrupts the other who is particularly dim-witted. Oh how we laughed. Then, this week, this photo emerged of Taliban fighters mucking about on pedalos in Afghanistan’s only national park.

Satire, it seems, is well and truly dead.

Get HRH hunted on telly

NURSERY worker Latika Lawrence has lost her sex discrimination claim after being told by her female boss that she was showing too much cleavage at work.

A tribunal ruled that a male colleague with too many undone shirt buttons would have faced the same criticism and that, as her dress was “quite low cut” and she had “large breasts”, then “a significant amount of cleavage would be visible”.

Perhaps Ms Lawrence was simply embracing the spirit of the nursery’s name?

It’s called the Bundles of Joy daycare centre.

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