Poor little Douglas Carswell! Why can't we leave him alone?
Poor Little Douglas Carswell!
This morning, Douglas Carswell, only UKIP MP at Westminster, got attacked - in the rather verbal but vicious way - as he was waiting to take public transport to and fro the Chambers of Parliament. If it hadn't been for police officers, the mobsters would have no-doubt turned their verbal abuse to domestic violence. What on earth has this humble, perhaps slightly controversial, politician done to deserve this? Is this Democracy gone mad, or, on the contrary, the type of thing our forebears fought for when they demanded more rights? Tricky question to answer.
Let's look at this from a very logical point of view. People, in their own rights, should be allowed to protest, in private or in public, if they feel indignation towards any man or woman who's accountable and holds a political office. That is true and undeniable. BUT, and this is where I struggle to keep up, why in the name of Zeus or Apollo were the mobs targeting a rather feeble politician, who sits as a sole member of his party in Parliament and doesn't hold any ministerial position. He is, no more no less, a man lawfully elected to represent a small constituency, barely enough power to afford a secretary. Surely, before going on a rampage, their humane genes would activate and prevent them from making fools of themselves. But no, and as it were they united before the Houses of Commons and viciously assaulted young Carswell, with mean-spirited gestures like throwing water over him, beastly insults and so on.
I may be too much of a pacifist, or an idealist, but the world I want to to live in doesn't involve harassing politicians just for doing their job. There are worst people, worst things to focus our attention on than that.