New Labourâ„¢ Party Conference, 2005. Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw's Speech. As Straw briefly mentions how Britain is helping to bring Democracy to Iraq, someone shouts faintly from the back of the auditorium, "Nonsense! That's a lie!" Subsequent events were caught on video.
The heckler, Walter Wolfgang (82), escaped from Nazi Germany in 1937 and he's been a member of the Labour Party for 57 years. He's also a Peace campaigner.
Seeing him being chucked out, along with the younger chap, Steve Forrest, constituency party chairman for Erith and Thamesmead, who was only objecting to the way Wolfgang was being manhandled, put me in mind of the British Union of Fascists 1934 rally at Olympia, for some reason. Of course, they weren't beaten to a pulp by Blackshirts, like the anti-fascist protestors back then (also caught on film), so a lot has obviously improved since. Electronic Conference passes have certainly streamlined things, Walter Wolfgang's was blocked almost as soon as he was ejected out the double doors. The Anti-Terrorism Act (2000) also came in useful, allowing the police to hold Walter Wolfgang in custody for the rest of the afternoon.
Like Tony Blair and Jack Straw, Sir Oswald Mosely was once a member of Labour, before he started his own new party.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4292342.stm
The heckler, Walter Wolfgang (82), escaped from Nazi Germany in 1937 and he's been a member of the Labour Party for 57 years. He's also a Peace campaigner.
Seeing him being chucked out, along with the younger chap, Steve Forrest, constituency party chairman for Erith and Thamesmead, who was only objecting to the way Wolfgang was being manhandled, put me in mind of the British Union of Fascists 1934 rally at Olympia, for some reason. Of course, they weren't beaten to a pulp by Blackshirts, like the anti-fascist protestors back then (also caught on film), so a lot has obviously improved since. Electronic Conference passes have certainly streamlined things, Walter Wolfgang's was blocked almost as soon as he was ejected out the double doors. The Anti-Terrorism Act (2000) also came in useful, allowing the police to hold Walter Wolfgang in custody for the rest of the afternoon.
Like Tony Blair and Jack Straw, Sir Oswald Mosely was once a member of Labour, before he started his own new party.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4292342.stm
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