Just Stop Oil isn’t what it was. When a handful of protestors from the environmental group tried to block a departure gate at Gatwick Airport this week, they failed miserably. It wasn’t much of a protest: they just plonked themselves down and adopted the traditional JSO expression: a stance of neutrality aimed at looking noble and martyrish but, in reality, comes over as suggesting they are mildly constipated. Embarrassed air travellers merely stepped over them, although one traveller did speak for the nation by suggesting that they reconvene elsewhere, using a two-word expression, one of them composed of four letters.
The power of the middle class to charm officers of the law endures
The seven protesters were, after a while, arrested and removed from the scene. But this was not before images emerged of a burly policeman standing over them looking gently disappointed. He resembled someone’s dad shaking his head, asking: ‘What have you done now, Lucy?’
Just Stop Oil were at it again yesterday when two activists walked through Heathrow Airport spraying departure boards and various bits of the terminal building. A video shows them wandering casually through the airport with no police officers in sight as they squirted orange paint around. The pair were arrested but not before they caused thousands of pounds of damage. Why weren’t they stopped immediately?
This restraint was all the more notable because it followed on from the scenes of chaos at Manchester Airport just a few days before, where police officers were somewhat more hands-on, tasers and boots everywhere, at the climax of an altercation whose roots remain unclear. These were very different incidents. But there was a lot of armchair commentary about the Manchester incident, and much of it was about how keyed-up, tense and quick-to-act airport police are trained to be. On a hair trigger, in fact. They’ll have you the moment you step out of line.
Except if you’re wearing a Just Stop Oil T-shirt, a knitted rainbow hat, an ‘interesting’ beard and a moonstruck mug. In that instance, baffled tourists are left hauling their luggage over demonstrators before the police eventually step in.
A lot about Britain has changed since I was a lad, but the power of the middle class to disarm and charm officers of the law remains the same. When I was young, I had occasional encounters with the police, as young people are generally more likely to. If you’re a big chap like me who looks a bit ‘suspect’, your chances of coming into contact with the police are higher still. I was always being ‘spoken to’ or ‘moved on’ when I was 18. I soon discovered that responding with mild, slightly startled politeness in a ‘nice’ voice – ‘oh I’m terribly sorry officer’ – worked wonders.
Of course, you have to pitch this just right; aim for mildly softly spoken, Dan Stevens in personable interview mode, not Dan Stevens in character in Downton Abbey. Any hint of cockiness or sarcasm will swiftly blow up in your face. And you must also steer clear of overdoing it, and coming across as an Ian Carmichael-style silly ass.
The police, and indeed many people in public-facing jobs, are relieved to encounter good manners. Manners are, in the tedious parlance of today, a superpower. As anybody who’s worked in such a job will know, dealing with the public is a dog’s life. The public are often rude, slow, stupid and angry; frequently they are maybe not-quite-all-there, with a misunderstanding of what you can do for them and what it is your job to do for them. There is such relief when you are faced, for a change, with a helpful and cooperative person who is fully attentive. You get a glow, your day is lifted.
There are exceptions. This tactic won’t work, for example, on doctors, particularly higher-up ones, such as surgeons or consultants. This is because, unlike police or ticket collectors, people are pleased to see doctors and defer to them as routine, so doctors don’t appreciate your effort. They think everybody wants to see them, and they are right. If a doctor is being snotty with you, I’m afraid you just have to acquiesce.
But you can charm most other functionaries by presenting yourself as a nice, harmless middle class person. This is how Just Stop Oil were able to waltz in and settle for a few minutes at Gatwick and Heathrow without being stopped sooner – and how they have been allowed to get close to priceless works of art and lie down in the road for hours.
The reaction of Just Stop Oil supporters to the prison sentences recently handed down to five of their number has been very telling. In a speech that’s already become legend for its sheer entitlement, the mother of 22-year-old Cambridge music student Cressida Gethin, currently serving a four-stretch at HMP Bronzefield for blocking the M25 in 2022, was appalled that lag ‘Cressy’ is going to miss her brother’s wedding. Nice middle-class people just don’t get banged up, you see, no matter what they’ve done or how many other people they’ve ’inconvenienced’. It’s for ‘the planet’, don’t you know?
We’re supposed to live in a society that doesn’t have the deference of previous ages. But this isn’t quite true. Adopt a dreamy expression, speak proper, associate yourself with the right cause, cause a lot of trouble, and you too can be – eventually – gently led away, not instantly grabbed and tasered.
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