In last night’s scuffle between Conservative MP Mark Field and a Greenpeace protester, which of them was really behaving in an entitled manner?
The story is that it was Field, there in his black tie, drinking and chortling with bankers at a fancy dinner as the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave a speech on the state of British politics. The way Field grabbed the protester by the neck before marching her out of the opulent room is being held up as symbolic of Tory arrogance and privilege. Labour MPs are calling for him to resign. Some even want the police involved, to teach these cocksure men of the entitled Tory party a lesson.
But in truth, it wasn’t Field who displayed colossal levels of entitlement last night — it was the protesters. It was these increasingly smug and disruptive climate activists who behaved in a morally arrogant fashion.
These campaigners are now so singularly convinced of their moral righteousness, so sure that it is they and they alone who understand the problems facing humanity, that they think they can go anywhere and do anything and the rest of us should just bow down and listen to their End of Days preaching about the wickedness of mankind and the nastiness of economic growth.
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