________________________________
From: Anthony Richardson [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 16 August 2011 16:45
To: [log in to unmask]; john richardson; Paul Stewart; Jennie Stanton
Subject: FW: [United Left] Taking Responsibility for Our Own Actions



> From: [log in to unmask]
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> Subject: FW: [United Left] Taking Responsibility for Our Own Actions
> Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 18:45:25 +0100
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Sean
> Sent: 14 August 2011 00:11
> To: United Left
> Subject: [United Left] Taking Responsibility for Our Own Actions
>
> A lovely 'you-couldn't make-it-up' incident presented itself to me
> tonight. Earlier on this evening I took part in Channel 4's 'Street
> Riots: The Live Debate' over in a TV studio in Endell Street, Covent
> Garden. It's nice being picked up by a chauffeur driven car; deposited
> in the heart of the West End; and, by-passing queues to be admitted
> into the green room for free nosh and drinks.
>
> But, I deviate.
>
> Anyway, back on track. Eventually we're herded into the studio and the
> warm-up guy does his warm-up stuff, and we gingerly laugh at his not-
> so-funny patter. Krishan Guru-Murthy, a lot smaller in real life
> (wears Cuban heels), then gives the SP of the show and introduces us
> to Iain Duncan-Smith, Hilary Benn, MP, Adrian Mills an Ealing
> restaurateur (his restaurant was ransacked and looted), Paul Gladstone
> Reid a composer, pianist, singer-songwriter and producer, and a rather
> taciturn policeman who referred to all explanations and views contrary
> to his as 'excuses'.
>
> The debate went fairly well. Duncan-Smith and the businessman holding
> the old law-and-order line; people-have-to-take-personal-
> responsibility-for-their-own-actions was intimated several times by
> Duncan-Smith in relation to cutting benefits and evicting, even,
> parents of children convicted of looting.
>
> The Tory line when confronted with problems is always to fall back on
> the old chestnut of family values and personal responsibility. And
> Duncan-Smith ensured that nobody, whether they agreed with him or not,
> left the studio without his message messing around with more pleasant
> thoughts, such as those ice cold bottles of Peroni waiting for me when
> I get home.
>
> The show ended and the floor manager wanted us, wheelchair users, to
> wait until the studio was cleared. No way Pedro! I'd sat for an-hour-
> and-a-half in a lot of pain, and I needed to pee, quite quickly. So, I
> got out first, or so I thought, and headed for the lift to take me to
> the ground floor and the adapted toilet.
>
> Up we went. Out of the lift, throw a right. Bob's your uncle, there's
> the 'special' loo waiting to accept yours truly. No. I can't use the
> thing says a young geezer all skinny jeans, Loake's brogues and Ralph
> Lauren cardy. "Sorry sir, there's someone in there. He won't be a
> minute" instructs this trendy clothes horse, probably a TV researcher.
> "Ok mate" I say; relief, hopefully, a minute or two away.
>
> Three minutes later the door to the disabled toilet, the one with the
> big sign announcing in pictogram the universal symbol of disability,
> and out strolls Iain Duncan-Smith!
>
> Oh glory! Hallelujah! My peeing need seemed to vanish from my mind as
> I mentally uncrossed my legs and said to Duncan-Smith: "This is an
> adapted toilet, see the sign?" Which he acknowledged uncomfortably.
> "Why are you abusing this facility? I've had to wait in extreme pain
> and discomfort because you think you're above the rules that everyone
> else accepts!"
>
> Duncan-Smith, is somewhat trapped, because I've placed my wheelchair
> between him and the door, and my PA is standing by my legs, so the
> trapped rat can't vault over me and do a runner.
> Then as I have him on the ropes waiting to deliver my coup de grace
> down drop his gloves his guard is gone as he splutters out "I'm sorry,
> but somebody told me I could use it".
>
> Gotcha! "So, if someone told you to pick up that TV because it was
> going begging. You'd pick up the TV?" I asked. "What's happened to
> your sense of personal responsibility for your own action?" I pressed.
> "Are you exempt from the rules and regulations you spent the past hour
> telling us we must adhere to because that's how we maintain an orderly
> society?" I finished pushing my way into the loo.
>
> Duncan-Smith, thinking he could do a runner took full advantage of my
> cessation of the harangue and just as he thought he'd escaped the
> loony wheely, I looked into the bowl and spotted he hadn't flushed the
> loo.
>
> "Oy!" I shouted, arresting ADS's flight: "Do you know it's customary
> to flush the khazy after use?"
>
> I can still picture his look, a mixture of abject contempt and 'beam-
> me-up-Scotty', as he drew an embarrassed grin across his Chevy while
> abruptly turning a corner to the safety of the street.
>
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