Protests against foreign tyrants from 1850-2019 & the consistency of Times Editorials
The Times was not happy about the London protest against President Trump on Tuesday. In an Editorial (5th June) it opined: ‘The public have a right to protest but Labour’s leadership should have no part of it’.
It is prepared to concede that there is a right to protest but is concerned that the Labour Party should be involved.
It’s view has not changed a great deal since 1850.
In September 1850 an Austrian soldier, Julius Von Haynau who was thought to have been responsible for acts of brutality in suppressing the 1848 revolutions in Europe, visited London. He got a rather robust reception from brewery workers on London’s South Bank. More robust it must be said that Trump got this week:
In the world of 2019 Haynau might well have been tried as a war criminal but not in 1850.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Jacob_von_Haynau
The Times was suspicious of how the brewery workers knew who Haynau was, and clearly suspected Chartists. The link is not proven but London Chartists did hold a public meeting in support of the workers and in opposition to Haynau with Chartist leader Feargus O’Connor (the Jeremy Corbyn of the day, sort of) speaking.
The Times Editorial condemned the protest (September 7th 1850).
It concluded:
‘The scandal and disgrace are that of the establishment at large, but a heavier reckoning is due from those who, with such an utter disregard of what they owed to their employers and the community, have exposed the character of Englishness to the contempt of the world’.
Meanwhile in 2019 The Times Editorial argued that making any kind of protest against Trump was being ‘discourteous to the Queen’ as it was a State visit.
So there we are. Protest is not English. Well at least that’s the Times Editorial view from 1850 t0 2019
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