
One way or another eggs and protest go together.
In 2025 the protest is more about the price of eggs. Trump claimed that once elected President he would see the price of eggs cut. Like everything else he says this was a lie, not least because egg supplies in the US are hit by bird flu. While that can be addressed up to a point the Ministerial crew of comedians and fascists he has assembled are not up to doing that.
In France also eggs have become a cost of living issue. In a country known for its steak and frites there is a boom in egg sales because they are a much cheaper source of protein and the economic times are, at least for the many, hard.
The Times has reported that average consumption of eggs (per year) has risen from 200 in 2003 to 224 eggs in 2023 (19th March). Britons eat an average of 199 eggs a year.
In the industrial era organised protest has been about banners, placards and chants, but also about eggs.
The organised crowd, boos, hisses and groans at those they dislike, as the Chartist crowd did in London in 1842 at troops leaving the new Euston station to break the General Strike of that year in the north.
Egg throwing is a traditional if individualistic form of protest though. Crowds threw rotten eggs (& worse including dead cats) at people in the pillory(abolished 1816,1837). These were reactionary crowds however. When radicals were put in the pillory the crowd threw nothing but collected money for the victim instead.
Egg throwing at political figures from Cameron to Prescott has continued in the modern age. The worse that results is a mess and the impact of protest is small. Farage of course being a self-important type ignored the reality that the egg thrown at him in Clacton was part of a British traditional form of protest and pursued the matters to the Courts. Even when the egg thrower was found guilty he did not stop droning on about it.
Across Europe the practice of custard pieing figures of public note has a developed, a reminder that politics, eggs and all, is partly theatre.


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