The Daily Mail features this story about a pro-Palestinian activist:
Thomas Bourne, 39, an Islamic convert who uses the social media handle ‘White British Muslim’, approached the Jewish comedian, 51, last month after spotting him on an escalator.
He said: ‘I was going up the escalator and looked to my side and saw someone giving me an uncomfortable even hostile look and I realised it was Matt Lucas.
‘My instant reaction – as anyone’s would be who was going to confront someone – was to pull out my camera phone and shout “Free Palestine! Free Palestine!”
‘As a result of that video and a subsequent Daily Mail article I actually lost my job.’
As commenter “MoleUK” says on the UKPolitics subreddit,
Sounds like a totally normal thing a normal person would do. Normally.
Bellend acts like a bellend and suffers repurcussions.
Every personal interaction a chance to show one’s virtues, just gotta make sure it’s captured on camera and uploaded to social media immediately. What a miserable way to live.
The interview with Mr Bourne at the PoliticsJOE podcast, from which the Mail took the story, can be seen here. The section quoted by the Mail is excerpted right at the beginning, and the video Mr Bourne himself made is shown at 8:07 and can be seen here. The interviewer, Seán Hickey, sympathetically introduces Mr Bourne with the words, “We’re going to be talking today about an incident that you found yourself involved in” as if Mr Bourne had no choice about initially confronting Matt Lucas, filming him while shouting “Free Palestine! Free Palestine!”, confronting Mr Lucas further at the top of the escalator (while making a point of saying his name so everyone would know it was someone famous), continuing to follow him and argue with him despite his non-confrontational answers, and then putting the resulting video on social media.
I do not know if London Transport has any rules against shouting at strangers you think are looking at you funny, filming them, and putting the video on social media without their consent. If it does have such rules, they were not enforced on this occasion. Mr Bourne was not punished by London Transport. Nor was he punished by the law. This is not a free speech issue. The only bad result he suffered was that his employer no longer wished to have him on their roster of fundraising consultants. I can see why Mr Bourne might not be an asset for an organisation trying to raise funds.




No employer in their right mind would want to be involved with this absolute cretin. I have discussed this one today as well. Same conclusions, unsurprisingly.
“an incident that you found yourself involved in”
The passive voice. It’s always the giveaway…