Pubgate! Or Standing Up To Politicians

Lewie Writes
5 min readApr 20, 2021
While the image doesn’t do much justice for the landlord, he’s clearly not happy.

In a year where the pandemic and politics merged to make… pandemic politics, it’s easy to get pissed off at politicians. From Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP government’s decision to send pensioners straight from hospital to care homes to Boris Johnson and the Tories’ decision to give private companies with no reputation major contracts; reopen too quickly in August 2020 and then put our health and public services under huge strain not helped by ten years of Tory austerity. Yeah. While some politicians have done better than others, (cough) Just compare Scottish Government to UK Government (cough), there are some cases where there are idiocy on all sides.

And sometimes politicians leave the ornate décor and plush seats of Westminister behind, and they let us know how much they care and why we should vote for them. They cite many reasons: from giving us a better quality of life, improved mental health services, to kicking out those oh-so-horrible gypsy travellers and banning that god-awful terrifying transgenderism from being taught in our schools. And when people see these powerful figures, whether it’s just on a visit or on the campaign trail, the results can be interesting.

Real people do real things, from shouting “I LOVE YOU” to them, to kicking them out their establishments.

Some cases, the things people do on the campaign trail may be justified. A 2011 example would be when David Cameron and Ed Milliband entered a hospital ward with a blatant disregard for the infection control protocols in place, and the doctor in charge kicked them both out. This may have not been on a campaign trail as such — more of a PR stunt — but the point is still valid. The doctor was quite justified to kick the politicians of the coalition government out, for both patient safety and the fact that the ward they were visiting was probably falling victim to a slashed and hacked budget, courtesy of both Cameron and Milliband.

But that was 10 years ago, when the world was sane.

Today, Tory-masquerading-as-Labour-leader Keir Starmer went for a Bath. No, sorry, went for a walk in the city of Bath. (I mean, he’s not the worst looking politician but I don’t have the eye bleach for seeing a red Tory, or any Tory, bathing). Anyways, to cut a long story short, he got kicked out of a pub. And unlike 2011’s Hospital-gate, this one was a bit more complicated. There was no real person to look up to here.

To the landlord of the pub, be careful when you go thrashing at an elected official. Elected officials have security details and are protected for a specific reason, to keep people like angry pub man away from them. Regardless of whether you are Nicola Sturgeon or Boris Johnson, you need protecting from people who may despise you. In this case, the landlord clearly despised Keir Starmer. But unlike the doctor from the hospital, who gave both politicians a firm order to leave, this man was shaking with rage. Yes, he could be shaking with rage at the damage lockdown has done to his pub, but you cannot go after officials like this.

We don’t like Keir Starmer very much, same with all Tories, but one person going after another is just going to end in a rammy. And that is what it did. Our politicians deserve to be held accountable, but going after them in the way you did puts yourself at risk.

However, you actually make a very good point. Yes, initial execution was completely wrong and terrifyingly risky for yourself, but your stern tone towards this red Tory got the point across. You’ve been a Labour voter your whole life, and you’ve failed to oppose various policies which could have been improved massively. Yes, lockdown was a bitch. Could it have been opposed or improved slightly by Labour? Of course. Could Labour have opposed certain government decisions which lead to the second and third lockdowns, absolutely. And did Labour oppose, did the leader of the opposition Keir Starmer do his job? No. Starmer failed to stand up for those rotten, crony Tories, making him just as bad as the rest.

If anything, well done for going up against him. Politicians are entitled to their security details, but not all of them deserve it. But it’s an inherent fact most politicians would get a kicking if they went out without a detail. Could you imagine if De Pfeffel went out a walk around his constituency without a detail? He’d be up shit creek without a paddle! Personally, I’d put the slimier politicians like Big Boris, along with Ugly Priti and Silent Starmer up against us, and let us have a jab at them, but that’s not how democracy works.

Just be careful, it’s a cruel and complicated world.

And now to everyone else.

To the person who said “it was better when David Cameron was in power”, piss off. You’re saying that austerity, rights being taken away, and immigrants being treated as aliens is okay. That one statement says so much about you as a person, screw you.

To Twitter, who compare the incident to the whole Jo Cox situation. Why bring up a dead woman? It’s like when people bring up Caroline Flack occasionally to make a point, it’s just getting in the way of a family who is probably still grieving the horrific death of one of their members. Unless it’s justified, don’t bring dead people into arguments like this. The landlord was a normal man, just at the end of his tether watching the party he has voted for, and perhaps has a paid membership in, become a living joke.

The world is a complicated place, and our politicians should act as a voice for all of us. Tories act as a voice for TERFs, right-wingers and the immigrant-hating type. Labour should act as a voice for the left, socialist, progressive type. But they’re not.

We need better ways to confront our politicians, and not just one of us getting rag-dolled by a security detail. When confronting party leaders, it takes a collective effort in the form of protest for them to truly listen.

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Lewie Writes

Hey! I’m a 17 year old Scottish blogger, check out my blogs on gender politics, actual politics, and the world around us, plus some fun stuff! Any/pronouns.