Remember the hue and cry from the left over ejecting people from conferences. Clearly National are soft in comparison with the tactics used by LabourThe Independent: This Week.
The Prime Minister had hardly begun her keynote address when the young man in the circle rose to his feet and started shouting. Undeterred, Helen Clark ploughed on, relying on the auditorium's excellent sound system to drown out the interjector. To no avail. The young man continued bellowing out his protest, something about Ahmed Zaoui being incarcerated for two years. The 400-plus Labour Party conference delegates began to hum with annoyance, sounding rather alarmingly like a swarm of angry bees. Who would rid the Prime Minister of this meddlesome interjector? The answer was not long in coming. But, had I not been looking directly at the young man when it happened, I would have missed the whole incident. A burly fellow from two or three rows down leapt to his feet, pounded up the aisle and, with a lightning fast jab to the solar plexus, doubled the protester over like a jack-knife. Winded by the blow and unwilling to risk another, the young man allowed himself to be escorted from the building.
The Prime Minister began again and immediately another protester, a woman this time, leapt to her feet and tried to unfurl a banner urging the Labour government to "Free Ahmed Zaoui!"
She, too, was fallen upon by delegates and escorted from the building.
"Thirty-two years ago, in 1972, I attended the Labour Party annual conference for the first time," Clark began a second time, adding, with a dismissive gesture in the general direction of the protesters in the circle: "And this will be their last!"
The delegates roared their approval.
Comments