Public Order Bill

Debate between Marco Longhi and Lee Anderson

2nd reading
Monday 23rd May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Marco Longhi]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is regrettable that we have not been about to do much about police officers who seem to think it quite all right to commit acts of vandalism on statues, whether we like them or not, or to dance in the street with protesters who should not be congregating because they are breaking lockdown rules. The criminal minority who commit these acts disgust me. They have no concept of the real world and no concept of the misery that they bring to those less fortunate than them. A protest is not peaceful if it blocks key roads or interferes with key infrastructure. “Peaceful” means more than a lack of decibels. New, criminal, disruptive and self-defeating tactics carried out by a selfish minority in the name of protest are causing more serious disruption to the British public, with some parts of the country grinding to a halt, and police resources diverted from the local communities where we really need them. The disruption does not stop at simply preventing us from getting from A to B; it is worsening the cost of living crisis. What is more, blocking a road forces our constituents to go miles out of their way in their cars to get around the idiots disrupting them, which not only costs an awful lot more in fuel—money that most do not have to spend—but means more fossil fuels being burned and more pollution in our environment.

We cannot trust the Opposition to stick up for hard-working people—our constituents. The shadow Justice Secretary—the hon. Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed)—and the shadow Home Secretary both publicly say that they do not believe that people should be able to cause disruption to citizens going about their daily business, yet they consistently vote against any measures in the House to deal with just that.

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making some good points in a great speech. He will be aware of a prolific nuisance who wanders around Whitehall with a megaphone, rambling and speaking incoherently, usually on a Wednesday. Last Wednesday, I think, he actually exposed some disturbing parts of his body to the Prime Minister as he was passing on his way to work—disgusting scenes. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill should include measures to tackle that sort of nuisance behaviour?

[Marco Longhi]

I thank my hon. Friend for making those points. In exposing himself, that individual probably made more sense than at any time when I have heard him speaking.

Preventing Crime and Delivering Justice

Debate between Marco Longhi and Lee Anderson

Wednesday 11th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

I was going to confine my speech to the Public Order Bill, but I will follow up on a few comments that the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) made. The more I listen to him, the more I think he speaks a good deal of common sense. I would like him to know that I for one, and a number of my colleagues, agree with much if not everything of what he says, and we have a steely resolve to make sure that we are one United Kingdom. That is what we voted for when we voted for Brexit.

My daughters, for some unfathomable reason, sometimes describe me as a grumpy old man. I really do not know why. However, there are a few things that can make me a little bit miserable, and one thing that has really grated on me in recent years is the minority of protesters who have pretty much used guerrilla warfare to disrupt the everyday lives of the vast majority of our constituents—not just mine, but everybody’s.

The good people of Dudley North are ordinary folk, working hard to make a living, a living that is increasingly harder to make in the current climate. I cannot fathom how the privileged and entitled few think it is acceptable to stop our carers and nurses from being able to get to work to care for our sick and elderly, or to blockade a fire appliance from getting to a serious fire burning a local business to the ground—or, more tragically, perhaps preventing people inside the burning building from being saved. Of course, that applies to any blue light service, not just the fire service. That minority of criminals truly disgust me. They have no concept of the real world out there. They have no concept of the misery they bring to those less fortunate than themselves.

I hope that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and those on the Front Benches will join me in making working here more bearable for our staff, myself and my colleagues. I will not dignify his existence by tarnishing Hansard with his name, but there is a noisy man outside who dresses up as a clown and harasses and chases Members of Parliament and our staff from his little camp on the crossing island on Parliament Street. He is someone else who serves no public benefit whatsoever.

[Lee Anderson]

I know the character my hon. Friend alludes to, and I have witnessed some ferocious verbal attacks on my hon. Friend from that character, who patrols Whitehall like a public nuisance. May I suggest telling him that, if he is interested in changing things in this country, he should come to Dudley North and stand against my hon. Friend at the next general election?

[Marco Longhi]

In fact, that invitation has already been made. I am going to print off a set of nomination papers, but I wonder about the 10 people this person might need for the form to be valid.

My staff cannot hear distressed constituents on the phone through the awful racket he causes. All our staff who have offices in 1 Parliament Street suffer considerable stress and anxiety from the disruption he causes to their, and our, work. I doubt that staff in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the buildings opposite, would say anything different—[Interruption.] Is someone wanting to intervene? I do not know. I heard some noises. It is like a Hoover—an irritating thing in the background. I do not know what it is.

This person needs to have his loudspeaker system confiscated and to be moved on. Personally, I would like to see him locked up in the Tower with a loudspeaker playing “Land of Hope and Glory” on repeat at maximum volume. The Met Police really should deal with him. He is causing misery to hundreds of staff, he is intimidating many—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Marco Longhi and Lee Anderson

Monday 13th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

What progress her Department has made on introducing a new points-based immigration system.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

What progress her Department has made on introducing a new points-based immigration system.