There is video today of NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh confronting a protestor who may or may not have called him a “corrupted bastard” and it is worth watching.
Singh walks like a martial artist. He ducks his head and moves in to force eye contact with the guy who seems desperate to avoid it. He looks genuinely ready to throw down and I’ll be honest: if the NDP ditched “We, Too, Love the Middle Class” for “It’s Time to Start Punching Fascists,” they’d be a lot more politically interesting.
What I’d like to know is what security service protocol says for when a Parliamentarian is within spitting distance of a fight. There are at least three security professionals in the vicinity, hanging back to watch; one actually seems to walk away, based on the shadow at 0:33.
To be fair, this was an angry politician approaching a constituent, not an angry constituent approaching a politician, so the intervention calculus would be different. But I still wonder if they ought to have gotten closer faster, and if they ought to have, why they did not.
I hope the answer isn’t because the Parliamentary Protective Service is “friendly to the cause.”
A “corrupted bastard” with a jiu jitsu background
There is video today of NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh confronting a protestor who may or may not have called him a “corrupted bastard” and it is worth watching.
Singh walks like a martial artist. He ducks his head and moves in to force eye contact with the guy who seems desperate to avoid it. He looks genuinely ready to throw down and I’ll be honest: if the NDP ditched “We, Too, Love the Middle Class” for “It’s Time to Start Punching Fascists,” they’d be a lot more politically interesting.
What I’d like to know is what security service protocol says for when a Parliamentarian is within spitting distance of a fight. There are at least three security professionals in the vicinity, hanging back to watch; one actually seems to walk away, based on the shadow at 0:33.
To be fair, this was an angry politician approaching a constituent, not an angry constituent approaching a politician, so the intervention calculus would be different. But I still wonder if they ought to have gotten closer faster, and if they ought to have, why they did not.
I hope the answer isn’t because the Parliamentary Protective Service is “friendly to the cause.”