It’s official, and it’s published in the Guardian. We can all now refer to the Tory Party and Iain Duncan Smith in particular as ‘Tory Scum’!
Lord Justice Popplewell said no fault in law was made by a senior district judge last November in finding Ruth Wood, 52, and Radical Haslam, 30, not guilty of using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent. In fact the two protesters were “reasonable” in calling Iain Duncan Smith “Tory scum” outside the Conservative party conference, the high court has ruled, in a rejection of an attempt to overturn their acquittal. The Lord Justice added:
“The use of the term ‘Tory scum’ was to highlight the policies of Duncan Smith, which was relevant to the reasonableness of the conduct in relation to the rights of freedom of expression and assembly … criminalising the words ‘Tory scum’ would be a disproportionate interference in the two protesters’ rights”.
Tom Wainwright, a barrister at Garden Court Chambers representing Wood and Haslam, said the judgment represented an important defence of the right to freedom of expression.
“What this judgment confirms is that it is not for the defence to show that, but it is for the state to show that there is a good reason to restrict free speech and that a conviction is the only way that could be done.”
Wood and Haslam were outside the Midland hotel in Manchester, where the Conservative party annual conference was taking place in October 2021, when Duncan Smith, a former welfare secretary, emerged to walk to the Mercure hotel for a conference about Brexit.
As Duncan Smith crossed the road, an individual ran up behind him and placed a traffic cone on his head. The former Tory leader removed the traffic cone, called the protesters “pathetic” and continued on his way.
Haslam and Wood had followed Duncan Smith from a short distance. They separately called him “Tory scum”. Wood added: “Fuck off out of Manchester.”
Wood defended her comments on the grounds that her job working with homeless people in her local community meant she felt very strongly about the impact that Conservative party policies were having on people’s lives.
Their comments came after Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, had been recorded at her party’s conference describing the Conservatives as “homophobic, racist, misogynistic … scum”.
Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (IDS) MP and Rishi Sunak PM are standing side by side. IDS is holding a piece of card with the word SCUM printed upon it. On the floor is a newspaper with the headline: ‘High Court rules that Iain Duncan Smith can be called SCUM!’. Sunac is saying, whilst pointing at IDS: “This senior conservative is an unrelenting minister – the embodiment of the Tory party in every way” (The first letter of Senior, Conservative, unrelenting and minister are capitalised and coloured red spelling out SCUM).
Crippen Cartoons 