Shouting M.P. rushes at Thatcher

Press, 3 September 1982, Page 6

Shouting M.P. rushes at Thatcher

NZPA London A Scottish Labour member of Parliament had to be hauled away from the British Prime Minister (Mrs Margaret Thatcher) by the police yesterday in an extraordinary incident outside a Glasgow hotel. She was left shocked and ashen-faced after Ron Brown had run at her, shouting and gesticulating wildly and waving his band only centimetres from her face. Before he could touch her Mr Brown was thrown against the hotel wall by five policemen and then, still yelling and fighting, was carried to a nearby van. As he was bundled inside he called out: “Is this Poland?” Mrs Thatcher had stepped smiling from her car outside the Holiday Inn in the city centre for a meeting with industrialists and trade unionists. About 100 police officers were facing a crowd of 500 demonstrators when Mr Brown, who had been standing with journalists outside the hotel, suddenly rushed at her as she walked up the steps. She appeared taken aback by the breach of security and pulled away as Mr Brown flourished his hands in front of her face. While police officers wrestled with the member for Leith, a pale Mrs Thatcher, shouted at and jeered by other protesters, reached the safety of the hotel. Mrs Thatcher went straight into meetings while the van carried Mr Brown off to a police station. Mr Brown later defended his “democratic right” to voice his views after being held at the police station for nearly six hours. “I was only exercising my democratic right. I tried to tell her she should have stayed in her bunker in London. An M.P. tonight has been refused his right to express his views.”

The police handling of his arrest had been “similar to something in Poland,” he said. He believed that he had been charged with breach of the peace. The Strathclyde police said that a report on the incident would be sent to the Procu-rator-fiscal. Mrs Thatcher later made light of the incident. "I never mind people tackling me,” she said. “I am here to be tackled. He did not touch me. He can ask questions of me in the House of Commons every Tuesday and Thursday: I have no idea at all what he said to me.” Asked if she recognised him, Mrs Thatcher said: “I did not look at him.”