It seems the politically-minded of London’s gentry have found a new way to communicate their dissent: balloons. Surely its only fair if Donald Trump is going to be mocked by an inflatable effigy of him then all politicians should be fair game?
This is the view of Yanny Bruere, a 28 year old marketing executive from the capital who took it upon himself to organise a huge balloon-version of Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to protest his lenient stance on the Trump baby which went up earlier this month. According to Bruere ‘It feels like the mayor of London has prioritised personal enmity over the good of the country’.
(Photo By Evening Standard)
He believes that the balloon should not have gone up because Trump ‘deserves the respect of the position’ (of leader of the free world), so in response to what he sees as Sadiq Khan’s hypocrisy has decided to give Sadiq a taste of his own medicine.
Khan’s comments on the matter were ‘imagine if we limited freedom of speech because someone’s feelings would get hurt’ and if this is the view he holds I’ve no doubt the mayor of London would have no problem with his own inflatable character assassination to head up into the sky on Saturday.
(Photo by PJ Media)
A theme of this story is certainly fighting fire with fire, which, as anyone who has ever fought a fire can tell you, isn’t a practical solution. If you think something is in bad taste perhaps the only way to properly draw attention to the matter is to use the same tactics and see how they like it. This blimp might highlight Sadiq Khan’s perceived hypocrisy and failings as mayor in terms of crime rates or it might just give people a laugh on their Saturday outings around London.
Honestly, though, perhaps an eye for an eye does indeed make the whole world go blind. Some would argue that these actions simply sink to the same level of the ones they seek to criticise, proving nothing except people’s need to one-up one another.
(Photo by NME)
It remains to be seen if Mr Khan will comment on the blimp or whether this new trend will catch on and we’ll be seeing Jeremy Corbyn or Vladimir Putin bobbing about among the clouds above Westminster anytime soon.
Talk, I suppose, is cheap and it’s impressive to say the least that over fifty grand was forked out to create a 29ft blimp of Sadiq Khan wearing a bikini. It’s odd to think that the original was only 20ft tall and yet the hubbub surrounding that seemed to go on forever. Perhaps the silent majority of Londoner’s think Mr Bruere has got a point and so funding for this was more direct and efficient. Or maybe Bruere was so incensed he shelled out most of the money himself. One thing is clear, politicised blimps are getting bigger and better.
Maybe in ten years time maybe we’ll dissolve the House of Commons and instead of that we’ll simply communicate through giant inflatables in the sky or release some balloons instead of voting. Maybe.
