One of the few bright spots during the early phase of the Covid pandemic was the sight of a smiling 99-year-old English gentleman, dressed to the nines, who walked up and down his garden with the aid of a walking frame, raising money for the NHS.
With the intention of raising £1,000, Captain Tom Moore, who would later become Sir Tom Moore, raised an astonishing £32,796,436 by his 100th birthday.
At a time when virtually everyone on earth was in the grips of fear and uncertainty, the second world war veteran’s simple action was akin to a direct injection of courage and good humour into the hearts of the global community. No one could possibly have disliked the humble man, who sadly passed away in early 2021. Well, perhaps only Ms Madeleine Budd.
Budd took the trouble to collect gallons of human urine and faeces and poured the vile mixture over a memorial honouring Sir Tom Moore in Derbyshire in early October.
Having pleaded guilty to criminal damage, Budd was recently spared prison, with her 21-week sentence suspended for 18 months by the District Judge.
The amazingly lenient Judge Louisa Cieciora said of Budd that, ‘Given your actions could not or have not achieved what you wanted them to and you want to find a better way to express your message… I am just about persuaded I can suspend your sentence.’
Could not or have not achieved what she wanted? Of course pouring faecal matter over a memorial of a beloved and recently deceased humanitarian would do nothing to stop private jets. Just as the recent spate of ‘eco-warriors’ throwing condiments and canned soup at precious artworks does nothing for the environment.
There are other ways for someone like Budd to express their message. And what about the pain, humiliation, and outrage suffered by Sir Tom Moore’s family and friends, as well as the public who has grown to admire and love him?
Ironically, given the universal popularity of Sir Tom Moore and the particular depravity of her actions, Budd has likely gravely damaged her movement and what merit it had.
In her recent interview on GB News, Budd did not appear to show much in the way of contrition.
When asked the obvious question of why she targeted Sir Tom Moore, who never even flew on a private jet, the nebulous, senseless, and arrogant rambling answer underscores the fact that so many eco-activists have little but some vague apocalyptic nihilism that they think gives them absolute moral superiority over everyone else.
In the GB News interview, Budd said that, ‘We are basically in … you could say that this is kind of like 1940s Germany right now, in terms of the fact that billions of people are going to die.’ Even taking her at face value, the best way she can think of to tackle this is to save up excrement and pour it over the monument of a man who actually fought in the 1940s against fascism so that the likes of her might be free?
The irony becomes richer when one learns that Budd was a medical student with the expectation of a career in the NHS, the organisation that Sir Tom Moore had helped so much when it really needed it. Her father, Jim Budd, said that his daughter had ‘gone rogue’ when she quit her studies and became a full-time protester.
The recent cult of eco-fetishism has infected the minds of many youths. When the presenter Dan Wootton asked Budd whether she will continue to break the law for her cause, her reply was, ‘I’m not going to stop, I’m not going to stop.’
Eco-vandalism will not stop while society, our institutions, and the so-called adults of our world refuse to take a firm stand against this nonsense and say enough is enough. There needs to be consistent legal consequences for these acts of mindless desecration, and children need to be protected before they are lost to the cult of eco-activism.
