EXCLUSIVE
By Leila Deen
The fact that I was a smartly dressed woman who marched up to Mr Mandelson (he is no Lord of mine) definitely gave me a head start when it came to throwing mock green slime in his face. Typically for a man far too used to the comforts of patriachy, as I approached him, Mandelson's condescending smile conveyed his expectation of little more than a simpering compliment coming his way. And certainly as I got close enough to take aim, I felt much more confident that being a woman, he and his aides would not respond with a Prescott style thumping, although the host on LBC radio did suggest I deserved such a beating later that day.
Aside from Mr LBC, the majority of journalists did not seem to know how to respond. Here was a well-dressed, dare I say attractive, state school, middle class woman confronting the unelected OverLord Mandelson and questioning his right to take a political platform on climate change. I did it because it was he who had proactively undermined our climate commitments as he bullied the cabinet (particularly, note, Harriet Harman) to accept Heathrow's third runway despite the fact that it would undermine our promise to massively reduce our carbon emissions.
In a bid to understand how I could be a real woman, over and over I was asked about my sexuality, evidence of boyfriends, my hairstyle, whether I was scared. Seemingly looking to support and praise me, the tabloids have since called me 'custard queen' and 'green goddess'. Suddenly the action and the activist are gendered, and one has to ask whether I or my action would have been so well received were I a man? In the words of one photographer: "Smile love, this story will sell ten times as well because you're pretty".
It's a damning indictment on society. But I do think women can worry too much about their representation in the press. The important thing is that they are represented, that they are on the ground at protests and in the forefront of the climate change debate. That is the case in the growing movement of direct activists working to stop climate change, and is perhaps the most inspiring thing about it. It is women who make up the majority of current victims of climate change and it is women leading the charge to directly challenge its causes, engage its perpetrators and take direct action to stop it happening. Whilst I was a lone protagonist in this action, most of those directly supporting me were women. In the last few months, all the best climate change actions have been led by women. And on April 1st a Climate Camp in the City will be pitching up in London, organised largely by women.
This is an intensely feminine struggle, against the destruction of our eco-system, a problem created by patriachy. So I stand proud to have joined the ranks of many strong women who are on the frontline of getting it sorted. And if getting attention for that cause means having to discuss where I buy my shoes, or how I get my hair so poofy, so be it.
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I find it astonishing that Gordon Brown is hounded in the press to apologise because unknown to him a backroom aid had an idea to smear, put it in an email to a friend and then dismissed the idea, that you are allowed to commit an act of violence against a public servant then come on LabourList and brag about it.
Why did you do it again? First it was an environmental campaign, then its because he is a member of the upper chamber, and then you tell us he is a misogynist whilst bleeting about how pretty you are. Why do think he is hate women - because he gay? Is that the reason you singled him out?
Hell hath no fury...
Mandelson, you are not worthy of a peerage. You are an emphatic and out of touch P****. Leave us alone
New of Domain names bought in her name has filled cyberspace, have checked this out
Leiladeen.com and leiladeen .co.uk and the .net .org versions are selling like hot cake
number67z@rocketmail.com
Roll on the third runway.
You simply exploited your gender, knowing you wouldn't get a fist in the face.
You and your kind need to grow up.
Mr Mandelson is entitled to speak up for business, that is the role and his remit. He does so in cooperation with other heads of Government where his view is debated by elected representatives.
That is how all democracy works, a view is put forward and then a solution to which view may be best for the country is found. It may not always be the best choice but it’s still a view based on informed discussion.
You little stunt just makes you look silly, it has not changed opinions in relation to Heathrow, people will either support it or oppose it. It does not mean one side has all the answers.
Yet, you and the group you represent appear reckless and dictatorial in your approach, not only do you make peaceful protest much harder in the future but also your group seems quite willing to risk harm to people as well.
By harm I refer to your own followers and also the lives of the security personal and the public using our airports. When a plane is coming in to land it has little ability to abort the approach on hearing protectors are on the runway?
You try stopping a plane with hundreds of people in a few hundreds yards instead of the several miles they need to reduce air speed with. In addition to the lives on the plane, security and protesters all run the risk of crossing the flight path of planes landing and taking of.
I find your action not only juvenile but also quite malicious, who are you to chuck anything in someone’s face, It is quite clear you made no attempt just to throw the custard at Mr Mandelson clothes instead you deliberately went for his face and in doing so his eyes. It shows just how malicious your action was.
Of course Mr Mandelson would not have known what it was being thrown at him and because of that you personally would have caused him distress and fear.
Now you may think you are clever, but that is not how it comes across to rest of the nation. The fact you use custard makes no difference as it is the way you used it. I have been a protester and you could also say I am more on the green side. Yet protesting is not about causing physical harm to people or distress a lesson you clearly do not understand.
You group is silly in its approach and far from winning support you may find the public have a greater respect for real democracy then your interpretation.
Why should anyone have anything thrown at them, it is not a democratic right to behave in such a way, regardless of the issue and the emotions.
I could reverse your argument over Heathrow Alan and say what of the much needed jobs that it would create and the investment into the UK. I reject Plane Stupid because its a one sided dictatorial argument.
Yet my point is about her stupidity and that democracy is not as weak as its implied.
Yes some people will lose their village, but to term that as fear is an exaggeration it will be many years of and while it will not make up for memories they will be compensated.
Nobody will be going round with baseball bats or throwing green paint at them.
I would imagine Allan if you had something thrown in your face from a stranger you would not feel it was a harmless prank. It is the not knowing what the substance was that created the fear and the issue over the Villagers are not the same.
On your next point however on Royal Mail.
I'm sure I will get harassed for saying this, but there comes a time when people have to think outside the box, the Royal Mail is not performing and has been struggling for years.
Ever since they did away with the 2nd delivery the service has gone down hill. That's not to say there are not dedicated Postmen of staff, but something is not working in its current set-up.
There is also a massive whole in their finances to pay for their pensions. Billions are short and Royal Mail cant pay it. So when those Postmen do retire they will not have the pension they expect unless something happens now.
As long as the Government stays in majority control, I can fully understand why the post office needs to modernise to stay solvent in order to find solutions.
Else there will be no service and no jobs, people use e-mail and other forms of communication and it posting letters will get less and less.
Soon most business will do away with billing by post and that will be done through on-line banking and accounts. The trend has already started its just the way things go. You either adapt in business or get swallowed up. The Royal Mail is a business and not a health service.
Its either change now in some way or their will be no Royal Male as fewer and fewer people will use it.
Life changes Alan, what worked a few years ago does not mean it always will.
I happen to like Madelson, it does not mean I like all that he says but he presents a case, that is democracy...
If the public did not support him as much as you imply then he would not be in that position or have the reproducibility's he has.
First J Maccy D, now Leila D. Doing their cause no good.
Aside from that I think this week LL has managed to alienate most of the people who thought what Derek was doing is
a good think. If I want to read abuse about our Government there is plenty out there without LL shooting the Party in the
foot.
attacking and trying to humiliate one of our most visible leaders in the middle of a difficult time for the country
and the Party. Good thinking. I've heard of a big tent but this is like camping in a muddy field in the driving rain
You manage to compliment your own appearance twice in the space of three paragraphs- unbelievable.
Throwing custard on a Government secretary does nothing to forward your case for the environment, and even less so for your bizarre conceptions of feminism you seem to be trying to squeeze into it.
God only knows why LaboutList is giving a stage to this self-indulgent attention seeker.
Oh cheer up and release your inner Tiswas, I am looking forward to Trevor McDoughnut getting it next.
'Comforts of patriarchy'?
Having started with the looks and fashion comments she then actually complains about activists being 'gendered' and goes on about women being the majority of climate change victims.
She doesn't want another runway. She threw custard. She thinks she's got nice clothes and hair.
End of her rather more than 15 minutes of fame. Mission accomplished.
(There... now no longer "grossly unintelligent or obtuse or trolls" for you?)
Climate change is the fault of men, women are better than men at fighting climate change, how dare Peter Mandelson smile at someone who looked as if they were going to talk to him - he's ever the arch-manipulator!
Action against climate change is of huge importance but your article reads like a student activist who hasn't grown up, unsurprising given your incredibly juvenile actions last week.
It's very appropriate to find you will be out protesting on April the 1st.
I find the majority of this article needlessly antagonistic, and offensive in tone.
Instead of actually discussing the issues of climate change, it's impact and specifically dealing with the case against another runway it's just about how all men are a walking cliche and can be easily manipulated. Were the position of this article reversed, the comments would be denouncing it as sexist (and quite rightly so).
What happened last week was assault based on unsubstantiated newspaper reports of a Cabinet meeting and trying to justify it by painting it as some part of a gender struggle is just pathetic.
As a former resident of Sipson and someone involved in the no Third Runway protest until recently; thank you for keeping this abomination in the news.
Whatever your views, beliefs, you are entitled to them such is the freedom of our democracy, I can't say I agree with all of them, however, I would defend your right to say them to the death.
The right to debate, a discourse based on the truth and facts to hand is something that has been tarnished, the truth and facts are not brought to light because if they did the case for expansion would evapourate. To suppress that is an affront to the democratic process and to make politics and debate superfluous.
And so out comes the custard - rightly so.
The consultation of the White Paper was ignored (over 70% of submissions were against expansion), the simple facts against airport expansion brushed over. There has been no clear vision from the DoT and absolutely no scrutiny of any of the submissions from BAA.
There have been several independent reviews of the expansion - all of them cast serious doubts over the economics of this expansion.
When a self-named "people's government" can railroad the united and diverse opposition to this madness, then it can only leave itself open accusation to simple vested interests.
The economic arguments in favour are bunk. The environmental argument in terms of violations of PM10 and NO2 pollution legislation alone as well as an increase in noise pollution lead to serious quality of life questions for 500,000 local residents.
As yet, there has been no credible means to mitigate the additional pollution that would place 10,000 homes and 35,000 people in an area where air quality would fail to meet EU minimum safe limits.
So Peter Mandelson got gunked, good on you, it certainly cheered up a lot of people who are heartily sick of the mendacious and twisted semantics of this discredited airport expansion.
My flabber is ghasted. Do you really think that sliming a slimeball will "sort" it? Is everybody who blogs here a nutter?
Can somebody explain what this means please? It's total nonsense. Our carbon intensive way of life is a by-product of consumerism - is this simpleton arguing that women AREN'T consumerist?
When I started a group in school to get our school to be environmentally friendly and advertised for members, the amount of girls that showed an interest out numbered boys by about 4 to 1.
Yes that is hard to take seriously, it sounds like a sociology A level or something.
Instead, the veiling of her actions behind feminist rhetoric is an insult to us all. Her actions amount to no more than petty assault on a Government minister and her comments about the protest show a disregard for the democracy that permits her freedoms and liberties.
The argument that Lord Mandelson bullied an entire cabinet in to submission is laughable. Her highlighting of Harriet Harman as a victim of Mandelsons ‘misogynistic tactics’ is as patronising as it is laughable.
The modern feminist movement is the inheritance from a long line of courageous and determined individuals who fought for a noble cause. Where as the fight against climate change may very well join this tradition, the same can not be said by these actions and the flimsy justification offered.
as for climate change being the result of a patriarchal society, i wasnt aware that women were still trapped in the home using brooms and feather dusters to clean up...WHATS HARRIET UP TO!?!?
granted there need to be more women in the cabinet and the glass ceiling is unacceptable, granted there needs to be change to halt global warming, not granted, throwing custard in a senior ministers face en route to deliver a speech on climate change to get it done. mandy was there to apply pressure on the anti-green darling and treasury(according to jackie ashley at least) go throw green shit at him instead!
You yourself gender the action and the activist. You describe your attempt to manipulate frankly outdated gender stereotypes with a sub-infantile pride that is at best naive and at worst somewhat delusional. You do nothing to further your cause and Peter Mandelson must be having a hearty chuckle at your expense.
What would have happened if unknown to you there was a raising of the security level the day before.You would now be dead.
Think before you try childish pranks.
You have now had your five minutes of fame. Be off with you.
You environmentalists have the evidence on your side. Use that, rather than symbols and stunts.
I disagree with what you did, though it could have been a lot worse. Other causes have bombers and armies and have no qualms about killing, as we can see all over the world. You guys have custard.
And while I disagree- it's happened already, no one was hurt, so I'll happily admit to enjoying watching Mr Mandelson get humiliated. Humiliating people won't convert them to your cause though, quite the opposite.
Who knew women didn't fly planes, drive cars or do anything that contributed to climate change? Or indeed that no women at all have benefited from the society that has damaged the environment so much?
I don't know what you're implying to think that Mandleson thought he was about to get a simpering compliment - how many people do you think walk up to him in the street to give him a compliment? Not many, and he's gay anyway so why he'd think a woman would naturally give him a simpering compliment (based on the idea that as a man he'd automatically assume sexual superiority over you and expect your deferment) I don't know.
Don't be so foolish to think he 'particularly' bullied Harriet Harman. The incident you referred to elsewhere when he banged his head on the table in mock frustration was not because she was a woman, or a strong-minded woman, but because she started a statement with 'I know this is irrational - but - ' - his mock frustration had nothing to do with the fact she is a woman but with the stupidity of such a comment (and I say that as someone who quite likes Harman!).
Ironically Mandleson came out of it far better than you did, not just because of any inbuilt sexism in the press - they're just as homophobic - but because of the way he handled it. So where he was making jokes and dismissing your method of protest, you were saying that throwing green custard over him was what happens when democracy fails - it looked daft (sorry).
As someone who campaigned for the hunting ban, I saw these kind of attacks from the hunting fraternity who set upon anyone who opposed their barbarism,they also assaulted MPs.
You remind me of those people and as you are in the same stable as the appalling Zac Goldsmith I suspect you would be at home with them.
Here we have an example of a wonderful lose-lose situation.
Mandelson's pomp has been pricked and ridiculed (many thought he was leaking snake oil);
And you, Dear Writer, have proven to be just another spoilt, leftie-green champagne socialist who cannot accept the democratic process when it goes against your 'just' cause (whatever that happens to be this week).
So feminist you should be proud of this one, she has shown us all that when feminist don’t get there way they throw a temper tantrum, then bat their eye-lashes to get out of trouble.
Plane stupid? Yes...I can see why you chose that name.
Awwww poor little Harriet. Do you think she had a good cry in the loo afterwards? What an absurdly patronising view of women you have.
And on April 1st a Climate Camp in the City will be pitching up in London, organised largely by women.
"This is an intensely feminine struggle, against the destruction of our eco-system, a problem created by patriachy."
Twaddle
Lord Mandleson was co-hosting a meeting on industrial activism and how government activism can help create jobs in the green industries and make britain a low carbon economy.
He's contributed far more to creating a green economy than you have.
You just come off as a liberal yuppy with too much money and time on your hands. Go and get a real job, instead of moaning in the newstatesman and throwing gunge at Lords.
Lets appoint one custard thrower to the house every time one of them tries to sell their law amending services for cash. one very time one commits a criminal offence.
That should liven things up a bit.
No he didn't!!
On another note, I'm a feminist and am more worried about domestic abuse, abortion rights and sex trafficking [real women suffering because of patriarchy] It seems as though, whilst climate change is real and important, it's a shame that these current atrocities don't elicit a similar response from you.
Aside from the obvious comment that Mandelson has always behaved like custard - getting upset over a trifle (ouch!) he is unelected and is doing immense damage and in his case irrepairable damage.
(How about Purnell next time>)
You, and people like you, try to shove your green fascism down our throats and when you can't get elected, you turn to violence. Comedy violence but violence nonetheless. ALL HAIL OUR NEW GREEN OVERLORDS!
Shame on yoju Shaun. I think you should apologise for that remark.
I detest that loathsome little man Mandleson but I certainly wouldn't advocate shooting him - or anyone else. That remark is beyond the pale.
Firstly I detest the idea of airport expansion. I have even supported the occupation of runways to gain publicity. Your group has completely lost my support since you have resorted to common assault to further the ends I believe in.
I have to say I don't disagree with you because you are a woman I disagree with you because you committed an act of violence against another human being. An then fairly smuggly justifed your actions on the news.
The fact is there must have been a moment when Mandelson thought there could have been more in that canister than custard and to cause that sort of fear whatever your cause is pretty brutal.
You cited the miners strike and the votes for women movement as "successful" campaigns of direct action but both movements significantly delayed positive outcomes and lost supporters when they turned to violence.
You can legitimately protest in a democracy you don't have to resort to thugish violence to make yourself heard. I do very much hope that charges are pressed and a conviction secured.
I've personally never liked Mandelson because I've never seen him as being particularly down to earth (possibly the most valuable attribute of a politician) and 'the only thing green about him is the slime running through his veins' cracked me up!
I too am very concerned about global warming/climate change, not because of fluffy-duffy concern for polar bears and rare species of ants becoming extinct (though that is slight factor), but because in 30-40 years time I'll be living in whatever world the generation before me has left.
I have been actively involved in groups at my school to get them to be more environmentally friendly, we successfully lobbied to get motion sensors to turn lights off when rooms aren't in use as well as make the caretaker more aware of the impacts of using loads of energy.
Good luck with your Climate Camp!
I think the world needs more green custard, a lot more in fact.
Its the only thing left given that they treat the public with such contempt.
Appointing Lord Peter was about the most undemocratic thing Brown has done and it was contemptible
Yes I think we need a lot more green custard.
Clear links between climate change and manmade pollution have been identified. Ever heard of the Hockey Stick Graph?
TV shows like the one on Channel 4 last year that said climate change wasn't man made, have been rigorously ripped apart by the scientific community.
The climate-change deniers face a mountain of evidence against them.
The evidence on global warming is not clear and much that is luridly hpyed by the Press is nonsense - like that 100 months declaration from Proince Charles, that well known expert on the climate thingy.
Climate change is happening. It has always happened or we would be living now in a tropical swamp or icy waste depending upon when the change stopped in history.But a large part of it is totally natural and there is little we can do about it but adapt.
Your very use of the phrase 'climate change deniers' - echos of holocaust deniers - shows your attitude
"Your very use of the phrase 'climate change deniers' - echos of holocaust deniers - shows your attitude" - People who deny climate change are far more dangerous. Not only are they staring in the face of evidence, but are condemning future generations (ie me!).
Rising sea levels, more frequent droughts, more floods, more extreme weather, more air pollution. That will kill more than were in the Holocaust.
"I know all about the scientific consensus." - That is truly laughable. You link to a website that has a petition of 31,478 scientists against climate change to show there is not a consensus. The total number of American scientists and engineers in 2006 was 22million. So a staggering 0.1% of American scientists have signed it.
"If you tell me that Gordon Brown is doing a great job with the economy would I be correct to call you a recession denier?" - No, I think he is doing a good job but nobody is denying it is happening (unlike the websites you link to).
These sceptics are on their own against a mountain of evidence.