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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
National
John Stevens

Lee Anderson whines top cop treated him 'like an idiot' as he schooled him on the law

Lee Anderson has complained Britain’s top police officer treated him “like an idiot” when he gave him a lesson on the law.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley warned the loudmouth Tory MP he misunderstood what was illegal as they clashed last week.

In a fiery exchange at the Commons home affairs committee, Mr Anderson resorted to flinging insults at the policing chief.

Now the Conservative party deputy chairman has whined that Sir Mark “wound him up” during the hearing.

Appearing on GB News, where he has a £100,000-a-year second job, Mr Anderson said: “It got a little bit heated with me and the Commissioner.

“I didn’t want it to get heated, but some of the answers or non-answers he gave wound me up a lot. He wasn’t holding his hands up.

Tory MP Lee Anderson hurled insults at the Met Police chief at a select committee hearing (Parliament TV)

“I thought he treated us with a little bit of contempt in that committee. He treated us like idiots.

“I think that when the top cop comes, you need to give him a good grilling..”

At the select committee hearing last week, Mr Anderson had raised concerns about the force’s handling of environmental activists who brought parts of central London to a standstill.

Critics have blasted police for failing to break up protests and keep roads open.

But the senior officer accused the MP of not fully understanding the law on demonstrators’ rights.

Mr Anderson told Sir Mark: “We’ve seen protesters once again in Parliament Square setting up some sort of Glastonbury-on-Thames gazebo with some pretty poor artists, if my memory serves me right.

“Do you agree… that there should be zero tolerance of these events?”

He added: “Just this morning we've seen protesters on Parliament Square, probably as you were coming into the building.

“Don’t you think it’s time you left the ivory tower and got out there on Whitehall and sorted these people out?

“People of London - the tourists, the people that work at this place, the taxpayers, bus drivers - are getting fed up of it and you’re just letting it happen.

“You’ve got the powers now to do this.”

But the country’s most senior officer hit back: “Those powers aren’t in existence yet.”

Sir Mark Rowley told Lee Anderson the police do not have the power to stop all protests (Parliament TV)

In increasingly fiery exchanges, the MP for Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, claimed: “That’s not strictly true, is it? You can move these people on, they're obstructing the highway.”

Slapping down the former coal miner, the Commissioner said: “You’re making selective comments based on a partial understanding of the law.

“I do not want Londoners disrupted anymore than anybody else does, but the law is very clear that protest is disruptive and to a certain extent that is allowed.

“You might not like that but I have to work to the law rather than whim.”

Sir Mark added: “You might want to believe that the law says that no disruption is allowed whatsoever through protest but that is not the case.”

In bitter clashes, the MP retaliated: “You might want to believe that you’re doing your job correctly - I don’t think you are.”

He added: “I feel like I’m wasting my time with you, to be honest.”

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