Protesting with a Pint of Milk

Extracts from a bewildering speech by a British MP in the House of Commons:

In the remaining days of this lockdown I am going to allow myself an act of defiance, my own protest that others may join me in.  I am going to protest about the price of milk.  Now I’m not sure whether I think the price is too high, or the price is too low, I shall come to that decision later.  But for the next few days I am going to walk around London with a pint of milk on my person, because that pint will represent my protest.

It will be of symbolic importance to me and at the end of the day, it will be warm, it will have separated. And I can choose whether to drink or pour it away because it will be robbed of its refreshing elegance by the time it’s been in my pocket for 12 hours. And if I pour it away, that might cause people some concern but it doesn’t matter, because it’s my pint of milk, and it’s my protest.

This will pass, my protest will pass, the pandemic will pass. And in years to come, I will be sitting at my kitchen table, perhaps with my wife, and hopefully my children will still want to see me, and I will break away from our excited conversation about the day because I will spot that pint of milk on the table. And that pint shall remind me that the act of protest is a freedom. The freedom, not a right, and unless you cherish freedoms every day, unless you fight for freedoms, every day they end up being taken away from you.

Here’s a link to a video of the complete 4 minute speech.