David Lammy's furious row with caller over Trump's Twitter ban

9 January 2021, 18:51

David Lammy's furious row with caller over Donald Trump censorship

By Seán Hickey

This caller insists that Donald Trump was deprived his freedom of speech after being suspended by the social media giant.

Steve phoned in from Enfield to defend US President Donald Trump after he was suspended permanently from Twitter.

The caller claimed that Donald Trump's online activity was being used as a political football, but David Lammy disagreed.

"This isn't left or right, this is dangerous."

Steve insisted that the principles of President Trump are besides the point and people must accept that rightly or wrongly, people support him.

"Unless you want to take away their right to vote, you're stuck with them," adding that "you're talking about their leader, this man speaks to them."

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Steve went on: "He speaks to 75 million people that these other two parties cannot reach."

The caller pointed out that Trump supporters have become disillusioned with mainstream politics after years of unemployment and general lack of opportunity.

David agreed, accepting that "there are some challenges with globalisation."

"These are real challenges, but then comes along the crook, the charlatan to sell the people a load of hokey," he insisted. He told the caller that he isn't concerned by the rioters as much as he is "concerned about the incitement" from Donald Trump.

"I remember when violent people were out on the streets of Tottenham and Enfield back in 2011 and I remember standing on those streets looking them in the eye and saying very clearly 'i cannot support violence.'"

David turned the tables in this example, telling Steve that if he did encourage it, he would have been castigated.

Steve maintained that the President has the right to free speech, concluding "if you don't want to read his tweets, don't read 'em."