The decision to approve the flying of a giant blimp depicting Donald Trump as an angry, orange baby near Parliament has been defended by London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
The 20ft (6m) high inflatable, dubbed “Trump Baby”, has been granted permission to rise above Parliament Square Gardens for two hours on Friday morning.
Mr Khan said he supported the decision taken by the Greater London Authority, adding that it was not for him to be a “censor”.
In a frank exchange with Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain, Mr Khan said: “My views are irrelevant. The issue is ‘Do they have freedom to protest, freedom to assemble and should they be allowed to do so?’
“If it’s peaceful and it’s safe they should, Piers.”
Morgan asked the mayor if he would have endorsed a giant black baby blimp of Barack Obama in protest during his presidency, or an image depicting Mr Khan as a pig despite that being offensive to Muslims.
Mr Khan said: “If it’s peaceful and if it’s safe. Look, I can’t be the censor. It’s not for me to decide what’s in good taste or bad taste.”
Mr Trump’s schedule will largely keep him out of central London and it seems unlikely that the US president will come close enough to Westminster to see the blimp.
He will arrive in the UK on board Air Force One on Thursday afternoon, straight from the Nato summit in Brussels, and will carry out a series of engagements on Friday before heading to Scotland for the weekend.
Mr Khan and the American leader have engaged in a long-running war of words over issues like crime and terrorism.
Morgan said it was “utterly ironic and weird” that there could be bigger protests around Mr Trump’s visit than during trips to the UK by the leaders of countries with questionable human rights records including Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
But Mr Khan said it was important that the UK could be “candid” with the US as a close ally, saying “that’s how special relationships work”.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel