In one sense

yes, the details differ & one may be more serious than the other. But nonetheless they should call for the same reaction. It's the point I made below - this sort of occurrence is a product of the direction in which the conduct of political debate is travelling - we've normalised quite violent abuse in/about politics & political discussions, we're willing eg to countenance jokes about throwing battery acid on people we don't like, and so we end up with this sort of thing. When someone gets up and walks towards a speaker, and you can say, with some justification - I didn't know what she planned & how serious it might be - then the whole environment of debate has been poisoned.

Posted By: paulg, Jun 21, 14:40:34