By BAGEHOT

THE FIRST time I encountered protesters dressed as nuns was when I lived in the Bay Area of San Francisco in 1984-5. Sister Mary Boom Boom and her fellow Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were fixtures on the flourishing protest scene. This week I encountered another one protesting against Jacob Rees-Mogg’s appearance before a sell-out crowd of 2,300 at the London Palladium. This particular “nun” was a woman, rather than a man like the American sisters. But her worries were the same—that the right-wing was bent on depriving gays and women of their civil rights and restoring an oppressive patriarchal society. I know that because she told me in no uncertain terms.