John Humphreys seemingly mocking..........

I doubt whether he was crying for Maggie Thatcher. Funerals can often touch upon previous sad events in a person's life. No doubt this was happening with George. Cruel to dwell on it on air.

I'm glad listeners didn't just accept it but took the trouble to protest.

There is civil war in Syria, about 2.7million out of work in UK, measles epidemic developing in Wales,

A man weeping/ shedding a tear, crying at a funeral of a person he probably admired but did not know intimately is not major news and is relatively trivial!

However he is also a high profile politician and politicians have occasionally been known to take advantage of public situations... maybe Humphrey wanted to give GO the chance to clarify the genuineness of his sadness and rebut any suggestion that he was being opportunistic and trying to temper the image of him as an unfeeling and arrogant politician..

There is civil war in Syria, about 2.7million out of work in UK, measles epidemic developing in Wales,

A man weeping/ shedding a tear, crying at a funeral of a person he probably admired but did not know intimately is not major news and is relatively trivial!

However he is also a high profile politician and politicians have occasionally been known to take advantage of public situations... maybe Humphrey's wanted to give GO the chance to clarify the genuineness of his sadness and rebut any suggestion that he was being opportunistic and trying to temper the image of him as an unfeeling and arrogant politician..

"seemingly mocking" means he probably wasn't mocking anyway.

Who cares anyway?

I back off when people mention "common decency". I only have the uncommon kind.

I'm not sure it is trivia. John Humphreys is a probably well paid presenter on a radio station that I help fund. I think it's ok to expect a bit of common decency, not to say sensitivity, from him.

But we can agree to disagree.

Well, I guess I'm just tired of people getting cross about trivia.

That's not the point!

I understand that a lot of fuss is being made about tears at a funeral, and I think it's very silly, especially as the man in question wasn't bothered about it.

No one is getting "all soppy" anyway. A number of people were puzzled and a bit cross.

Funerals are public, especially that one. He wasn't crying for Thatcher but because of the momentousness of the moment. This is what funerals are for.

He's a politician. He goes on radio programmes to talk about politics.

Like I say, don't bother.

Nonsense! I just don't think anyone needs to get all soppy about an MP crying. What's all the fuss about? Why is it a problem to talk about it? It isn't.

I wouldn't mind someone asking me about tears at a funeral. Why should I? Why would anyone?

He wept. At a funeral. It was a thing personal only to him. Not something the nation needed to hear him questioned about.

Oh, don't bother. You are perhaps incapable of understanding this.

Bloody non-sensitive to other people's feelings brigade!

Rubbish. Why wouldn't he want it talked about?

Bloody outrage brigade

It was a personal thing. Not something he would have wanted referred to at all.

Yes, GO coped admirably.

Besides, what has Osborne to be ashamed about? Nothing wrong with shedding tears on moving occasions.

I think mockery of public figures is a useful and healthy tool for a democracy to have and I'm glad Humphreys uses it.... IF he did. Quizzing someone about tears is not necessarily mockery though. From what the article says, Osborne coped admirably.

Of course, Ana. I never comment on a post with a link without looking at it. George Osborne shed tears – that's weeping. What is the problem and why is it mockery?

Did you actually read the link, absent?

John Humphreys "accused" him of "weeping". Weeping means shedding tears. There is a picture of George Osborne with a tear running down his face. Perhaps the question is was that the only tear, while the definition says tears in the plural, or did another one follow. What good reason? For goodness sake…