Guardian deputy music editor Laura Snapes has described a stunt by rapper ‘slowthai’ – in which he waved around a severed effigy of Boris Johnson’s decapitated head during a performance – as “amazing“. Slightly undermines her employer’s constant call to improve civil discourse…

Similarly, the Business News Editor of the Evening Standard, Alex Lawson, described the performance as “definitely the best performance waving a Boris head”.

Slowthai, who was nominated for the Mercury Prize for his debut album, finished his performance by waving around the bloodied head and yelling “F*ck Boris Johnson, f*ck everything and there ain’t nothing great about Britain“, an outburst that received a partial standing ovation. The BBC managed to cut away from the politically-charged protest just as slowthai picked up the pre-planted severed Boris head, with host Lauren Laverne addressing the stunt afterwards as “slowthai, with his own views there”.

The Mercury Prize winner also used the event as an opportunity to flog his £25 ‘F*ck Boris’ t-shirts, with the Guardian‘s Snapes sharing the link to his store to purchase “his brilliantly fleshy “F*ck Boris” t-shirts”. Kinder, gentler politics there…

UPDATE: Chris Hawkins – BBC Radio 6 presenter – has waded in… behind slowthai’s gruesome stunt, in an article for the Metro.