It is not easy when everyone hates you. Sometimes when the telephone rings in the office the caller leaves an abusive message and then you might hear about a colleague whose life has been threatened and when you think the intimidation can't get any worse 10 workers at your company have their cars set on fire.
In the past year workers at the Cambridgeshire pharmaceutical research firm, Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), have been targeted by protesters who have accused the company of cruelty to animals, mainly mice and rats, during testing. The Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) group denies responsibility for threats, fire bombings and intimidation against HLS employees.
But SHAC has caused controversy this week because it has stepped up its campaign against HLS by staging protests outside 25 branches of the Royal Bank of Scotland which will decide within days whether to renew the laboratory's u22.5 million (sterling) £25 million overdraft. If HLS closes because of the intimidation, it argues, it could mean the end of pharmaceutical research in Britain.
The British Government's "pro-science" policy is clear and ministers have warned that unless scientists are allowed to work freely within the law Britain could suffer a scientific "brain drain" to the US and Europe, with the loss of thousands of jobs. It has now publicly stepped into the row between SHAC and HLS.
It has given its backing for legitimate protest but not "intimidation and violence" and the Department of Trade and Industry held "commercial discussions" with the Bank of Scotland and HLS on Tuesday to try to find a way to keep Europe's largest vivisection laboratory open. As a further sign of the government's support for the laboratory, Cambridgeshire Police is to receive a grant of about u1million (sterling) £1 million to help pay for the cost of protecting workers at HLS.
Direct action of the kind used by SHAC and another lobby group, the Political Animal Lobby, has been effective. Since HLS was accused of cruelty to animals the company's corporate broker, the German banking group WestLB, has broken off contact and the Labour Party's staff pension fund has removed its shares in the company. It was this move that caused the Oxford neuroscientist and Labour party member, Prof Colin Blakemore, to accuse Mr Blair of inconsistency. In an interview in Wednesday's Daily Telegraph, Prof Blakemore, who is on an animal rights "murder list", said the government had encouraged extremists by failing to support HLS against intimidation.
"In symbolic terms, the most significant step in this saga came when the Labour Party withdrew the small shareholding of its pension fund in Huntingdon only days after they were contacted by the Political Animal Lobby, who had given them £1 million," Prof Blakemore told the newspaper. "Mr Blair should admit that selling the shares is inconsistent, given that Huntingdon carries out tests that the government requires."
In an attempt to end intimidation of company directors and researchers in the pharmaceutical research field the government has proposed that directors' home addresses should be kept private and shareholders' registers should only be available for legitimate company purposes.
A Trade and Industry report was published at the end of last year setting out the proposals and legislation is expected in the next parliament, but in the short term intimidation is likely to continue.
Tony Blair will no doubt think very carefully about Prof Blakemore's proposal that the government should provide financial backing to keep HLS afloat, but that seems unlikely given Labour's withdrawal of its pension fund shares. And so the government finds itself caught in the awkward position of supporting science while the Labour Party sends out the message that it is unhappy with research practices at HLS.
Animal protesters will try to force the government's hand on this issue ensuring the closure of HLS, but in political terms, the question is whether Tony Blair can afford to give in to the activists.