Man throws boot at Australian ex-PM

Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard was almost hit in the face by a boot thrown by a protester at a Cambridge University debate.

The footwear was intercepted by cricket-playing politics student Andrew Chapman, a senior officer at the Cambridge Union Society, AFP reports.

Howard had been heckled by a man who shouted: "You make me ashamed to be Australian. Go home, racist."

Chapman said: "He reached down to his foot, and I knew what was going to happen. I stood up, and got in between Mr. Howard and this gentlemen. He threw this boot and I caught it.

"There wasn't a large amount going through my head at the time, other than that we had invited John Howard, he was our guest, and we have to protect him."

Howard served four terms as prime minister in Australia before his 2007 election defeat but was accused by some of supporting racist policies against immigrants and Australian Aborigines.

Earlier this year, a shoe named after the man who flung his footwear at then US president George W. Bush reportedly became a top seller in north-eastern Bangladesh.