PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Protesters get more than they bargain for when Andrew Bolt bashes back.

CONTROVERSIAL columnist and TV personality Andrew Bolt has “clobbered” a group of masked protesters who set upon him in Melbourne yesterday.

On his TV program last night, Bolt explained how he was about to launch a book on US President Donald Trump at a restaurant in Carlton, in the city’s inner north, when a woman asked to take a selfie with him.

Before they could take the photo, two masked protesters set upon Bolt, spraying his face and suit with what he described as “sticky liquid with glitter and dye”.

The protesters may have got more than they bargained for because Bolt quickly retaliated, punching one of the attackers repeatedly.

“Bad luck for them, of course; I don’t do running and hiding,” he told his viewers on his Sky News program The Bolt Report on Tuesday night.

The conservative columnist screened security camera footage of the altercation on his show, freezing on the faces of each of his attackers as well as a third man who filmed the ambush.

“Police are now looking for this young man, who will have a big bruise on the left side of his face and another bruise between his legs, for which I apologise, I guess, but I don’t really fight nice if I’m pushed too far.”

Good for him. Lefty violence exists mostly because violent lefties are used to operating with impunity. Don’t let them do that.