Green Get Out Of Jail Free card
FUNNIEST story of the past few days featured a climate change activist who failed spectacularly to glue himself to a set of automatic doors.
Dr Larch Maxey, a research fellow at Plymouth University, smeared superglue on his hands, intending to attach himself to the front of the Bristol City Council building. But every time he approached the heavy wooden doors, they swung open, thwarting his best efforts. He made several attempts before admitting defeat.
Dr Maxey, a supporter of Extinction Rebellion, is standing as a Climate and Ecological Independent candidate in the upcoming EU elections. Of course he is. We probably know what he thinks about Brexit, too. The same as 99 per cent of other self-styled ‘academics’.
To be honest, I’ve never come across anyone with the name ‘Larch’ before. Do you think he made it up, so he can pretend he’s related to a tree?
(Mind you, there was a character in Minder called ‘larchlap’ — because he was a well-known fence. That was in the episode featuring a bogus Turin- style Shroud, which turned up in Hounslow, next to Heathrow airport, starring Billy connolly as Tic Tac, a dodgy bookie.)
Not so funny, however, was the decision of a jury to acquit two of Larch’s Extinction Rebellion sidekicks who spraypainted the walls of King’s College London to protest against investments in fossil fuels.
Roger Hallam and David Durant defaced the interior of the college’s listed Great Hall. They argued, however, that because they used chalk-based soluble paint, the damage wasn’t permanent.
So that’s all right, then.
DESPITE
the judge ruling that he would not allow the proceedings to be turned into a show trial about climate change, that’s exactly what happened. M’lud had to interrupt Hallam 15 times to stop him peddling green propaganda.
In his defence, Hallam argued that he was entitled to inflict damage on the college because it was investing in fuels which caused imminent harm to others.
The jury swallowed this guff and found the two men not guilty of criminal damage.
It seems emotion overruled the facts, just as it did a few years ago when Greenpeace activists were cleared of causing £30,000 damage to a coal- fired power station in Kent. That set a worrying precedent, by establishing a spurious ‘lawful defence’ argument, which is now widely exploited by green warriors.
The power station protesters claimed their action was justified because it was aimed at preventing wider harm being caused — i.e. stopping the ice caps melting and saving the polar bears.
Woolly-headed verdicts like these will only encourage militant eco- mentalists to stage more disruptive protests, such as the ludicrous fortnight-long street circus which brought London to a standstill recently — with the disgraceful connivance of the police and the Mayor.
Pretending you are saving the planet would appear to be a guaranteed ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ card, a licence to damage property and cause as much havoc as possible.
Still, these stunts obviously work. A few weeks after Hallam and Durant sprayed paint on the walls of the Great Hall, King’s College caved in, cancelled all holdings in fossil fuel stocks and promised to become ‘carbon neutral’ by 2025. Presumably, had Dr Larch Maxey been successful in sticking himself to the doors, he’d have been found not guilty, too.
So we’ve now got one law for common- or- garden vandals and graffiti artists and another for tree- huggers and polar bear enthusiasts.
Maybe we should all pretend to be eco-warriors in future.
Next time you’re given a ticket for stopping on a double-yellow, claim you were only doing so to prevent further holes appearing in the ozone layer.
You could always say that the reason you stopped in a ‘ No Parking’ zone was because you had suddenly realised how much your exhaust fumes were contributing to global warming and you simply had to switch off the engine immediately because you couldn’t bear to drive any further. Case dismissed? I think not. You would have more chance of gluing yourself to a set of automatic doors.