IS NOTHING SACRED FOR THE ECO CLOWNS? rages the Daily Hate Mail today, as it attacks the vandals who spray painted Stonehenge yesterday with orange paint. Fucking hell. What a return to the UK that is. For the first time in living memory I am in broad agreement with the newspaper that thought before World War Two that Adolf Hitler was a decent sort of chap but has – early warning of a very old and oft repeated joke – moved further right since then.
The ‘Eco Clowns’ belong to ‘Just Stop Oil’, a kind of eco terrorist group which seeks to gain national support by spray-painting, among other things cultural heritage sites, art galleries and museums. Because those prehistoric gas guzzlers, right, driving their 4X4s and RVs all over the place in Neolithic times – we’ll show them, says Just Stop Oil. Wankers.
Anyway, the two protestors, Niamh Lynch an Oxford student and Rajan Naidu, 73, “an elderly social justice campaigner and Quaker” (says the Hate Mail) ran up to the stones, which are part of UNESCO’s list of world heritage sites, and sprayed gallons of paint over them. “It’s only a bit of paint,” said the vandals – let’s call a spade a spade – or “Our experts have already managed to clean the orange powder from the stones because we were really worried about what would happen if they got in contact with water. So far, there seems to be no visible damage.” (English Heritage.)
I must admit, I am not particularly inclined to add my support to Just Stop Oil when they carry out stunts like this. In fact, I am more inclined to pop over to Sainsbury’s and top up my car with some unleaded and give Niamh and Rajan the middle finger and, if I happened to be in possession of a few bags of horseshit, I’d have sprayed it all over them. But seriously: who are these eco terrorists trying to impress?
I happen to be a keen recycler, we switched away from diesel cars a few years ago, I accept that climate change and global warming are both happening and accept we need to make changes to our lives to ensure that life on earth is sustainable. And I know many folk need to be persuaded. I am not convinced that vandalising cultural heritage sites, art galleries and museums is going to have the effect they perhaps might hope for.
I’ll leave the final words to English Heritage chief executive, Dr Nick Merriman.”We wish people would channel their protests away from cultural heritage sites, museums and galleries because we feel that doesn’t actually help their cause, and causes huge upset and disruption to the operation of these important sites.”
