Has there ever been a more arrogant, self-centred, pampered set of insufferables than the environmental campaigners with which this generation has been lumbered?
Perhaps it is the seemingly pathetic nature of the children who spray orange paint on buildings that helps our politicians adopt an undeservedly kind posture towards the likes of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion.
You’ll hear something along the lines of “I agree with their message, I just don’t agree with the tactics”, as though this is a nuanced tightrope act befitting those elected to serve us.
For the record, I don’t agree with the message or the tactics. The former belongs in the mouth of swivel-eyed evangelicals and the latter, well, do I really need to get into it?
Apparently I do, because in an exclusive for Express.co.uk, Max Parry has revealed that a pro-Palestine off-shoot of these middle-class miscreants are once again set to lecture us knuckle-dragging, Brexit-voting, flag-s****ers on Armistice Day.
This is not surprising if you’ve been paying attention to the targets Just Stop Oil and other agitators pick for protest. Which is to say, they come after things that you and I regard as sacred.
Why did a couple of batty belligerents in their eighties target the Magna Carta months ago? Why was it not good enough to simply protest?
Why do its plummy prigs rob ordinary, law-abiding people of the experience of looking at a beautiful painting?
Why do they disrupt football, snooker, rugby and cricket? They do it because they think so little of you that it doesn’t bother them to blaspheme against the things you hold most dear.
They do it because they are possessed of a message that they believe to be so important as to dwarf absolutely everything in your life. They do it because they think they’re better than you.
Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion and others constantly talk about The Science of climate change. And yet their zeal and the certainty with which they hold their beliefs are not akin to the calm, measured, humble pursuit displayed by seekers of scientific truth.
Their meltdowns and rantings are more comparable to a lunatic preacher screaming about hellfire and damnation. If you really think that hellfire exists, then what could be more important than saving people from it? Certainly not your Saturday off, looking at a painting.
It’s time to treat these people like the outliers they are. Politicians and pundits should stop claiming to agree with the message. We should view these ignorant, bullheaded bigots for what they are when they target our sacred objects and spaces: the equivalent of a drunken scumbag hurling a pig’s head at a mosque.
