While not subscribing to that view for a moment, if that is held to have turned us into a laughing stock, the way the authorities have handled the climate change demonstration must be enough for a sitcom. From the moment the eco-activist, middle class temper tantrum that is Extinction Rebellion began, the authorities have misspoken, mis-stepped and messed up at every trick of the puerile, rebellious track. The fact that police allowed the protesters to take over three major junctions and a bridge in London and spent 24 hours as spectators was as gross a dereliction of duty as is imaginable.
Once they actually woke up to the fact that they are the police we pay to stop acts of lunacy such as these, it was way too late. Hundreds had gathered on Waterloo Bridge and turned it into a garden, woodland, kindergarten, skateboard park and yoga area.
Meanwhile, decent folk who have a living to make were hugely inconvenienced as these ghastly, self-righteous demonstrators were allowed to do whatever they chose unchecked. One van driver called my radio show and almost wept as he said he'd spent money he couldn't afford on a van that passed the ULEZ restrictions recently brought in by London regulators. He was on a zero hours contract, hadn't been able to work and was told he would be earning no money at all last week.
"How am I meant to pay for my family with no money coming in," he asked plaintively.
Truth is that the likes of Tarquin, Tabitha and Josh, busy dancing on the bridge, do not give a damn about those people. They're "trustafarians" with no financial worries as they live off their parents' trust funds, so can stay for weeks before needing to go back to the Cotswolds and tap up mater or pater.
I sent one of the reporters on my LBC radio show to ask protesters what they did for a living, how they were able
