I don't object to the cause, I just really object to how it becomes a game for some of the idiots the movement sucks in. There's no coordination.They just wheel out Chris Packham every now and again to say he feels certain stuff was 'ill-considered' or 'counter-productive'. Why not actually think about it beforehand???

There's a campaign at Cambridge this week. It started yesterday. They put up a blockade on a busy street and an ambulence had to turn around and go a different route, only to be stopped by a different road block. What ideological education did that achieve?

Another group went to JK's alma mater, Trinity, and dug up a chunk of the lawn, put it in a bag and dumped it in Barclay's Bank. What the hell did they think that was going to achieve?

Endless 'pranks'. People don't know how to protest these days. They think it's a video game.

You heard it here first. In today's Times, not that anyone gives a shit. Lucky it wasn't you in that ambulence.



Residents in Cambridge have accused the police of allowing “mob rule” after Extinction Rebellion activists blocked roads and vandalised the lawn of one of the university’s colleges.

The anti-climate change group was given police permission to stop traffic, including ambulances and buses, in a week-long demonstration in the city that began yesterday.

More than a dozen activists, including undergraduates, dug up a lawn at Trinity College citing its investment in fossil fuels and plans to turn a farm in Suffolk into a business park. One person chained themself to an apple tree grafted from the one said to have inspired Sir Isaac Newton.

Extinction Rebellion protesters dug up the lawn at Trinity College
Extinction Rebellion protesters dug up the lawn at Trinity College
KEITH HEPPELL
Cambridgeshire police, who did not make any arrests, explained that the force viewed moving the demonstrators off the road as a violation of their human rights.

However, residents criticised the group as well as the police. An online petition, which attracted more than 4,200 signatures, urged officers to remove the roadblocks on Fen Causeway and Trumpington Road, which were granted using emergency powers.

Rod Bishop, 65, an accountant, said the protests were bizarre and ridiculous and called for the activists to be arrested. “Personally I think the police should keep roads open and discourage vandalism by making arrests whether the college wants them to or not,” he said. “The police need to act to let people go about their daily lives.”

The demonstration in Cambridge is Extinction Rebellion’s biggest protest outside London. The Metropolitan Police were criticised last year for initially failing to stop disruption to the capital during protests, which ended up costing the taxpayer £37 million in police staffing and overtime.

A spokesman from Extinction Rebellion said that only ambulances flashing blue lights would be allowed through the Cambridge blockade, otherwise they would have to re-route.

Trinity, Cambridge’s richest college, was established by Henry VIII in 1546. It owns the 300-acre Innocence Farm between Trimley St Martin and Kirton, which it hopes to develop for warehousing, haulage yards and lorry parking.

Nathan, a spokesman for Extinction Rebellion who declined to give his surname, said the group arrived at 9am to dig up the lawn and was unopposed by college porters. “Doing these symbolic, disruptive actions is one of the ways in which we can drive the conversation into how we respect nature and get off fossil fuels as a country,” he said. “The university is an institution that is ostensibly there to create a future for the young people that it is serving, and at the moment it is wrecking that future.

“The idea you would pave over a farm when we need to think about food security is crazy. We just hope this action is going to be able to start that discussion. We draw the line at their complicity in the climate crisis . . . They have had years to respond to student and academic demands to divest.”

Activists took the chunks of turf in wheelbarrows and dumped them inside a nearby branch of Barclays bank. The group would not discuss what further protests were planned in the city.

Superintendent James Sutherland, who is leading the police response to the protest, said in a YouTube video last night: “It’s important to remember that when policing a protest, the law requires us to protect people’s right to peaceful assembly and protest.

“The Human Rights Act . . . requires us to understand and interpret all other law in relation to people’s human rights. We have to consider not just the highway being blocked but what is the impact . . . and simply a road being blocked does not make the protest itself unlawful.” A spokeswoman said on Twitter: “A crime has been recorded for criminal damage.”

A spokeswoman for Trinity said: “The college respects the right to freedom of speech and non-violent protest but draws the line at criminal damage.

“Academics at Trinity are actively engaged in research to understand and develop solutions to climate change, and taking practical steps forward.”

Extinction Rebellion has called on the University of Cambridge to divest from the fossil fuel industry, for the city council to hold a citizens’ assembly on climate justice and for Cambridgeshire county council to transition away from public transport that relies on petrol.

Extinction Rebellion are funded by billionaires and celebrities. Whom pay off the police.

E.R cause misery to the public and have lost public support ages ago. Blocking transport makes the group contradicts themselves.

Digging up a lawn which is the home for millions of insect's and species, in which birds eat to feed themselves and their young is bonkers.

Green Man wrote:
Extinction Rebellion are funded by billionaires and celebrities. Whom pay off the police.

E.R cause misery to the public and have lost public support ages ago. Blocking transport makes the group contradicts themselves.

Digging up a lawn which is the home for millions of insect's and species, in which birds eat to feed themselves and their young is bonkers.

As JK can confirm, that land in Trinity is not just a random bit of grass, it's an historic lawn in the grounds that's now in an awful mess. Dug up by these giggling idiots who didn't seem to be able to explain why they were doing it. Same with blocking ambulances. It's absolutely bucketing down today in Cambridge so of course they've all buggered off until it's dry again.

These morons also use more plastic then the average household. Tents, high visibility vests, their banners and glue bottles are made from plastic.

I agree with their cause, but why are they always blaming the older generation. Those that grew up in the 70s and 80s flew less, drove less, ate less meat, and used much less plastic (no one drank bottled water and soft drinks usually came in cans or glass bottles).

Just put ER on the same extremist list with the rest, then we be done with them.

I lost huge amounts of income due to these imbeciles blocking the trains and roads. I Couldn't get to my meetings and customers.