Meet the new eco-toffs: Champagne Swampies

Olivia Cole says that the row over Heathrow’s third runway has revealed that despite the credit crunch there is a resilient class of celebrities and toffs with expensive green tastes

Do you remember Champagne Socialists? Well, there’s a new version of that old clique, with the same curious mix of self-importance and self-indulgence but with a 21st-century green agenda. I call them Champagne Swampies. Swampy was the environmental protestor who became a cult figure in the mid-1990s, huddled in a tunnel by the proposed Newbury bypass, never washing his hair. His 2009 variants, the Champagne Swampies, share his concern for the environment, and they’re out in force at the moment protesting about the proposal for a third runway at Heathrow. But they’re more likely to have shelves of expensive carbon-neutral conditioner than dirty dreadlocks.