The real reason Just Stop Oil target airports

Just Stop Oil’s campaign to infuriate ordinary people has moved up a gear. After bringing traffic to a standstill and disrupting play at the snooker, now its activists are targeting those havens of peace, harmony and low blood pressure: Britain’s bustling airports during the school summer holidays.

A group of JSOers sat themselves down on the floor and locked their hands together at Gatwick’s south terminal yesterday, in an attempt to block the path through security. (Intrepid holidaymakers merely stepped over them and they were swiftly removed.) Now, JSO poster girl Phoebe Plummer – fresh from her conviction for throwing soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers – has popped up at a protest in which paint was sprayed around Heathrow Airport.

I’m almost surprised it has taken JSO activists this long to go after mainstream air travel (they have been known to spray up private jets before). Indeed, 21st century environmentalism has been obsessed with civilian aviation, despite it representing just eight per cent of UK emissions, and despite leading greens regularly being caught out as massive jet-setting hypocrites.