We selfish gits must wear the name with pride

I walked down Villiers Street to Embankment Tube station. In front of me were two Extinction Rebels, a mother and daughter. Strapped to the little girl’s back was a white teddy bear. Strapped to the bear’s back was the handwritten slogan: ‘You selfish gits. Stop burning down my house.’ I wonder how they knew I was a selfish git, since I wore no emblem to announce the fact. Luckily they did not know I was off to a large party of fellow selfish gits to launch volume III of my biography of Mrs Thatcher. It was taking place in the Banqueting House, Whitehall, yards from XR’s encampment, and was eloquently addressed by our git-friendly Prime Minister, who referred to them as ‘uncooperative crusties’. Had they found us out, they might have tried to gatecrash.

On the whole, the Extinction Rebels were peaceful. When I walked through their gathering the following morning, the scene reminded me of the Fourth of June at Eton, with ordinary parents in ordinary tents and nouveaux riches ones in huge picnic tents with pseudo-Georgian plastic windows and large drinks areas at the front.