Pity the poor carbon-chomping celebrities who think they’re ‘just like us’

I regularly travel through Shadwell station in east London. It’s in a working class area, surrounded by council housing and some expensive new flats, bought as investments by foreigners, or rented by workers at financial institutions in Canary Wharf just down the road. What pea-brained activist decided that commuters from this neighbourhood and Canning Town, another working class area on the other side of Canary Wharf, were suitable targets for a protest by Extinction Rebellion?

London is mostly inhabited by the just-about-managing working class and the wealthy upper-middle class. Property prices have forced the ordinary families in between to the outer limits, resulting in longer journey times to work and less time spent at home.

Moving around the city (unless you are wealthy, a professional taxi driver or just paid to deliver stuff) means using public transport – crowded, hot and quite exhausting. Considering all this, passengers are generally polite and accommodating, even when numbers are swelled by dumb tourists blocking doors with luggage and letting their children occupy seats reserved for the elderly and infirm. So the outbreak of fury when Extinction Rebellion campaigners stupidly decided to glue themselves to the Docklands Light Railway and sit on top of tube trains during the morning rush hour was extremely unusual.

Users of public transport put up with aggressive beggars, loud phone calls and unpleasant eating, usually adopting a poker face. But the events of Thursday showed they are most not prepared to give up their right to arrive at work on time. Many would be fearful of having their pay docked. And they have rights, just like the demonstrators.

One of the people dragged off a train at Canning Town by furious passengers was 36-year-old Mark Ovland, who’d already been arrested and released by police several times during this so-called “autumn uprising”. Ovland was the oaf who failed to control a fire hose containing fake blood outside the Treasury on 3 October and inadvertently sprayed several passersby. I wonder who paid their cleaning bills?

He says: “I’m in this because I love life so much, and I want it to continue and I don’t know what else to do.” Fair enough, but is he targetting the right people? The Reverend Sue Parfitt, aged 77, is another determined serial protestor who sat on the roof of a train last Thursday. George Monbiot, a Guardian columnist, was also among those arrested in Trafalgar Square last week. You can’t help wondering if this is a demo dominated by the middle class.

Certainly, that was the impression when ordinary members of the public were the recipients of an open letter on climate change from more than 100 actors and musicians earlier in the week. High-earning signatories included Ruby Wax, Steve Coogan, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mel B, Bob Geldof, Sienna Miller and Mark Rylance.

The letter sought to emphasise how much we all have in common, claiming “we live high carbon lives and the industries that we are part of have huge carbon footprints – like you, and everyone else, we are stuck in this fossil-fuel economy” – and went on to urge support for XR, as the Extinction Rebellion protest has become known. But they also included a cack-handed attack on the media: “The stories you write calling us climate hypocrites will not silence us. The media exists to tell the public the truth. Right now there has never been a more urgent time for you to educate yourselves on the climate and ecological emergency and to use your voices to reach new audiences with the truth,” they wrote.

This letter enraged me on so many levels. First, most journalists are utterly committed to telling the truth about climate change, but we do allow opposing points of view a voice. It’s called free speech.

Why celebrities think their voices carry more weight than that of a tax-paying office clerk or canteen assistant remains a mystery. If I were in charge of XR, I’d beg Sienna and co to shut up and let ordinary folk like the Reverend Sue Parfitt do the talking.

One minute Mel B, Benedict and their like are flogging perfume, posh whiskey and expensive cars, while travelling on planes to promote their movies and albums in distant destinations (when a Skype call could do the job quite nicely), and next they are claiming to be “just like you and me”.

I have never understood why charities and the United Nations continue to use celebrities to get a message across when real-life stories have far more impact.

Last week another celeb, racing driver Lewis Hamilton, seemed to have lost his mojo, telling his millions of supporters on social media that the world would end unless we all adopted a vegan diet and claiming that he was extremely concerned about the future of the planet. Yes, the same man who burns tons of fuel racing fast cars for a living. You couldn’t make it up.

For two weeks, Londoners have continued to go about their daily business while thousands of XR campaigners have blocked bridges, occupied Trafalgar Square and popped up outside the offices of companies they consider traitors to their cause. On Wednesday, YouTube was a target, with placards reading “stop platforming climate denial”. London mayor Sadiq Khan has been outmanoeuvred by the police, who (after making over 1,600 arrests) decided to implement the 1986 Public Order Act, restricting demonstrations to Trafalgar Square and make it an offence to demonstrate after 9pm this week.

The mayor was not consulted beforehand, and told it was an “operational decision”. Although Khan might have sympathised with the Extinction Rebellion’s cause, he was forced to strongly criticise their methods after the incidents on the Underground. And, to show they are not entirely unsympathetic, the police have said they will be investigating the actions of the commuters who forcibly dragged the demonstrators off the train and set about them on the platforms, describing them as “unacceptable”.

Extinction Rebellion quickly realised they had screwed up and issued a grovelling apology on Facebook, expressing ‘”regret”, and acknowledging the action had been “diversive”.

This Saturday sees the last day of demonstrations for XR in London, but what will it all have achieved? The police have been stretched to the limit, the same people have been arrested many times over. The judicial review into the legality of the police ban will not be heard until Monday. Some opinion polls show support for the demonstrators has dropped considerably, to as low as 14 per cent. More than half of the public think this autumn uprising was “a waste of time”.

The tragedy is, ordinary people are unanimous in their support for green legislation and the government has just announced they it is considering charging a toll for every mile we drive. Government has to be held to account, not the inhabitants of Shadwell; XR need to refocus activities and stop preaching to the converted.