There’s an impressive encampment of climate change protestors in the Marble Arch area of London. They’ve blocked the entrances to Oxford Street, Edgware Road and Park Lane, so are causing a fair amount of disruption to London traffic, as they intended. It would be churlish to point out that pollution levels are rising in surrounding streets. That’s temporary, where as the climate disaster is likely to be very permanent. As I walked among the dozens of tents this morning, where people had spent the night, I was reminded of my teenage years in the 1980s demonstrating against nuclear weapons. In the height of the Cold War, when Reagan and Thatcher faced off against the Soviet Union, they appeared to represent the ultimate existential threat. I remember camping out on Clapham Common in 1985 and using it as a base for demos and protests in a week of action. The Leader of Lambeth Council, ‘Red’ Ted Knight, paid us a visit. At the time, if you’d asked me why I spent more time
Phil Woodford co-hosts Colourful Radio's weekly news review show from London. He previously stood on two occasions as a Labour Parliamentary candidate.