Richard's blog

A retired oil refinery worker turned airport campaigner thought he'd take advantage of the recent snowfall to send a seasonal message to passengers departing Aberdeen airport. The local constabulary had other ideas and promptly arrested the 65-year-old and his 25-year-old accomplice for writing "Plane Stupid - you fly, they die" in diluted red ink on a snowy hilltop one-and-a-half miles from the airport.

Geoff Lamb was held for 20 hours before being released at 11am the next morning after an unimpressed procurator fiscal took one look at the case notes before throwing them in the bin. Geoff then had the pleasure of paying £150 to get his car out of the pound where the plod had kindly parked it.

Phoned up by the local newspaper, an embarrassed copper mumbled something about nicking people for "spraying an anti-aviation slogan on a snow-covered embankment". You can insert your own joke about yellow snow and piss taking here, if you like.

Source: Flickr

A group of activists from local anti-aviation group Plane Stupid Southampton have just chained themselves to the entrance of Southampton airport and erected tents at the main entrance in a bid turn the regional airport into a climate refugee camp. In addition to setting up camp today, activists have formally submitted a planning application with Eastleigh Borough Council to turn the airport into refugee housing.

The planned expansion of Southampton airport, along with 34 other regional airports in the UK, will do enough damage to the climate to force an estimated 1.3 million people in impoverished parts of the world to flee raising sea levels, flooding, drought and famine.

Increased flying is one of the main culprits of climate change. While the government has committed the UK to reducing CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050, the expanding aviation industry alone would destroy any hope of hitting this target. BAA hopes to increase passenger traffic for Southampton Airport form 1.5 million passengers a year to 3 million by 2015.

In order to get flying under control, the government needs to halt all airport expansion, and encourage people to take the train. Train journeys are ten times less damaging to the climate, and Southampton has excellent rail links to the rest of the UK, making flying unnecessary.

“People in the UK fly more per capita than anyone else, so the UK aviation industry has the greatest responsibility for the consequences of climate change. It makes perfect sense for Southampton to take on the burden of housing some of the world's climate refugees”, said Pete Barker of Plane Stupid. “It's crazy to imagine that we can tackle the serious threat posed by runaway climate change whilst still allowing airports to expand.”

Residents of Sipson have started a tour of Scotland to make links with local residents around its four airports. The SNP is pushing ahead with expansion at Edinburgh, Glasgow, Glasgow Prestwick and Aberdeen airport and the affected communities are being completely ignored. Now fed up campaigners have promised an epic battle to save their homes and neighbourhoods from aircraft noise, pollution and climate change.

Maggie Thorburn, 54, a former IT manager from London and a spokeswoman for HACAN ClearSkies, will be one of the residents giving talks about the Heathrow campaign and direct action. "I would never advocate violence," she says, "but I would advocate being a bit of a nuisance. Anybody can do direct action and should do it if they feel frustrated enough.”

Plane Stupid Brighton activists have interrupted a public meeting during a speech by Ed Miliband MP, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. They unveiled a banner accusing the government of becoming a "hypocracy" - a government of hypocrites.

The Plane Stupid activists dressed in t-shirts reading 'Ed's Popular Mobilisation Team' in reference to Miliband's call late last year for popular mobilisation on climate change. They handed out flyers listing the 34 airports planned for expansion within the UK to the audience, demonstrating the apparent lack of government resolve for tackling the environmental issues that are crucial for safe-guarding our future. Demonstrating their disapproval of the government's pandering to corporate interests, many of the audience made paper aeroplanes, which took flight towards the Secretary of State.

"It is all very well for Ed Miliband to request the public to take action but it is time for the government to provide real leadership in tackling climate change," said Larry from Plane Stupid, "passing the buck is not an option if we are to avoid the chaos and loss of life Climate Change is predicted to bring." The activists feel that their actions demonstrate their willingness to help mobilise around climate change and expect the government to follow suit by accompanying their rhetoric with strong action.

"The government's farcical plans for airport expansion are incompatible with meeting the required targets for preventing runaway climate change. We are engaging with the democratic process in every way we know how, but at the same time the government keeps hypocritically supporting never ending airport expansion," said another activist called Clare.

Last year Ed Miliband championed the Climate Change Bill, yet in January he undermined this by supporting a third runway at Heathrow. Plane Stupid's actions at this meeting were to highlight the incompatibility of these two positions, and challenge not only Ed Miliband but the Labour government in general to be held accountable for their commitments. Their actions similarly challenge Nancy Platt, Labour Party candidate, who runs the risk of perpetuate this style of government: so full of promises, and yet so devoid of conviction. The democratic structures have been worryingly bypassed not only during the government's decision on Heathrow, but also on Stansted's second runway, where BAA has had more say than both local councils and respected scientific organizations, who oppose the planned expansions.

Brighton Plane Stupid activist Lucy stated "Anyone with as much access to climate science as Ed Miliband knows that the aviation industry cannot continue to expand. Miliband and a host of other MP's have failed us on Heathrow, proving their words to be as reliable as quicksand. The global environmental situation does not allow us enough time for us to let their deceit and hypocrisy keep on growing."

Yesterday we covered the Daily Mail story about the Confidential Intelligence Unit - a special task force set up to tackle "domestic extremism". For those of you who missed the memo, the new unit has been set up by the Association of Chief Police Officers: a private company which is unanswerable to the public, believes itself outside of the remit of the Freedom of Information Act and generally lords it about the place.

Thanks to the power of t'interweb we've found the job description for the head of the CIU. Successful applicants will be tasked with "manag[ing] the covert intelligence function for domestic extremism, and the confidential intelligence unit" and "Develop[ing] the business of the confidential intelligence unit to support NCDE [National Covert Domestic Extremist] units and the wider DE policing objectives."

They will be asked to "Represent NPOIU [National Public Order Intelligence Unit] at Public Interest Immunity hearings, and legal meetings regarding sensitive source material" - basically refusing to give any info about who they are and how they work, should anyone be prepared to risk arrest and ask. It's very important that officers "Consider and shows respect for the opinions, circumstances and feelings of colleagues and members of the public, no matter what their race, religion, position, background, circumstances, status or appearance"... unless those opinions and feelings happen to be anti-state, in which case it's open season.

Update: according to yet another document we've taken off the web, people with concerns about CIU, NETCU, ACPO and the like should contact Laura Holford at the Home Office. You can phone her on 0207 0848739 - but be polite! She'll probably record all your details and pop you in the database.

Allo, allo, allo. What's going on here then? I'm Inspector Clouseau, of the Confidential Intelligence Unit, and I'm here to investigate rumours that you may be part of Plane Stupid, the anti-aviation direct action group with a penchant for bad puns. Have I found anything out? I can't tell you: all our intelligence is confidential.

Yes, this is the news, first leaked by the Mail on Sunday, that bored plod at the Association of Chief Police Officers have started up a new super secret group to investigate any groups which have anything nasty to say about capital and the state. ACPO is the private company that masterminds the nutkins at NECTU, last seen leaking reports to the Observer that pretended environmentalists were dangerous terrorists. They've named Plane Stupid as one of the groups singled out for special interest.

Other groups under investigation are anti-Zionist groups, those who instigated the recent wildcat strikes and animal rights groups. We shouldn't be surprised really: history shows that the state and industry will do anything it can to protect itself. At least they got one thing right: they're also looking into groups of fascists; suggestions that they might like to start with ACPO or NETCU should be sent to Steven Pearl, Constabulary HQ. Hinchingbrooke Park, Cambridgeshire. PE29 6NP.

Is there anything a third runway at Heathrow wouldn't do? Not according to its promoters in the aviation industry. The recent snowfall that crippled most of our airports shut Heathrow after a plane skidded onto the icy grass. Some 18-30s club rep from the Association of British Travel Agents thought they'd whack out a press release claiming that it could all have been avoided with a third runway.

This is what scientists refer to as "complete bullshit", but it's not the first time the industry has tried to sell us the runway as the curer of the world's ills. In January last year, when a plane nearly landed on West London, industry pundits queued up to lay the blame squarely on the airport only having two runways. Rather bad taste, you might say.

Sadly this straw clutching is just a taste of things to come as the battle for Sipson gathers pace. Expect more nonsensical press releases from self-publicising organisations like ABTA whenever anything goes wrong at Heathrow between now and whenever the runway gets cancelled. Years of campaigning against airport expansion have taught me one thing: the industry will say anything to get what it wants. Expect a Daily Mail front page linking the third runway to rising house prices any day now.

Last week Tory Transport supremo Theresa Villiers admitted in the third runway debate that a Conservative government would not rule out airport expansion in the South-East. This rightly confused many people: if there is no case for expanding Heathrow or Stansted, then where do the Tories want to expand? And why, if they are persuaded that climate change = bad, do they want to expand any at all?

I've been puzzling over this for several days now. If airport expansion leads to more CO2, and CO2 causes climate change, and climate change is bad news bears, then why support expansion? Then I had one of those lightbulb moments. I looked out the window and the answer lay in front of me: several feet of it, in fact. The Conservatives are supporting airport expansion because it's snowing.

Clearly all this snow could only mean that global warming was a myth; I mean, how can the world be getting warmer when for one or two days in winter we have a couple of inches of snowfall? Those crafty Tories must have checked the weather forecasts and worked it out in advance of the vote! Suddenly opposing Heathrow (where the votes are) and supporting airport expansion (because climate change is a conspiracy or whatever) makes perfect sense.