On this day, August 4, 2008, the forces of law and order provided law. And order. Forcefully.
At the Third Climate Camp
“Police used pepper spray on the crowd at the Climate Camp 2008. It was around 6am Monday 4th August and campers had been woken to the alarm of ‘cops on site’. They were trying to seize vehicles that campers had parked at a top gate of the camp. It was denied later the same day by Sir Ian Blair that any pepper spray would have been used, but this footage clearly shows its unnecessary use.
This was the same Climate Camp where the Met put it about that police had suffered injuries and been hospitalised. A Labour Minister said 70 police had been injured.
The right wing media picked this up (of course) and ran stories about crazed violent eco-anarchists.
But guess what, it turned out that NONE OF THIS WAS TRUE.
The Liberal Democrats put in a Freedom of Information Act request. The answer
“showed that no officers in the £5.9m police operation at Kingsnorth power station in Kent during August had been injured by protesters. Instead, police records showed that their medical unit had dealt mostly with toothache, diarrhoea, cut fingers and “possible bee stings”.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/dec/16/kingsnorth-environment-police-inquiry-injuries
And, of course
Vernon Coaker, the Home Office minister, told MPs at Commons question time yesterday [December 15]: “I was informed that 70 police officers were hurt and naturally assumed that they had been hurt in direct contact as a result of the protest. That clearly wasn’t the case and I apologise if that caused anybody to be misled.”
“If”. Yeah, sweet non-apology apology. Stay classy, Vern.
On this day the PPM was 384.32 ppm. As of August 2021 it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.
Why this matters.
The media love a good beat-up. And most are in a symbiotic relationship with our lords and masters.
What happened next?
Climate Camp imploded (it wasn’t just down to the undercover cops, btw). Various groups kept the NVDA flame alive. Extinction Rebellion came along in 2018 and learnt absolutely nothing from the history. Nothing. Nada. Nowt.
Oh well.