Eco-extremists have been exposed, Mark Dolan says

An eco-protester has used adhesive to attach himself to a microphone at the radio station LBC. It's the first time anyone's ever been glued to LBC.

And this young man, all of 22 years of age, is from a campaign group called Just Stop Oil. By the looks of this waster, it seems he just stopped washing, as well as just stopped brushing his hair and just stopped having a job. Not too many of these eco-protesters are high-flyers are they?

With seemingly unlimited amounts of time, with which to disrupt the lives of people who do have jobs and contribute to this country and its economy. Strange that these dangerous extremists don’t seem to care about the economy, even though I’ll hazard a guess they still want a national health service, policing, schools, welfare and bin collections, for all their recycled goodies – you know, those cans of craft beer at three quid a pop and all of the packaging for their lentil burgers and vegan bacon.

Now I am concerned about the environment, I want to get carbon down and who doesn't want cheap, reliable renewable energy. The green technology sector is a huge growth area for the UK, we are world leaders at it and it could be a real money spinner for us, providing huge numbers of high quality jobs and generating not just energy independence, but a significant national income too.

But energy is a long game, it's a marathon not a sprint. In the end, I suspect we need a mix, with short to medium term use of fossil feels, particularly clean fossil feels like fracking if that could be made to work, plus the oil, gas and coal reserves beneath our feet.

And we invest now, to achieve nuclear and renewables over the medium to long-term. But whatever we do, it's got to be a national conversation. The last time I checked, we live in a representative democracy. Although I'll be honest, it hasn't felt like it recently.

And you the people must be consulted about the direction of travel, because it will affect the cost to you of heating your homes and fuelling your cars and there is a wider duty of care owed to the whole country to pursue policies which have a vision yes, but which are affordable, practical, reliable and firmly in the national interest. Bankrupting an already overstretched country, with the national debt now almost the size of the economy itself, is far from in the national interest.

And we have a long tradition of debate and political discourse in this country, and every four or five years we have a big public vote. I don't think in 2019 anyone voted for net zero, and I'm certainly not sure they voted for a £20,000 bill for an eco-boiler or 30 to 35 grand for an electric car. It's already an outrage that the British public haven't been consulted about the expensive green agenda, even if it is the right thing to do, which it might be.

What's worse is the arrogance of eco-zealots like this young man on LBC who is stuck there now and will probably be presenting the overnight show – there are worse gigs. This 22-year-old who hasn't even had his first shave yet, and has never seen a bath, thinks he can dictate to the government and therefore the British people by breaking the law in order to get his way and pursue his ideology.

There is a certain religious fervour about some members of the green lobby, that we've somehow got to get all of our energy from windmills as of tomorrow morning and segue to a plant-based diet, which let's be clear is a hellish dystopia of processed junk vegan food that will further enrich the unscrupulous food industry and further enfeeble human health. No wonder so many of these eco-protesters don't have a job. With the vegan diet, they've scarcely got the energy to protest.

And there's a debate to be had around global warming and carbon emissions. For me it is a concern and we must address it. We have a duty to hand the planet to the next generation, in as good a condition as we found, it if not better. Others take the view that it's been exaggerated, that it's not a threat or the planet has always had climate change.

Personally, I like to challenge orthodoxies. Doing so has good historical precedent. But who knows? I'm no expert. But as we learned during Covid, one diagnosis of a problem and one solution, i.e lockdowns, is not a healthy or constructive form of public policy. So we’ve got to hear all voices when it comes to our climate challenges and work constructively with the British people, through democratic means, to preserve the precious planet that we have and to invest in its long-term future.

But this won't be done by lying down on motorways, stopping ambulances taking patients to hospital or stopping mums and dads from getting the kids to school, and stopping those who do contribute to our economy and society, from going about their business and getting to work.

All of these eco-zealots are undemocratic bullies who refuse to engage in a discussion, and they don't care about democracy or the consent of the British people. For these eco zealots, it’s an ideology, a religion.

When I watched that man glue his hand to the microphone at LBC, I just thought what an absolute cult. And who knows, these campaigners might be right about everything, but let them win the arguments through the media, through public discourse and through the ballot box. Britain can always do better and I want to go green baby. Who doesn't want cleaner air and a long-term source of energy that allows us to starve the monster Putin of the money with which to pay for his war machine?

If solar panels, windmills and a flurry of nuclear power stations starve dictators like Putin of his resources, happy days. But as it stands, Britain is responsible for 1% of global carbon emissions so I suggested the next time this young man wants to lie down on the motorway and glue his hands to a microphone, perhaps he'd like head over to mega-polluting China and to try that trick at a radio station in Beijing or Shanghai. Then he’d really come unstuck.

These eco zealots are not campaigners, they are terrorists, undermining our democratic values, to force their economically ruinous, scientifically debatable ideology on hard-working Brits. Margaret Thatcher famously one said you can't negotiate with terrorists. Absolutely right. In fact what you do is expose them to the long arm of the law. They can glue themselves to a jail cell.

As the energy crisis has demonstrated, with peoples bills going up by upwards of 50%, with worse to come this winter, it's now clear that walking away from existing fossil fuels, that we have at our fingertips, has made the west more dependent on the likes of Putin for his oil and gas and exposed ordinary people, punch drunk from two years of financial hell, to unprecedented fuel bills, and a cost of living crisis, in which people are choosing between whether, to eat or heat.

We’ve learnt a hard lesson folks - go woke, no smoke.