Oh God, they are at it again. Yesterday the eco-terrorists from Extinction Rebellion drove up to the Treasury in an untaxed – and presumably uninsured – former fire engine and attempted to spray four hundred gallons of fake blood in some sort of weird protest.

The fact that their stunt went wrong and they lost control of the hose, sending most of the liquid over themselves is neither here nor there. Why on earth were they allowed to drive their ramshackle vehicle anywhere near a government building and are we poor tax payers to pay for the clean up operation?

Where were the cops damnit? For all anyone knew this could have been a group from Al Qaeda, the New IRA or some similar terrorist mob and armed with firearms rather than hoses.

A number of the so-called protestors were arrested, but what good will that do. I do not suppose they languished in police cells for long. One eighty three year old – old enough to have a little common sense – laughingly told the media that this was his fifth arrest and he was protesting ‘for his four grandchildren.’

Will they appreciate his gesture when they are teased at school for their grandfather’s actions?

This group of loons even draped a banner over the fire engine reading: ‘STOP FUNDING CLIMATE DEATH’.

What on earth does that mean? Who is funding what?

I don’t often speak up for the government but they have already done what they could to placate this mob, pledging unrealistic targets for decarbonising the economy. What do these people expect ministers to do in response to another two weeks of disruption as has been promised — close all fossil-fuel power stations and ban all cars tomorrow? Let’s have two weeks without lighting or heating perhaps?

I am sure the deluded, hard line tree-huggers who turned out at the Treasury really do believe they can change the world, but so did the Baader-Meinhof gang.

I am sorry but I don’t believe in their fervent eco credentials. These people are demonstrating for the sake of it. ‘Look at me, Mum, I’m on Sky News! Aren’t I the bees knees?’

They don’t give a tuppenny damn for the misery their actions bring to millions of innocent people who just want to get on with their lives.

And of course, the irony is that ever since Bunter Johnson, as London mayor was forced by Mother Maybe to get rid of his water cannon, we can’t even turn the fire hoses on the so called protesters.

The plod won’t do anything so the ordinary people are forced to put up with this anarchic nonsense. All because they say they are trying to protect the planet.

Why didn’t Osama bin Laden think of that one. He might have been looked on as a revolutionary hero today, rather than a viciously unfeeling terrorist – fortunately dead.

And inevitably perhaps, that peculiar little Swedish girl, Greta Thunberg is tipped as favourite to win the Nobel peace prize next week. I am sure she believes in her cause and perhaps she might be right – although I don’t think so – in blaming previous generations for the state of the world, but she promotes anarchy, civil disobedience and fear rather than peace.

Miss Thunberg needs to get out into the remoter parts of the world and see for herself how lucky she is to live in a modern society like Sweden. Instead of which she is revelling in her new-found fame. When I first saw her on the idiot box a year or so ago, there was innocence in her eyes, but that has been replaced with the fanatical fire of a revolutionary terrorist.

It is all rather sad.

The new secretary general of CITES (the United Nations Commission for Trade in Endangered Species) is a lady called Ivonne Higuero and she has already stuck her oar in where elephants are concerned.

This woman, who has probably never seen an elephant in her life sees no problem with violently removing young elephants from their mothers and sending them off to a life of misery in far off countries.

On taking office, Higuero immediately dropped the established protocol of her office to endorse the sale of live elephants from Africa. Her endorsement was seen as an attempt to influence decisions that for the past year and a half have been debated in a working group of the CITES Animals’ Committee. This group have been attempting to control the largely unregulated trade in live elephants from Zimbabwe to Chinese zoos that cannot really house and care for them.

While having no background in elephant biology, Higuero stated that the elephants involved were old enough to be separated from their families because they ‘had small tusks.’

Ye Gods! This woman is dangerous, but then as I have said before, so is the entire organisation.

Let’s take the case of an illegal shipment of rosewood from Madagascar that was intercepted in Singapore five years ago.

The authorities in Madagascar confirmed that the shipment was illegal, but Singapore courts have now said the confiscated rosewood should be returned to the ‘businessman’ who imported the logs – the court ordered the twenty-nine thousand, four hundred and thirty four logs that authorities seized in March 2014 to be released to Mr Wong and his firm ‘as soon as was practicable.’ The wood is valued at something like $50 million.

The worthy Mr Wong said he was not an ‘importer,’ and that the logs were in transit, and should not have been confiscated. Where the illegal logs were supposedly in transit to was not questioned by the Singapore court.

Yes, I fear I am as confused writing this as you must be reading it!

But this just goes to show how little control CITES has over illegal trade. Of course, the case is daft as the trees have long been cut down and can’t be replaced. Madagascar took their time to admit the logs were illegally exported but now the court In Singapore says the logs should be returned to the businessman who arranged the illegal export.

How can this be? The only logical conclusion is that CITES is so riddled with corrupt inefficiency that it is not fit for purpose.