I’m not sure what Just Stop Oil think they’re achieving any more

By vandalising Stonehenge with orange paint – and scandalising their support base – the eco protesters have finally lost the room. It’s time for a rethink before someone gets hurt, says Sean O’Grady

‘Rare lichen on the stones only survived thanks to the protest happening during a rare break in this summer’s downpours’ (Just Stop Oil/AFP/Getty)

I’m not sure what the Just Stop Oil protesters think they’re achieving by vandalising Stonehenge, but upsetting the very people they need to support their cause seems perverse, to say the least.

In many ways, they could scarcely have chosen a less suitable target for their vandalism. It’s obviously a world heritage site (I didn’t even need to look that up on Google), it’s a monument where people have communed in a mystical fashion with nature for millennia, a magical place that entrances New Age types that you’d imagine would be naturally sympathetic to the environmental cause... and yet they go and literally desecrate it.

It’s owned and curated by a kindly charity, English Heritage, and last time I checked, it didn’t appear to be sponsored by Saudi Aramco or Shell International.