Climate protestor had a good point until...

Police "over-egg" the number of people taking part in demonstrations to justify the amount of cash they have spent, a climate protester has claimed.

Phil McLeish, from Climate Camp, said police used to "downplay" the number of protesters at demonstrations.

Reading the article I felt he had a point:

"Police will, at least nowadays, will want to overload the march with police officers, so a typical ratio between police and protesters now could easily be one-to-one, which 10 or 15 years ago was never the case.

Based on anecdotally eveidence I have to agree, whenever you see a demo nowadays it is lined with police and sometimes it looks like they are being a bit OTT, which can be provocative as well as expensive:

Freedom of Information requests suggest £5.9m was spent on policing at a recent climate camp protest, which he said worked out at about "£4,000 a head," said the climate campaigner.

"The police - having committed resources like that - have got to pretend that there is something to police," he added.

Just as you are being lulled into sympathy, if if he is deluded in his beliefs, his true colours start flying:

He also accused officers of acting like "private security guards" to protect the property of firms such as BAA and the Kingsnorth coal fired power station, in Kent, owned by E.on, both targeted recently by climate camp campaigners.

Listen you bozo, this private property and the police are paid to protect private property. It one of the few things we want the state to do, protecting us. Just because you managed to con a jury that you actions were somehow justified it doesn't give you the right to attack private property whenever you like.

Climate Camp claims to have "outsmarted 26 police forces" during their week-long protest outside the Kingsnorth power station in August, which culminated in an attempt to shut down the plant.

Ah, so what you are really complaining about is that you didn't want to have a peaceful, lawful protest, you wanted to try to outwit them so you could break the law. And you wonder why there was lots of police around? Given you got through there obviously wasn't enough police on duty.

Given his own testimony Climate Camp should be banned from having protest and if they do this git should be personally surcharged the full cost of the policing action required to keep it peaceful. It because of twats like him that genuine peaceful protesters are being harrased and banned from Parliament square.

At while I'm at it Richard North can piss of as well:

Richard North, of the Social Affairs Unit think tank, told MPs and peers: "Society should rethink its attitude that anyone who protests is probably on the side of the angels".

The rights of those targeted by protesters mattered as much as those of protesters, he argued, and Parliament should not be "trumped" by demonstrations or indulge the "fantasies" of those taking part in them that that they were "scruffily clad peasants" taking on a "state behemoth".

I would go in to a DK rant about him if I had time