Tight-lipped commentators have been seething over a protest camp that’s sprung up in Parliament Square. With the Queen preparing to drop in, Iain Dale worries that “[t]he whole Square is an embarrassment to our city and our nation“. The Telegraph is even more ferocious, lambasting the “picket-line squalor” and calling for Parliament to “clean up the mess on its very own doorstep“.

Now, I don’t know the legal status of these activists. Come to that, I’ve no idea of who they are or what their message is. Whatever the rights and wrongs of ‘em, however, they’ve provided an insight into the contempt with which the media classes hold the public’s activism. The Telegraph wrinkles its nose at the “grievance-monger[s] and fruitcake[s]” before going on, hilariously, to pose the fear that unrestricted protest “dilutes any impact“. Yes, my loves, I bet you’re terribly concerned. Meanwhile, Benedict Brogan, Deputy Editor of that rag, demands that Boris Johnson “clear the loons out“. Apparently, Brian Haw’s protest – or “protest” as Brogan mystifyingly dubs it – offends our tender journalist’s most delicate of stomachs.

Why, these pieces seem to quaver, must you people fuss so? Who can blame them when we’re armed with watchdogs like the Telegraph: a paper which regurgitates the MI6′s propaganda; actively opposes moves to hold the powerful to account and breaks tectonic-trembling stories over, er – duck houses. With these fearless truthseekers guarding over us, we have nothing to fear from harmless, tent-dwelling protestors.

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