As the country gets some rare respite from strikes, Guido’s attention has returned to the other rabble of leftie loons grinding public services to a halt. An FoI Request to the Metropolitan Police has revealed the staggering cost of eco-loons’ protests. Over the past year alone, they’ve cost the taxpayer well over £18,000,000.

This can be broken down as follows:

• Just Stop Oil protests on 14^th March – 7^th April: £505,480
• Extinction Rebellion Protests 8^th – 18^th April: £10,126,973
• Just Stop Oil Protests August 26^th: £81,644
• Just Stop Oil Protests 1st October – 14^th November: £6,499, 753
• Just Stop Oil Protests 28th November – 14^th December: £982,433

These are just the costs to the Met Police specifically – they don’t include other police forces, costs incurred at a national level or the cost of dealing with damage amongst others. In this vein, Guido can also reveal the cost of cleaning up Just Stop Oil’s protest at the Bank of England to be £20,644. When combined with figures previously reported by the Telegraph for other costs, this brings the total cost to well over £60,000,000. At £150 per hectare, that’s enough to fund government woodland planting grants for an area the size of the Forest of Dean. 35 times over.

The Met’s released data also includes arrests at eco-loon events in April and then from October to December. These include:

• 688 for highway obstruction
• 115 for criminal damage
• 97 for public order offences
• 37 for aggravated trespass
• 2 for conspiracy to commit arson
• 2 for theft
• 2 for possession of a deadly weapon
• 1 for drugs
• 1 for assault on a police officer

In total there were over 1,000 arrests. Just 24% resulted in a charge.