Jacob Rees-Mogg took an interruption to his speech at today’s National Conservatism Conference in his stride, using it to profess his support for free speech. Jacob responded with good poise to his heckler, who could be heard rambling about the characteristics of fascism, before adding:

“Well there we go our jolly good fellow has had to leave, but we believe in freedom of speech. So he can have his national loony conference next week, and he can see how many people he gets to come along.”

Jacob wasn’t wrong to point to his disruptor’s “loony” characteristics. Unsurprisingly, he’s also a member of Extinction Rebellion.

Dirk Campbell is a prolific eco-activist and musician, of prog rock band heritage, with credits for films and television. He’s also got form for criticising Rees-Mogg, having done so in his most recent tweet. Unfortunately for the Prime Minister, Jacob’s sympathetic response didn’t extend to the Sunak’s U-turn on the scrapping of EU regulations. Jacob went on to label the government’s Brexit plan “pathetically under-ambitious”.

Just Stop Oil protesters are throwing their toys out of the pram this morning after the police actually – finally – did their job. The footage above shows Metropolitan Police officers dragging the protesters off the road outside Parliament, citing a Section 12 notice as cause to stop the lunatics blocking traffic. A welcome turn, although why hasn’t this happened sooner? Met Chief Sir Mark Rowley was effectively defending the force’s inaction on these protesters just last week – clearly it is within the police’s remit to stop them more often…

With local elections fast approaching Guido has heard several accounts of local Green Party candidates down-playing their connections to radical environmental groups – such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil. Criminal activism might not go down so well amongst middle class conservationists concerned about sewage…

Two such cases come from candidates for Horsham District Council. If you believed her campaign literature, you could be forgiven for taking Claudia Fisher as a humble, unassuming parish councillor. She boasts of her record stepping up to “serve the community”. Claudia doesn’t mention her multiple arrests as an Extinction Rebellion activist.

Former civil servant, Joan Grech also makes no mention of her links to controversial eco-activist groups, whilst the Green Party’s Facebook page makes no mention of candidate Lawrence Leather’s previous involvement as a spokesman for Just Stop Oil. Clearly Horsham’s Greens want to hide their links to extreme eco protesters. On an unrelated note, the Horsham Greens are looking to target Conservative voters…

This week Extinction Rebellion and their countless spin-off groups are protesting outside Parliament and across Westminster, blocking traffic and effectively shutting down Parliament Square yesterday. Guido headed over to the square yesterday afternoon to have a chat…

Tax lawyer Jolyon and his band of disbarred “top barristers” hit headlines at the end of last week for the announcement that they would refuse to prosecute eco-activists, even though they couldn’t have done so anyway. Actively refusing a client requires that an important professional principle for barristers, called the cab rank rule, is ignored. Jolyon himself previously said “It exists to protect the principle that everyone is entitled to a fair trial”. Presumably “everyone” now excludes the people Jolyon disagrees with…

In a blog post from 2015, Maugham cited the cab rank rule as the reason he could defend tax avoiders, which he admits makes up the “vast majority” of his client base, in clear conscience:

“That rule obliges me to accept such instructions as I am offered. It exists to protect the principle that everyone is entitled to a fair trial. And although the operation of the cab rank rule is (in practice) easy to escape, it’s an important rule and I have never sought to escape it.”

He was happy to stick to the rule to offer tax avoiders a fair trial for years yet is now all too eager to ignore it to help environmental extremists off the hook. At least we know where his priorities lie.

Jolyon’s fellow barristers haven’t exactly rushed to his defence either. A co-conspirator gets in touch to share this image of a LinkedIn post from a fellow KC:

With m’learned friends like these who need enemies…

The FT reports that billionaire hedge fund manager Chris Hohn’s TCI fund has demanded that the world’s largest plane maker Airbus abandon its politically motivated bid for a stake in a French cyber security firm.

Chris Hohn, for whom Rishi Sunak used to work, has written to Airbus chief executive Guillaume Faury, as one of the jet maker’s largest shareholders, saying the proposed deal appeared to be a “bailout of Atos, a company that is burdened with unsustainable levels of debt and other liabilities”.  “We want Airbus to focus on producing aircraft,” TCI tells the FT, “This looks like a politically motivated bailout.”

Hohn demanding Airbus focuses on producing more carbon emitting jets strikes Guido as hypocritical. Because according to the Guardian, Hohn is the single biggest individual donor to Extinction Rebellion, who are famously fond of blocking airport runways and London ambulances. “Humanity is aggressively destroying the world with climate change and there is an urgent need for us all to wake up to this fact,” Hohn claimed when he was revealed as XR’s main funder. Hohn’s fund has a €3 billion investment in Airbus and is a long-term holder of the shares. Airbus creates machines that emit millions of tonnes of carbon every day. By Guido’s calculation, that makes the billionaire backer of Extinction Rebellion the world’s biggest hypocrite…