Extinction Rebellion and its offshoots hark back to an age-old Millenarian crankery.
At the weekend, a video went viral of 21-year-old climate protester Maddie Budd pouring lighter fluid over her arm and, ill-advisedly though I suppose logically, setting light to it. She is then immediately – almost comically – shocked into consciousness by the subsequent pain. The self-immolation video emerged just after Budd had been filmed befouling a memorial to the late NHS fundraiser, Captain Sir Tom Moore, with liquid human excrement.
