Hats off to the Kingsnorth Six for having the courage to risk prison to hold the government's misguided energy policy to account. The fact that Gordon Brown and co are planning to ramp up Britain's consumption of coal (the most climate damaging fossil fuel) had gone largely unnoticed by our mainstream media until yesterday's successful trial result. Not any more!
In case you missed the media coverage of the outcome of the Kingsnorth Six trial, here are a few representative samples. First off the blocks came last night's Channel 4 News, closely followed by a great piece from Roger Harribin on the BBC's 10 o'clock evening bulletin. Then this morning BBC Radio 4's flagship Today programme featured an interview with Ben Stewart of the Kingsnorth Six, while the Independent splashed the story across its front page and inside pages.
Amazingly most of the rest of the national press coverage was either positive or at least neutral, with lots of focus given to the expert witmess testimony of leading climate scientist Professor James Hansen. Only the likes of professional nay-sayers like Spectator columnist Melanie Phillips and Tory right-winger Teddy Taylor MP (interviewed on radio 2's Jeremy Vine show this lunchtime) were able to summon up anything like their usual levels of righteous indignation and bile.
So all in all, a good day for the climate and a bad day for the proposed new coal-fired power plants. Let's keep 'em coming!