Everyone got really angry on Friday after a couple of ‘Just Stop Oil’ protesters threw soup all over Van Gogh’s priceless ‘Sunflowers’ painting in the National Gallery, but what a lot of people didn’t realise was that they hadn’t actually damaged the painting itself as there was a protective pane of glass in front of it anyway.

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I’m fairly certain that the protesters were well aware of that but one of them has still decided to come out and make her intentions clear. Here’s what 20 year old Anna Holland had to say about the stunt:

Absolutely no damage done to the painting, it was behind glass and we never, ever would have considered doing it if we didn’t know it was behind glass so that we wouldn’t do any damage.

I mean literally we were sat up there still glued to the wall, they wiped it off with a bit of kitchen roll.

I recognise that it looks like a slightly ridiculous action, I agree it is ridiculous, but we’re not asking the question ‘should everybody be throwing soup on paintings’, what we’re doing is getting the conversation going so we can ask the questions that matter.

Questions like ‘is it ok that Liz Truss is licensing over 100 new fossil fuel licences?’ and ‘is it ok that fossil fuels are subsidised 30 times more than renewables when offshore wind is currently nine times cheaper?’

That is a pretty good question to be honest and I suppose it is good that these people are drawing attention to these issues, but the fact is that they’re pissing everyone off way more with their actions and that’s probably going to detract from everything they’re attempting to achieve. I bet most people who have seen heard about this incident don’t even bother listening to what they’re saying to be honest. I’m not really sure what other tactics they can employ to try and get people to listen though. Catch 22.

For more of the same, check out this oil protester giving a remarkably composed interview whilst being dragged off by the police. Fair play I suppose.