BY BEN O’ROURKE
BBC Presenter Chris Packham used to be known for his peroxide hair and quirky kids programmes then graduated to BBC’s ‘Springwatch‘ and all the spin-off series. As he grew older, so did his audience and the series gained him a new generation of young viewers interested in wildlife. Few people in the UK under 50 don’t know who he is. For the past 10 years or so he’s become increasingly radical (and litigious), stepping up persecution of the fieldsports and farming communities with his Wild Justice group and crusading against those he blames for the climate change Earth has experienced. This crossed a line last year when he suggested it might be time to break the law in a programme for Channel 4.
Even the BBC appears to be putting Packham at arm’s length these days by reducing his airtime, as he expands his ‘extinctionist’ and ‘climate emergency’ campaigning, putting fear for the future into the heads of our children while offering his support for detested law-breaking protest movements like Just Stop Oil and Animal Rising.
At the weekend, Packham appeared at the (very niche) annual fieldsports hate-fest known as Hen Harrier Day at Carsington Water in Derbyshire with his two Wild Justice colleagues Mark Avery and Ruth Tingay. Instead of banging on about wildlife, Packham mainly focussed on the plight of activists recently imprisoned on charges including conspiracy. Many see these criminals as Packham’s proxies in his new incarnation as an extremist climate cult leader. He solidified this on Saturday with this shocking comment:
If anyone here is banking with Barclays, then I suggest you stick your head in a bucket of fuel and set fire to it because you are burning our planet down“
After the remark, Avery looked very uncomfortable while Tingay formed what looked like a grin. Neither showed signs of condemnation. The response from the audience shows how acceptable this form of extremism has become by those campaigning against a crisis that largely cannot be proved. Imagine the response from the authorities had Anjem Choudary or Tommy Robinson uttered the same words.
Animal Rights Extremist Ruth Tingay, Saturday, wearing a coat made from oil derivatives, grinned at Packham’s appalling comment
It’s also hard for anyone to argue Packham was joking, judging from his own repeated and passionate claims that the fossil fuel industry and anyone supporting it is “killing the planet”.
Death by self-immolation is no laughing matter. Perhaps next, he’ll suggest motorists do the same?
Mark Avery seemed most unsettled by Packham’s comments
Once again, there is talk of the police getting involved. Not for the first time this summer, the beleaguered Director General of the BBC, Tim Davie, has been forced to look at the behaviour of an errant TV presenter.
The next Attenborough?! Imagine Sir David urging suicide from those who happen to have Barclays bank accounts…
Ben O’Rourke worked as Assistant International Editor of the South China Morning Post and as a journalist for Fieldsports Britain. Ben now works as a freelance journalist and investigator. His Substack can be found here.
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