Just Stop Oil's Stonehenge attack is their Rishi Sunak D-Day moment

The 1936 self-help book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, has sold millions of copies. We can’t pretend to have read it but feel confident that it does not suggest spraying orange paint over things the people you want to influence really like. Someone should tell the activists of Just Stop Oil.

Their latest target is undoubtedly one of their worst: nothing less than the 4,500-year-old Stonehenge monument, described as a “wonder of the world, a spiritual place and a source of inspiration… a masterpiece of engineering” by English Heritage. And just in time for today’s summer solstice. Just Stop Oil said the powder paint would "wash away with rain”; English Heritage said experts were “investigating the extent of the damage”.

These antics are so counter-productive that conspiracy theorists may claim they are the work of those keen to prevent action on climate change. However, we suspect it’s simply the product of the same mix of arrogance and stupidity that Rishi Sunak’s advisers seem to be displaying on an almost daily basis. It certainly feels like a blunder almost as bad as his early D-Day exit.