1st August 2013
We’ve all heard about the revolution kicking off in Balcombe, but before today few would have known that the HQ of Britain’s premier fracking corporation Cuadrilla are located in the Midlands. Their offices in Lichfield were stormed today by a group acting in solidarity with the bockade in West Sussex.
A man in a suit, calling himself Mr Fracktastic, was accompanied by another man in a high vis carrying a fracking rig, which appeared to be made of cardboard. The unsightly duo were chased down the streets of a picturesque city, known by the locals as LichVegas, by an articulate and well-dressed mob armed with well-researched facts and catchy chants.
Mr Fracktastic shouted incoherently through a megaphone: ‘It’s going to be fracking fantastic, we’ll produce billions of litres of chemically enriched delicious water for you all to drink.’
The group responded by chanting: ‘No Dash For Gas! Reclaim the Power!’ and handed out informative leaflets to bemused onlookers. The protesters explained how fracking has become the frontline of the Government’s Dash for Gas, their lans to build up to 40 new gas-fired power stations as our existing power stations come to the end of their life. They’ll be pumped full of fracked gas fresh from our devastated countryside, leaving a trail of broken communities behind. As we spin into climate chaos from further fossil fuel fanaticism, the price of gas is set to rocket, pushing even more people into fuel poverty.
The rag tag bunch finally arrived at Cuadrilla HQ only to find that the doors of the office were locked and de-logo’d, guarded by police and surounded by a (modest) media frenzy.
‘Ha!’ Mr Fracktastic exclaimed. ‘The police are doing their job; protecting corporate profit and not the people.’ The coporate big wig proceeded to launch into a tirade, declaring the protesters a ‘bunch of smelly hippy vermin who simply do not understand the medically proven benefits of water enhanced with fracking fluid.’
Within a minute the posh executive was ovecome by the crowd, first cowering under the cardboard drilling rig. Finally, he lay on his back, arms and legs raised in the air and whimpered ‘I submit’ in a distinctive Etonian accent.
It was a small victory for the forces of sanity, in a battle that is set to continue in the coming weeks, with an ongoing blockade at Balcombe and the Reclaim the Power camp