Two young supporters of Just Stop Oil threw chocolate cake in the face of King Charles III’s waxwork figure at Madame Tussauds this morning, quoting a 2019 speech delivered by the then Prince of Wales at Lincoln University in New Zealand.

In the keynote State of the Global Environment address, Prince Charles said “no nation, no region and no population will be inured from the impacts of food, water and energy insecurity, and the resulting economic and political insecurity that arise from our seeming utter determination quite literally to test this planet to destruction”.

In her address to the COP26 Glasgow climate conference in the same month, the late Queen said “The time for words has now moved to the time for action.” This morning those words were shouted out by the two activists as they revealed their Just Stop Oil t-shirts and threw their chocolate cake. A few onlookers clapped, and then the room was hastily cleared by security staff.

The action is the latest in several weeks of non-stop disruption by supporters from all round the UK demanding the government heeds the warnings of scientists and international bodies, and halts new fossil fuel exploration. The disgraced Prime Minister Liz Truss announced that more than 100 new exploration licences will be granted, as well as pushing to restart fracking in the UK.