How Just Stop Oil ruined the National Gallery for everyone

The queue is eating into their precious last day in the capital. “We’ve been to London many times and every time we would just dash into the National Gallery for half an hour, have a look at the Impressionists and dash out again.”

Bergen, a former museum worker from California, says the assaults “show how important art is in our culture. They know that by attacking it, they’re going to get a huge response.”

Allison, 52, from Minnesota, says: “I don’t like destructive behaviour. It turns me off. I’m a painter, so I really appreciate art and I’m trying to see as many museums as possible in three days.”

Father and son Peter and Robert Brunning have come from Norfolk. “I’ve got no time for them at all,” says Peter, 73, who sighs when I mention the soup. “A minority are spoiling it for everybody.” Robert, 40, who works in marketing, says: “It’s a shame they want to spoil these artefacts – they’re for everyone. They’ll just lose people from their cause.”

But Peter King, 74, emeritus professor of history at the University of Leicester, who has come from Cornwall to see the Vermeers and Rembrandts, says: “I’m really in favour of Just Stop Oil – the planet will be shot in 10 years. If we have to wait a bit longer [to get in], for goodness’ sake, what’s the matter with us? Can’t we do that? How on earth are we going to get anybody to pay attention to the climate crisis? If you don’t do anything that inconveniences people, there’s no story.”