Lush Behind Stansted Airport Protest

[robbieduncan]

Lush Funds behind Stansted Airport protest as reported by the BBC.

I'm not sure what to say about this: Lush are a mostly privatly owned company so the owner can use his own cash and the company profits as he sees fit, but funding a group who caused missery to thousands of people seems like a strange thing to be doing.

I've not checked, but I do wonder how much Lush product is flown into the UK...

 

[Blue Velvet]

And here's me thinking the protest had something to do with airport expansion and planning rights... I heard an interview with one of the protestors comparing herself to Emmeline Pankhurst.

They're pretty vocal about their principles and support a ton of charities and causes, not just this one. Airport expansion is one of their favorites, it seems.

 

[.Andy]

Lush Funds behind Stansted Airport protest as reported by the BBC.

I'm not sure what to say about this: Lush are a mostly privatly owned company so the owner can use his own cash and the company profits as he sees fit, but funding a group who caused missery to thousands of people seems like a strange thing to be doing.

From the article it doesn't appear that Lush funds were given with any plans to disrupt flights or to condone anything illegal. It's an important distinction to make. You're trying to make it sound as if they gave money with the aim of willfully causing disruption, whereas they gave money with the aim of combat climate change through peacefully protesting airport expansion. We'll see if they give money in the future....

Lush could have definitely been smarter about this. There's often at least one person with a sinister intentions at every protest that paints ends up tarring everyone.

 

[DarrenG]

From the article it doesn't appear that Lush funds were given with any plans to disrupt flights or to condone anything illegal. It's an important distinction to make. You're trying to make it sound as if they gave money with the aim of willfully causing disruption, whereas they gave money with the aim of combat climate change through peacefully protesting airport expansion. We'll see if they give money in the future....

In which case why is the owner stating that he may fund their legal defence? If he did not support the unlawful disruption then why fund their defence?

I hope that this hits his profits hard.

 

[Peterkro]

He's stated he didn't support illegal activities but did support Plane Stupid. Makes a change from donating funds to the Conservative Party I guess.Poor the thousands of inconvenienced planet killers.(when I read the thread title I thought someone was implying someone involved with Plane Stupid had a alcohol problem)

 

[.Andy]

In which case why is the owner stating that he may fund their legal defence? If he did not support the unlawful disruption then why fund their defence?

Listen to the audio that's towards the bottom of the article. From what I can gather that part of the article is an absolutely terrible cherry-picked paraphrase.

edit
It goes something (poorly paraphrased) like this;
interviewer: Are you planning on using your company's money to fund the legal fees of Plane Stupid?
MC: It doesn't seem that it will be necessary blah blah blah....
interviewer: But you would be prepared to do that?
MC: Not necessarily. Depends on what's required/needed blah blah. I wouldn't use the companies money.
interviewer: But you'd use your own personal money?
MC: I may, but it would depend on what's what. I've used my own money in the past...

If you're really interested it's worth listening to the interview. IMO he comes across a lot more reasonable than is portrayed in the article.

 

[StuBeck]

That seems to happen a lot, the interviewer keeps on asking the same question, increasingly angry the entire time, then says "oh, and thanks for the interview" at the end.