The protestors are said to be ‘in disarray’ over news of Mr Monbiot’s imminent arrival at the camp. The visit is supposedly to offer ‘advice on fully ethical and sustainable modes of inner city non-violent passive resistance’, but it is widely seen by the tented ones as the quickest way to bore them into giving up any hope of changing the world and going home instead for a nice, hot, gas-powered bath.

The City of London Corporation’s planning committee says that they have ‘thought long and hard’ before calling in Mr Monbiot, a move which County Hall refers to as the ‘nuclear option’ – although, they clarified, ‘obviously, without the nuclear’.

Monbiot (48) is believed to have already begun the walk to London from his wattle-and-daub eco-home in the Brecon Beacons. He plans to travel as far as Pangbourne on foot, completing the journey down the Thames in a geodesic kayak, finally riding into St Paul’s square on a solar powered Segway.

‘Don’t get me wrong: George is, like, my hero,’ explained protester Jeremy ‘Jezza’ Compton-Couvela sitting on the steps of St Paul’s, shivering, and drenched in global warming-related rain. ‘But as soon as he turned up at Dale Farm he started checking whether I had lithium ion batteries in my torch, which I thought was just a bit too ‘investigative’. I let it go, I went along with it, but by the time he left, I was sharing my tent with a homeless family from Dagenham and cooking them a hearty vegan breakfast every morning. I really can’t go through all that again.’

The staff and clergy of Saint Paul’s are already resigning en masse in protest at the plan.

‘I realise it’s a fairly desperate measure’ admitted City of London Corporation’s policy and resources committee chairman, Stuart Fraser. ‘But the only workable alternative was to send in Vanessa Redgrave. I know this is the City of London, but we do have some ethics.’

The rare copies had a mistake in the story at the bottom of page 12, about trees. The word ‘government’ was wrongly printed with a capital ‘G’. The defective copies, dubbed the ‘Grauniad Grey’, were initially changing hands for £500, but now, seventeen years later, copies in mint condition are worth a great deal more.

The previous record for a defective newspaper was set in 2007 when an issue of the Financial Times containing ‘stranglewank’ misspelt as two separate words, fetched £200,000.
Fredd