TalkRADIO host Mike Graham forgot how nature works and claimed you can “grow” concrete during an exchange with an Insulate Britain spokesperson.
Mike was certainly left red-faced after a one-minute interview with Cameron Ford did not seem to go the way he intended on Tuesday morning.
Referring to Insulate Britain’s tactics of gluing themselves to surfaces when protesting, Mike began by asking: “What are you glued to today?”
Cameron replied: “Just your screen today, unfortunately.”
Mike then asked: “What do you do for a living, Cameron?”
Cameron said he was a carpenter and works with timber which is “a much more sustainable material rather than concrete”.
Mike said: “So you work with trees that are being cut down then, don’t you?”
Cameron said, “yes it’s a sustainable building practice” which is “regenerative” as trees grow back.
Mike then asked: “You can grow all sorts of things can’t you?”
Cameron said: “Well, you can’t grow concrete.”
Then Mike really put his foot in it – he claimed: “Yeah, you can [grow concrete].”
Cameron then just shook his head slightly and stared at the camera.
After a few seconds of deeply awkward silence, Mike said “cheerio” to the Insulate Britain activist and cut his screen off.
The presenter summed up the interview by saying: “That was Cameron. He grows trees, then cuts them down and then makes things from them.
“Brilliant. Marvellous.
“I don’t think I ever want to talk to any of those people.”
Insulate Britain activists have been blocking UK roads for the last month in a bid to persuade the government to fully fund the insulation of all UK social housing and produce a legally-binding plan for low-carbon whole-house retrofit of British homes by 2030.
They’ve been a controversial presence in recent weeks, causing major traffic delays while their protests have led to dozens of arrests – but this talkRADIO interview seems to have given their public image a bit of a boost.
As expected, Twitter did not hold back in slating the interview.
TalkRADIO did later tweet a link out to a New Scientist article reporting than a concrete-like material could one day be made using a particular strain of bacteria, sand and nutrients.
Twitter was quick to mock this, too.