Well done to all those UK students who take part in today’s school global strike, making a protest about the effects of climate change, especially on their lives and the lives of their children/that further generation. Also well done to any schools and/or those teachers who support them and let it be known it is right and proper to stand up and be counted on issues of such colossal importance, and issues of far more significance than one day of attending lessons.

I hope those students taking part – and those who want to but for whatever reason are prevented from doing so – understand fully they have a right to express an opinion and to make that statement in a public and demonstrable and notable way. It is a right of self-expression and self-protection that they have for a lifetime and should use whenever desired and needed. No establishment has an equal right to diminish, quell or silence that.