Strange things are afoot in the world of eco-activism. On the one hand, regular protests against airport expansion in the UK have been overshadowed by the Terminal 5 Fiasco.

On the other, it was revealed this week that one of the most radical UK protest groups Plane Stupid has been infiltrated by a spy. That's right folks, someone decided that this small bunch of people were so dangerous that they needed a man on the inside. He is called Tony Kendall and works for a corporate espionage firm.

When former Oxford student "Ken Tobias" volunteered in July to help anti-aviation group Plane Stupid, he was accepted with only a few reservations. He seemed committed to the cause of reducing aviation emissions, but as members of the group which occupied the roof of parliament last month recalled yesterday: "There was something not quite right about him."

In retrospect, it is easy to see why. Tobias was yesterday exposed as Toby Kendall, a corporate spy who works as "an analyst" for C2-i International, the UK's premier "special risk management" and investigation company. He was also accused of acting as an agent provocateur, and planting stories to discredit activists. -- Guardian

Apparently he was always under suspicion by the group because of his strange taste in clothing (Palestinian kaffiyeh and Armani suits) so they decided to feed him some false information, which was later leaked to security at the airport. One wonders if it is a requirement of industrial espionage to be badly dressed -- and if it is and anyone is reading this, can I have a job please? I quite fancy being paid to join a small peace organisation.

But leaving the comic aspects to one side, there have been several worrying incidents of infiltration into radical groups. Most recently, the small British campaign group Campaign Against the Arms Trade was infiltrated by a spy reporting to the arms company BAE Systems. Martin Hogbin reached the position of Campaigns and Events Co-ordinator, having been involved in the campaign for many years.

An FBI subpoena shows that an agent was regularly infiltrating radical groups in the run-up to the 2005 G8 Summit in Scotland and the UK Catholic Worker movement was almost totally destroyed by infiltrators in 1996.

At the McDonald's libel trial, the longest in UK court history, it was disclosed that the small independent group London Greenpeace had been infiltrated by numerous agents hired by McDonalds.

McDonald's hired two firms of private investigators and instructed them to infiltrate the group in order to find out how they operated, who did what and, most importantly, who was responsible for the production and distribution of the leaflet.

Since London Greenpeace was an unincorporated association, if McDonald's wanted to bring legal action to stop the campaign it would have to be against named individuals -- which meant the company needed to find out people's names and addresses. Seven spies in total infiltrated the group. They followed people home, took letters sent to the group, got fully involved in the activities (including giving out anti-McDonald's leaflets) and invented spurious reasons to find out people's addresses. One spy (Michelle Hooker) even had a 6-month love affair with one of the activists. -- McSpotlight

Still. Looking on the positive side (if that is possible), all of this must have cost the bad guys a lot of money. That isn't to downplay the personal cost, but we can't let these bastards stop the radical message. The next major climate event in the UK is the Climate Camp at Kingsnorth Power Station in August, and before that many smaller events which have recently included flash mobs at Heathrow, and a banner displayed from the roof of the Westminster parliament.