The main marquee is buzzing with sporadic cheers at the feedback meet-up from the day of action. Celebrations are certainly the order of the day as protesters succeeded in breaching the perimeter fence and inner 10,000 volt electric fence to enter the power station site despite the best efforts of 26 police forces with over 1,500 police.

The day started early with a flotilla of boats – the Blue group – sailing towards Kingsnorth in the sun. Over twenty crafts made their way up the Medway to converge on the coal loading jetty. Three people occupied the ledge above the power station’s water inlet tunnel while a banner proclaiming ‘CO2AL: Starter Gun for Climate Chaos’ was hung from Darnet Fort on an island in the Medway directly opposite the power station.

Kent Police are on form as ever with the lies – claiming that they had to rescue rafters from the Medway. Rafters told quite a different story saying that at no point were they in any danger. “Its a bit cheeky for the police to say that we had to be rescued when for starters we weren’t in any danger, and secondly, they were the ones who had confiscated our safety boat this morning,” said Rebel Rafter Harold Cryer. Interestingly the river police were super professional and courteous, as were the sea-king helicopter search and rescue folks. Pity the land-based cops weren’t more similar.

Talking of unprofessional behaviour, news came in that the number of complaints against Kent police were so many that the Kent Police Professional Standards Authority were out today (yep, a Saturday too), to keep tabs on the police. Talk of the camp is that this year we must fight the police’s unlawful conduct over the coming months, much in the same way that last year we fought sections of the media for their less-than-fair coverage (coverage has been noticeably more accurate this year). So do keep in touch with the camp legal team if you were mis-treated.

Ok, back to the day of action: around 1,000 people from the Orange group headed from the Camp directly to the main gates at Kingsnorth, led by a colourful carnival dragon made by children during the camp. At the gates the Camp’s Christian Cafe crew held a service giving the power station its last rites. The group sat outside the main entrance for an hour, some longer, even after a police helicopter circling above had demanded through a loud-hailer that the marchers disperse, threatening them with ‘horses and dogs’ if they didn’t. Another surreally big-brother moment, and a classic example of the police ‘facilitating lawful protest’, as their mantra says.

The few hundred strong Green group made it to the perimeter fence of the power station. Some used a section of fencing to make a ladder to breach both the outer and the inner electric fence. Others climbed a nearby pylon to hang a banner reading ‘Shut Down Kingsnorth’(1).

Spokeswoman Emily Davies said in a press release this afternon, “It shows how serious we are about stopping climate change that people from all walks of life were prepared, despite blatantly intimidatory policing, to take direct action to disrupt E.ON. This Olympic effort certainly deserves a gold medal.” Which nicely sums it up!

Campers have been signing pledges to return to Kingsnorth if Minister for Business John Hutton gives E.ON the go-ahead to build the first coal-fired power station in the UK for 30 years. The promise is to take action against E.ON and other companies until they abandon all such plans.

More from the camps press release: “It’s been a great today, but a real victory for us will be when we have conclusively scuppered E.ON’s coal-fuelled mania. If Hutton gives the green light to this power plant, E.ON can expect to be seeing a lot more of us in the future,” said Ewa Steckel, who has signed one of the pledges to stop the plant.

Outside the camp, and more bizarrely than taking a home-made raft down the Medway, Malcolm Wicks, Energy Minister stated yesterday that we need Kingsnorth to counter catastrophic climate change!

Campers reacted furiously, “Malcolm Wicks’ claim that building an unabated coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth is necessary to save us from climate change shows him to be delusional and dangerously scientifically illiterate. ” said camper Ania Kemp.