The Hamlet quote ‘The lady doth protest too much’ still rings true after this year’s women’s marches took in various sights from Stoke to Saffron Walden. Now, depending on your stance, the gatherings were either a tour de force for social change, or a rallying cry against the small-handed, hamster-haired leader of the free world.

The Solidarity marches were designed to display "unity and cohesion" which sounds like a tagline for No More Nails. The diminutive irritant Owen Jones was the brains behind the marches. Frequently Jones rages against the machine, despite having a book deal with Random House which has earned him comfortably over half a million sobs a year. Less Socialist Worker and more hypocritical shirker some may say.

I am not at a loss as to why the women marched, but I don’t agree with the misleading diatribe given as the reason. It was a ‘we hate Trump’ protest masquerading as something entirely different.

There is now a burgeoning protest industry. Despite anti-capitalist protestations, the hacking collective Anonymous protests against, well, anything really. Targets of the masked keyboard warriors include the CIA, Visa and Paypal under the fluffy and all-encompassing causes of libertarianism and anti-capitalism. All well and good until you realise the Anonymous masks are manufactured in Brazil, where unskilled labour pulls in, on average, £300 per month.

The current crop of protesters are virtue signallers. Hailing from leafy confines, they are generally young, green and idealistic, or old, tired and bitter at having their lifetime hereditary political beliefs trampled in the mud. They like nothing better of an afternoon, having just got up, than to go out into the street and rally against nothing and everything. In days yore, protests had focus. The miners, poll tax protesters and junior doctors, whether you agreed with the causes or not, did not hit the streets in a fit of unified pique without a purpose. They were legitimate complaints directed at those in positions of power. Nowadays I am at a loss as to why people are protesting, against whom and for what purpose other than using it as an excuse to shout abuse at rozzers shipped in from Surrey whilst they wear balaclavas and anti-capitalist clobber such as Air Maxes and Gucci knock-off man bags.

The virtue signaller's first act in the public sphere is to take a selfie and place it on social media with as offensive placard as is possible to muster. The issue is not the protest but the reasoning. Don’t protest the day after Trump's inauguration and claim it is a movement that acts as an agent for change. It doesn’t wash, and neither do many of the renegade protestors.

The chosen abuse vehicle of choice is a loudhailer, directed at any one passing who looks like they may have an office job. Meanwhile the backbench protesters snack on their Pringles and listen to bite-size venomous snackanory chants spouted by those with acidic tongues and a cross to bear.

As for me, well the binmen didn’t take the bins again this week as I had a twig thicker than a blade of grass in it. I plan to dump the contents of my waste disposal receptacle at the door of the council offices under cloak of darkness bedecked in an Anonymous mask. Who’s with me? We can shout abuse at the local PCSO, blame it on Thatcher’s legacy and still be home in time for Tipping Point. Vive la revolution!