CLIMATE and social justice activists in Scotland have highlighted their opposition to food poverty by staging a series of stunts.

Members of This Is Rigged covered the Sainsbury’s branch in Glasgow’s Buchanan Street with red paint today as they demanded an end to “profiteering” by supermarkets.

The day before, the group entered Edinburgh Castle and smashed the glass case housing the Stone of Destiny, which had recently been returned to Scotland following the coronation of Charles Windsor.

Near the end of a year of high-profile interventions pressing for decisive action on climate change and a fair net-zero transition for workers, the group’s latest stunts are focused on the cost-of-greed crisis, which they argue is indivisible from the climate crisis.

The group warned that it would escalate actions in support of its demands that the Scottish government provide “food hubs” in every community and that supermarkets reverse their 24 per cent increase in baby food prices over the last two years.

This Is Rigged also highlighted the £1.2 billion paid in dividends to Tesco and Sainsbury’s shareholders “while 1.2 million Scots can’t afford to eat.”

A statement by the group asked: “What is Scotland’s destiny?

“In the midst of this fear and instability, greed and profiteering … what is Scotland’s future?

”As it stands, social scientists would have us scrapping over the last loaf of bread in Tesco, starting bloodbaths in the Morrisons aisles, committing GBH over a pot noodle.

“This is not who we are. It doesn’t have to be like this.

“When our crops are failing, our water sources dry up and the land on which we live is decimated, the real revolutionary thing is to take collective responsibility and stand with one another.

“Food is a basic human right. We all need to eat. This is life or death.”

Police Scotland said four women had been arrested and “enquiries were ongoing.”