Activist stunts make good headlines, but no long-term difference

If we want to avoid an endless cycle of protest and corporate resistance, then campaigners need to aim for long-term collaboration with their foes

• The protest movement is failing: it's fighting the same old battles

Imagine the scene: the chairman of Shell UK, Erik Bonino, sitting alongside Lee-Anne Barraclough, Shell's VP of communications, over a Pret a Manger takeaway at Shell's offices in London. They look out the window at the giant mechanical polar bear that's been parked there since the morning, "I think we need to back out of the Arctic - this reputational damage is destroying us," they bemoan, over the echoes of Emma Thompson shouting through a loudspeaker in the background.