Edinburgh protesters from This is Rigged spray soup over Scott Monument

A couple scaled the monument with fire extinguishers.

A married couple have sprayed soup over the Scott Monument in Edinburgh as part of a This Is Rigged protest.

On Monday morning around 11.30am two activists with the group climbed the steps of the monument with fire extinguishers filled with soup and emptied them over the marble figure of Walter Scott.

The vandalism follows similar stunts in Edinburgh to highlight the cost-of-living crisis. , including a 'picnic' protest in Sainsburys at Waverley station which saw four people charged.

In recent weeks the group has changed the messaging of billboards, occupied the dining room of Holyrood palace and stolen potato scones, bread and other goods from stores throughout the city to hand out to the public

Carol Johnson, 58, and Adrian Johnson, 57, a married couple from Perthshire, sprayed the Edinburgh landmark on Tuesday to demand action on skyrocketing rates of food insecurity in Scotland.

Scott Monument sprayed with paint in latest protest action by This Is Rigged

The couple, a food grower and former deputy head teacher, said of the protest: “We are appalled that  in 2024 one in four suffer food insecurity in Scotland.

"The accelerating collapse of the climate will only make this worse. For our grandchildren, our children, and ourselves, unless we urgently address the inequality between those who have food and those who don't and, at the same time, adapt to the irreversible loss of the conditions we need to grow our food, the deadly threat facing us will most likely be social unrest - societal collapse and the breakdown of law and order as desperate folk fight for survival over food.

"So, we are engaging in civil resistance to call upon our government to take these threats seriously and fulfil their primary responsibility to keep everyone safe.”

On Monday two campaigners covered statues of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in George Square in Glasgow with soup. The pair handed themselves into a local police station but were told no crime had been committed.

The group is demanding that supermarkets slash the price of baby formula to March 2021 prices and that the Scottish Government fund and implement a community food hub for every 500 households in Scotland amid soaring food bills.