GLASGOW famously loves a friendly rivalry.

Rival gangs targetting high end sports cars may seem same old, same old for the city. But this time, it's rival gangs attempting to be a force for good.

Starting in the UK, the climate activist network Tyre Extinguishers has now spread around Europe and across to the US.

In the dead of night, members of the grassroots network deflate the tyres of SUVs using lentils to force open valves and allow air to slowly escape. They claim this direct, individual action causes no harm beyond inconvenience to the owners of these vehicles and a public shaming.

This week, the group claimed a record number of cars targeted in one night - some 600 at various towns and cities across Europe.

In Glasgow, you might have your vehicle meddled with by a Tyre Extinguisher member or by the Deflationists. Members of the groups claim to be "holding the rich to account".

Which will be a surprise to many of the owners of these vehicles who likely regard themselves as comfortably middle class, rather than rich.

That's the thing about this sort of action: it takes one marker and uses it as a homogenous symbol, excusing the targetting of individuals.

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Each of these individuals will have their own reasons - or excuses, if you're so inclined - for owning an SUV. This sort of action is unlikely to prompt sober reflection of car ownership choices; it's more likely to prompt fury and increased denial about the impact of those choices.

Will they sell their cars? Probably not. Will consumers who are so-inclined be put off buying SUVs? Probably not.

It's a talking point, though, and a way of forcing discussion.

Denial and excuses for individual choices are really a luxury we've long since been unable to afford.

The conservative maxim of personal responsibility should have taken a hammering during the pandemic as the necessity of collective responsibility and community duty became clear.

Now, during the cost of living crisis, it becomes nonsensical. The hole in political leadership is being filled by journalist Martin Lewis and food writer Jack Monroe.

This Morning is running spin-the-wheel competitions with paid energy bills as the prize. Charities are pivoting to offering warm spaces for people to gather in.

The energy crisis and the environmental crisis are intricately interwoven and people are becoming sick to the back teeth with the word "crisis".

In the face of fuel bill terror, new prime minister Liz Truss wants to frack our way to safety. A champion of indecision, Truss has reneged on her campaign pledges and is instead offering an energy bill freeze, which is needed but is also a short term stop gap, rather than any meaningful solution.

More than one million people will likely not be able to pay their fuel bills from next month and millions more will be pushed into fuel poverty,

Working, earning, normally financially comfortable people who never thought they would be affected by money worries will be worried indeed.

Fear, genuine fear, of going without, of eating through savings, of plunging living standards, is about to become reality.

This has prompted calls for direct action. Don't Pay UK wants people to refuse to pay their energy bills, in the manner of the rent strikes of 1915 Glasgow, or, to be a bit more current, the 1980s poll tax protests.

Don't Pay UK has had ample publicity but hasn't gathered the expected traction. While it has surpassed its fundraising goals, it aimed for one million pledges of action by October 1 - a mass cancelling of direct debits - but currently has around 140,000 signatures.

Direct action asks a lot of its activists. For the Tyre Extinguishers, interfering with property could lead to a tussle with police, although the movement insists what it's doing is not against the law.

It's a lot to ask, that customers risk being cut off by their energy companies. While we might not be able to afford to put the heating on, it's preferable to have the option.

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They may be put on to pre-payment meters, which can be difficult to come back off. Damage to credit scores is another possibility, though less serious.

Will Liz Truss's energy pledges be enough to sway people away from refusal to pay? Or will it spur more to sign up to direct action.

There's a deep sense of agitation. The recent strikes in a variety of industries are in part prompted by workers exhausted from the pandemic and believing that they should be duly rewarded for their efforts. "A slap in the face," was how one union shop steward described to me the initial 2% pay increase offered by Cosla to local authority staff.

It was a sense of indignation and fury that led to people to vote to walk out. Now we have wave after wave of union announcements of threatened industrial action.

At the same time, we have a Conservative government reluctant to hold meaningful conversations about energy and climate; a Conservative leadership that treats net-zero legislation with a patronising pat on the head.

But now a confluence of pressures are compelling a groundswell of direct action, pushing for radical movement and more carrot, less stick.

The actions of Vladimir Putin will force the UK, and Europe, towards net zero in a way that COP26 and COP27 could never do. Ditto inflation and crippling fuel bills.

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This is the rock bottom and voters are fed up of broken promises, u-turns and cans being kicked well along roads.

Single issues - cars, fuel bills - don't political consensus make. But serious agitation on multiple fronts could force wider change.

Unless there is revolutionary, rapid change, all we can expect is much broader deflation, both literally and figuratively.