CAMPAIGN group This is Rigged has staged a protest at a Scottish museum by vandalising a bust of Queen Victoria.

Two activists entered Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow and poured porridge and a jar of jam over the head of the marble bust of Queen Victoria.

They then spray-painted "c***" in pink paint on the plinth below.

Sorcha Ní Mháirtín, 30, and Hannah Taylor, 23, glued themselves to the plinth and were then removed and arrested by Police Scotland.

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Staff at the museum closed the venue and it has since partially reopened. The gallery where the Victoria bust is located remains closed to the public while damage is assessed. 

A spokesperson for Glasgow Life said: "On Police Scotland’s advice, we temporarily closed Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum earlier this afternoon after climate protestors covered a bust of Queen Victoria in porridge and jam and spray-painted an offensive word on the plinth below the statue. Two people were subsequently arrested. 

"The museum has since reopened, however the Expression Court where the statue is displayed will remain partially closed for the rest of the day while our conservation team works to ascertain the extent of any damage. The profanity has been removed.”

Campaigners have said a new wave of action is to take place this spring to “take back what’s ours,” vowing to escalate tactics and take redistributive action until demands are met.

At the end of last year, the group spray-painted Sainsbury’s in Buchanan Street and smashed the case of the Stone of Destiny in Edinburgh Castle to launch their new demands.  

They are demanding that supermarkets slash prices of baby formula to March 2021 levels. The group claims that the CEO of Sainsbury’s Simon Roberts has seen his annual salary increase to almost £5 million.

The campaigners are also demanding that the Scottish Government fully fund a community food hub per every 500 households in Scotland, which would amount to around 4000 hubs in total.

This Is Rigged says that they refuse to be "dragged back to the Victorian era” by corporations anymore and the current system of food distribution is failing.

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Sorcha, an Irish activist and community food worker in Glasgow, gave a speech as a call to meaningful action on the food insecurity crisis in Scotland: “We refuse to be dragged back to the Victorian era. Diseases of starvation including scurvy and rickets are on the rise.

"Freedom begins with breakfast and if you can’t understand that, we’ll shove it in your face. Food is a human right, and we call out the rotten systems under which we are suffering.”

The group cites a recent study that shows that diseases, particularly rickets, which are linked to severe malnutrition, are on a sharp rise in present-day Scotland, with 356 diagnoses in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area in 2022.