British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood took to the streets of London on Monday 27 April, cradling a "fracked baby of the future" in her latest show of opposition to hydraulic fracturing.

The 74 year old, known for her environmental campaigning as well as her bold designs, held a doll covered in bloodstains and with a missing hand, which initiative Talk Fracking called a "limbless, radiation-scabbed fracked baby of the future".

Standing in front of a mock election billboard ahead of the 7 May general election captioned "Let's stay on the road to a fracked future", Westwood posed for pictures with the doll, surrounded by "Mad Max" post-apocalypse figures on stilts.

"I'm trying to get across to people, the danger we're in," she said. "We have to stop the destruction."

Her son Joe Corre, the head of Talk Fracking, said: ''We've got to kick fracking out.''

''We need a proper sustainable renewable energy system for this country, so we can protect future generations and have something to look forward to as an earth we can all live on, not an earth that is completely destroyed,'' he added.

The UK is estimated to have substantial amounts of shale gas trapped in underground rocks.

The government has been supportive of developing the reserves but has faced opposition to fracking, which involves blasting underground rock formations with chemicals and water to release trapped gas, due to environmental concerns such as groundwater contamination and earth tremors.

More about fracking