If you can’t beat them, join them. Dozens of Lebanese, exasperated by rampant tyre-burning protests across the country, rolled out tyres and stopped traffic in the capital Beirut yesterday. Police armed with automatic rifles quickly deployed down the street, looking baffled at the small crowd raising the banner “We are tyred”, and blocking traffic with colourfully decorated tyres. Angry motorists honked their horns. Lebanon has been plagued for weeks by almost daily demonstrations using burning tyres to cut off main highways in to protest everything from political disputes to electricity cuts.