Even the article describes the act as "symbolic": the whole decision on how to "comply" with GCHQ's instructions was made by the Guardian and their response is broadly analogous to paying a hotly-contested fine with sacks full of coins.
Looks like laptop bits to me as well; I imagine the thinking is that they must ensure the data is definitely gone - it looks to me like they destroyed every ASIC on every component. I don't think it's stupidity; after all, you can't just expect Mr Bond to die.
I identified what the other green board is... It is a controller board for a lcd....HDMI VGA power connectors on left side... Why destroy something that doesn't hold any data...
"The intelligence men stood over Johnson and Blishen as they went to work on the hard drives and memory chips with angle grinders and drills, pointing out the critical points on circuit boards to attack. "
These GCHQ officials must have had no clue how a computer works... were really really freaking stupid... or there is something hidden in all lcds and video cards we don't know and the GCHQ does know...
