First up is the news, inevitably, that the Occupy London Stock Exchange protest site is to be challenged through the courts as the local authority pursues and eviction. The BBC online reports:
The corporation's planning and transport committee voted to proceed with court action to remove tents from the public highways by the cathedral. The Occupy London Stock Exchange protesters said the corporation wanted a "long, costly legal battle". Members of the group set up their tents on 15 October and there are now more than 200 erected around the cathedral.
Michael Welbank, who chaired the Corporation planning committee meeting, said: "Protest is an essential right in a democracy but camping on the highway is not and we believe we will have a strong highways case because an encampment on a busy thoroughfare clearly impacts the rights of others."
Earlier Prime Minister David Cameron said: "I don't quite see why the freedom to demonstrate has to include the freedom to pitch a tent almost anywhere you want to in London."
St Paul's Cathedral is also taking legal action to remove those protesters camping on its own private property. A spokesman said legal action had "regrettably become necessary". He said: "The chapter only takes this step with the greatest reluctance and remains committed to a peaceful solution.
"At each step of the legal process the chapter will continue to entreat the protesters to agree to a peaceful solution and, if an injunction is granted, will then be able to discuss with the protesters how to reach this solution."
Stuart Fraser, chairman of policy and resources at the corporation, said: "We have no problem with a peaceable 24-hour protest by people without tents - provided the highway is fully usable - but campsites and important highways don't mix." Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme earlier, Mr Fraser said they were in a "very, very difficult position". He said: "The Church has asked them to go, the archbishop has asked them to go, everybody has asked them to go and they are not going, so I am not sure what more we can do to ask them to move. "This is going to be long and complicated, I fear."
Ronan McNern, from OLSX, said: "We have requested that the Corporation of London and others engage in open dialogue with us and Liberty has offered to facilitate and mediate it.
"But the corporation showed their determination to take us down a long, costly legal battle at a time when public services are being cut."
The spokesman added that the demonstrators were "so glad" that the cathedral had reopened and invited visitors to "pop by our camp".
Conservative MP Mark Field, who represents Cities of London and Westminster, welcomed the corporation's decision, saying: "It's like a third world shanty town outside St Paul's which is a Unesco world heritage site.
Aside from from the yawningly obvious statements from the hand-wringing Church and Tory MPs, it is clear that even now they cannot or will not see the anger and reason for the global Occupy Protests - the abject failure of capitalism to deliver a 'fairer' society to all. Now given it's 2000 year history the church should know a thing or two about failing to deliver a fairer society, but the point evidently seems lost on them...
Meanwhile the second news item which verifies the actions of the OLSX protesters is this, again from the BBC online:
Pay for the directors of the UK's top businesses rose 50% over the past year, a pay research company has said. Incomes Data Services (IDS) said this took the average pay for a director of a FTSE 100 company to just short of £2.7m. The rise, covering salary, benefits and bonuses, was higher than that recorded for the main person running the company, the chief executive. Their pay rose by 43% over the year, according to the study.
Prime Minister David Cameron, speaking in Australia, said the report was "concerning" and called for big companies to be more transparent when they decide executive pay.
Base salaries rose by just 3.2%, although that was above the median rise recorded by IDS this week for average pay settlements of 2.6% for private sector workers. Directors' bonus payments, on average, rose by 23% from £737,000 in 2010 to £906,000 this year.
So in short, the idle rich and those in charge of the massive corporations that are robbing us blind, are awarding themselves massive salaries and bonuses whilst those at the bottom are getting P45s or pay-cuts. But the Church and the State and the City of London corporation are scratching their heads about WHY people are camping out at St Paul's to protest - it's not that hard to work out now is it? And the reason why they are not going is because it is clear that the problems that bought them out in the first place are still here. But can people in TV-land and on the interweb see the truth? Can they put these polished and separated media stories together and work it out? Let's hope so and fast for all our sakes.
SussexSocialist
BBC News - St Pauls
BBC News - Directors Pay
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