An excellent article, thank you.

Is “how can the Met justify placing undercover officers within the protestors camped at St Paul’s” a rhetorical question or do we know for sure that there are undercover police there?

Jenny, I know that you planned to ask Bernard Hogan-Howe this question. Has he given an answer?

“how can the Met justify placing undercover officers within the protestors camped at St Paul’s who are complaining about the mess the banks have made of our economy, but not actually run covert operations within the banking sector amongst the greedy people who have brought about the near collapse of the world economy”

Surely there is a simple answer to that question?
The polis can do little to touch the teflon coated bankers, but they can easily fuck up a bloke with a mohican haircut, and a four legged side kick called ‘spartacus’?

After all, there is nothing quite like a futile gesture when you can do little to address the real problem?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5YW4qKOAVM

The single most important criteria for being a police officer of any order is obedience. They are told what to do and seldom step out of line.

Someone annoyed because it was discovered that most of the protesters don’t stay in their tens overnight?

Hmmm, “how can the Met justify placing undercover officers within the protestors camped at St Paul’s”

Is that a not-very-subtle warning to the St Paul’s protesters? Heheh.

(Oh, and hi Charge Nurse)

The police exist to enforce the laws of the current existing social order, so protesters with a cause to change the social order will inevitably find themselves in conflict with the police. Bankers being reckless with other people’s money however is an existing part of our social order, so isn’t owt for the coppers to worry themselves over. Occasionally enforcing the law also helps out ordinary citizens, though this is more of a brucey bonus than a primary concern.

“Does it leave the police open to the charge of taking sides?”

It sure as hell does.

Just how deep have their investigations been into the banks that brought us to our economic knees?

About as deep as their original investigations into the NOTW I suspect, and for much the same reasons.

Once again the police act as a private army for big business and the global elites. But then when there is all those back handers from right wing newspaper groups, they know who their masters are.

[5] we should have called in the flying squad when this happened!
http://www.mentalnurse.org.uk/

What a bloody cheek ………..

“given the wording of Parliamentary Act, how can the Met justify placing undercover officers within the protestors camped at St Paul’s who are complaining about the mess the banks have made of our economy, but not actually run covert operations within the banking sector amongst the greedy people who have brought about the near collapse of the world economy? ”

Probably because it’s the SFO* that investigates financial crime, not the Met.

Just a thought.

* Assisted by the City of London police who have a very cool Special Constables scheme. You’re a beancounter/lawyer in a City firm? Fancy coming and working for the police for free and showing us how it all works then?

” “how can the Met justify placing undercover officers within the protestors camped at St Paul’s””

On the plus side it makes the numbers look bigger. Which in turn, assuming the police don’t speak to each other internally, means more under-cover cops get sent to deal with the increasing numbers. And Repeat.

Based on past performance, a cynic might suggest it’s because the undercover cops didn’t get laid enough at Reclaim the Streets.

[Oh, and @9, come join the new home here. I'll stop the off-topic discussion now]

However, the third criterion is the catch all clause “the economic well- being of the UK“.

The total sum of bank bailouts in the UK is £1,162 billion, which works out at almost 19 grand for every single person in the country. So I think bankers ought to count under that clause.

Anyway, to answer the question posed by the title, it’s because we’re governed in the interests of the 1% not the 99%; by definition this means we’re not a real democracy. To make Britain a real democracy, we need to institute some or all of these policies.

[12] thanks for that – looks good.

Why aren’t undercover police investigating the Catholic church where fresh news of abuse of young people over decades is just coming out in the media:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/the-pope/8848233/Vatican-orders-inquiry-into-child-sex-abuse-claims-at-UK-schools.html

Isn’t this time for the government to give serious consideration to banning the Catholic church to protect the young?

Bob @ 15:

“Why aren’t undercover police investigating the Catholic church where fresh news of abuse of young people over decades is just coming out in the media:”

Maybe they are, and we just don’t know about it. They are *undercover* police, after all.

“Isn’t this time for the government to give serious consideration to banning the Catholic church to protect the young?”

No, but I think it’s time for the moderators to give serious consideration to banning you to protect these threads from being derailed by your monomaniacal obsession with child-abusing Catholics.

I think I can say why the police are more likely to investigate protesters than bankers, and that’s because they catch more criminals that way.

Despite the ridiculous rhetoric of many, including the protesters, the bankers who screwed up did not commit any crimes – you can screw things up legally you know. So investigating them would be a bit pointless really – the sort of waste of resources we could do without. Especially since the banks police themselves – when someone does break the law, they are reported by the banks (see UBS recently).

You might not like what the banks have done (join the club – negligent management rewarded with government bailouts is not anyone’s idea of a good thing). But unfortunately for those who tend to believe their own rhetoric, it is not actually criminal – indeed, it was approved of by government, which is pretty much the opposite.

However much damage you do to the economy, if you do it legally the police have no reason to investigate. That is kind of the key point Ms Jones misses out – and she must be aware of this (she is not stupid) so I can only assume she is deliberately making misleading arguments (or worse, believes the police should investigate people not for the chance of commiting a crime, but because their activities are politically ‘wrong’).

@6 – As Dale farm shows, the law doesn’t come into it any more.

@17 – I’d suggest re-reading the relevant laws…

[17] the tenor of the OP seems fairly straightforward?

Many people are now suffering as a direct consequence of our dysfunctional financial institutions – those who have been affected wish to protest, yet the establishment delivers a double whammy by not only fucking them over in the first place, but fucking them over again for having the temerity to complain about it.

Maybe the money men did act within the law, but given the police’s lackadaisical approach to phone tapping (perhaps because senior figures asked them to turn a blind eye to begin with) it seems unlikely bankers would have been caught even if they were testing the boundary of financial probity – in other words it is one rule for the power brokers, and another for the plebs?

@16: “No, but I think it’s time for the moderators to give serious consideration to banning you to protect these threads from being derailed by your monomaniacal obsession with child-abusing Catholics.”

Hardly obsessional on my part in the light of the series of news reports from the US, Belgium and Ireland, of which I’ve already posted choice selections together with links.

The obfuscation and cover-ups have hardly subsided over one series of cases when a new news report emerges of more abuse of young people in another place over past decades. I go by the evidence and it’s plain and beyond serious dispute that the Catholic church is demonstrably incapable of self-investigation and self-regulation. Besides, as the Vatican’s chief exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth, was appropriately reported as saying not long ago, he has dealt with 70,000 cases of demonic possession and that the consequences of satanic infiltration included power struggles at the Vatican as well as “cardinals who do not believe in Jesus, and bishops who are linked to the Demon”.

Aide memoire: “A Channel 4 News investigation reveals that more than half of the Catholic priests convicted for child abuse and sentenced to more than a year in prison, in England and Wales since 2001, remain in the priesthood – with some still receiving financial support from the Church and living in church houses. “[15 September 2010]
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/uk/catholic+church+abuse+paedophile+priests+remain+in+catholic+church/3767477.html

At the very least, the time has come for the government to take the step of appointing a permanent watchdog to keep tabs on the Catholic church. I suspect powerful senior ministers, affiliated to the Catholic church, are blocking this important measure needed to protect children. Perhaps exorcism is required to cleanse the system.

Btw I’ve been accused of being monomaniacal about so many different issues now that I’ve lost count.

Leon/a&e,

I think your case (and Jenny’s) would rely on finding something legally dubious as opposed to negligant and plain stupid about the financial crisis. Much as you might want to think otherwise, and however much the police are compromised and in the pocket of the establishment, there still needs to be a crime. It might seem wrong that people can screw the economy over without being arrested, but please note if that were a crime it would be the politicians who would be in the dock, not those who just operated in the systems they created.

All over the media today has been the fact that only 10% of the tents outside St Paul’s are occupied. Why the Met would spend their time using infrared to discover this seems a bit odd. Releasing the info seems even more odd as surely this is operational. How come the media has taken it up what is seemingly a trivial point seems unusual as well. Presumably the Met released this info deliberately.

Its a campaign to discredit the protestors. Radio five live managed to interview a banker’s wife who wasn’t there on the situation! She then pleaded for banker’s rights ( on Vic Derbyshire’s morning programme). As ever Rightists and the elite quickly gain access to public information systems.

There are loads of benefactors to St Paul’s including various banks. A number of Conservative MP’s also sit on the council including Bernard Jenkin, need I say more.

“need I say more.”

Good question.

“only 10% of the tents outside St Paul’s are occupied. ”

Yes, yes, I think you do.

Jesus wept. Almost every day people complain about the so called ‘Police State’ and use evidence such as speed/CCTV cameras and the like. Here in Scotland we had a case of the police allegedly using anti terror laws to stop a father photographing his daughter in a shopping centre. We are now informed that the police not only are expected to uphold the law, but are also charged with upholding the “the economic well- being of the UK“.
Who the fuck are the police to decide who is and who is not acting in the economic well being of anything, far less anything as nebulous the ‘UK’?
What expertise has the filth got in this area? While we are at it, what expertise have the bastards got in any area? It appears that the elite’s private little junta have abandoned paedophile rings, terror cells, organised crime, drug cartels and the like and have went after the real criminals, namely protesters.

The police are supposed to be impartial, the police are suppose to be responsible for investigating crime, they are not supposed to be the elite’s lapdogs. Remember that. Remember the next time you see a report at protest that the police are normally there to protect the financial interests of the rich and are not there to ensure that the peace is being kept. They are there to keep us in our fucking place.

@21 – The police went in FIRST. This isn’t legal. It’s that simple.

This is just one piece of evidence in the morass of evidence accumulating that the police are out of control.

Jesus wept. Almost every day people complain about the so called ‘Police State’ and use evidence such as speed/CCTV cameras and the like. Here in Scotland we had a case of the police allegedly using anti terror laws to stop a father photographing his daughter in a shopping centre. We are now informed that the police not only are expected to uphold the law, but are also charged with upholding the “the economic well- being of the UK“.
Who the fuck are the police to decide who is and who is not acting in the economic well being of anything, far less anything as nebulous the ‘UK’?
What expertise has the filth got in this area? While we are at it, what expertise have the bastards got in any area? It appears that the elite’s private little junta have abandoned paedophile rings, terror cells, organised crime, drug cartels and the like and have went after the real criminals, namely protesters.

The police are supposed to be impartial, the police are suppose to be responsible for investigating crime, they are not supposed to be the elite’s lapdogs. Remember that. Remember the next time you see a report at a protest that the police are normally there to protect the financial interests of the rich and are not there to ensure that the peace is being kept.

While we are at it, what expertise have the bastards got in any area?

Beating the shit out of people considerably less well-armed than themselves, mostly.

@ 23 “need I say more.”

Good question.

“only 10% of the tents outside St Paul’s are occupied. ”

Yes, yes, I think you do.

Sorry I don’t I understand- the need I say more comment referred to the fact that that bastion of social tolerance and liberalism Bernard Jenkin is on the council that runs St Paul’s.

You think that only 10% of the tents being occupied is somehow wrong or what.
I fail to see the relevance of the 10% except that it is being used to make the protesters look lazy and therefore not worthy of public sympathy.

Of course if they were occupied they would then accuse the protesters of being work shy as they did nothing but sit around in tents.

[28] indeed – are commentators seriously suggesting the level of tent occupancy should be considered a key variable in the protestors attitude toward the near collapse of our economic system and banks pissing up billions of our money?
Now ….. where did I put my special infra-red torch?

‘However, I get no sense that the police understand my frustration that they are wasting their time and our ever diminishing public money on watching campaigners’

Probably ,like the protestors, you are regarded as the ‘enemy within’ as well.
If you watched the Arabic Spring unfold on the TV you may have noticed which side the police were on.

‘However, I get no sense that the police understand my frustration that they are wasting their time and our ever diminishing public money on watching campaigners ‘

That’s probably because they regard you, like the protesters, as the ‘enemy within’.

If you managed to catch the ‘Arabic Spring’ on TV maybe you noticed which side the police were on.

a&e,

I think that assuming if only 10% of the tents are occupied the protest could take up 10% of the space it currently does, thus making access to these areas open to the public (actually I think it is, but the media portray this differently…) again might be a point worthy of consideration here? It does seem a bit selfish to set up a tent, then go away and deny the use of that space to others.

In effect you are claiming that there is more of a right to protest than there is to make use of public space. Otherwise, why is the lack of tent occupation not an issue?

[33] what I really think Watchman, is that on the scale of ‘things we should worry about’ the disruption at St Pauls scores 0.09% while the mess our money men have left the country in, and indeed much of Europe, scores closer to 99.99%.

The tents, rather like the cathedral itself I suppose, are symbolic – a symbol for good in my opinion (not withstanding some degree of inconvenience).

Of course, in the mind of some hysterical media commentators the protestors are being likened to Nazis (not by you I hasten to add, and not that I’m accusing you of belonging to either side of the political spectrum in this debate).

The spontaneity, and international dimensions of these protests have finally moved the debate away from the usual scapegoats (benefit scroungers, immigrants, etc) to those with far greater culpability for our current economic woes.
Such a change in emphasis is long overdue – and a minor tent related inconvenience is not too high a price to pay, surely?

Oops, meant [32] not [33 in response to watchman.

Likening the protestors to the Nazis is just silly.

The Nazis had a clear political agenda – as unspeakably awful as that was – whereas the protestors manifestly lack a clear agenda. A more apt comparison is with the students on the streets of Paris in 1968. If anything, they were protesting at the persistence of top-down decision-making and pressing for wider engagement in the process.

IMO the immediate turmoil relates more to the failings of European Monetary Union, which many had anticipated, rather than to the failings of capitalism.

7, did you criticise the Police when they took down the Anti Chinese communist banners in 2998, or criticise the police when stopped the pro fox hunting protesters, or arrested Damian green and leaked his name and took his DNA or criticised the police when they stopped the Fuel protesters, Or criticised the polce when they were agisnt innocent people accused of Rapes, name not beign released to the pulbic,

do you have any idea what It is like to be shout, swore, at been called ‘Rapist and Stalker’ and Been threatened to be beat up in front of your parents, Or been nearly sacked from your job ,when you’ve spent years trying to get that job, and then 4 months later when You’ve proved that you wan’t even in the same part of London when the alleged incident happened, teh best teh eople that accused you of that can say is “oh you probably gloated that you were alleged to have had sex with that person that day”, and then No apologies are given ,no one reprimanded or disciplined, ,But ‘heh’ when someone makes an allegation that as rightly judged as a horrendous crime’ it’s alright to put anyone’s name trough the dirt even before they were proved to be guilty or not ,as the allegation won’t effect them .if there proved not guilty,Will it!”

a&e,

what I really think Watchman, is that on the scale of ‘things we should worry about’ the disruption at St Pauls scores 0.09% while the mess our money men have left the country in, and indeed much of Europe, scores closer to 99.99%.

I tend to agree. But that does not mean they do not concern some people – and the symbolism you mention makes them more important than simply the disruption of a church – this can become a hook on which to hang ideas and arguments (rather unlike the economic crisis).

Of course, in the mind of some hysterical media commentators the protestors are being likened to Nazis (not by you I hasten to add, and not that I’m accusing you of belonging to either side of the political spectrum in this debate).

The spontaneity, and international dimensions of these protests have finally moved the debate away from the usual scapegoats (benefit scroungers, immigrants, etc) to those with far greater culpability for our current economic woes.
Such a change in emphasis is long overdue – and a minor tent related inconvenience is not too high a price to pay, surely?

For the record, I originally quite liked this protest – different, peaceful, civilised and not involving the economic illiterati who have been so prevalent recently, with a focus on the problems, even if the lack of clear message about them was an issue. As you say, they have worked pretty well in moving the narrative on (and to targets I would like to see examined more, or to be more specific, to targets whose links with government I would like to see examined more). However, either my attention span is shorterning or having achieved this change in narrative the protests are risking becoming the narrative. I can see a path where the protests become more agressive, more politicised (UK Uncut said they were intending to join in I believe…) and simply end up as another bit of pointless conflict, whoever is right or wrong. And the key loss there would be the message – because the media spotlight moved, but at the moment it is still a move associated with the Occupy movement, and if that becomes seen as a far-left, violent minority, then the message it promoted becomes the message of that minority. I am increasingly minded to think having made their point, and started to attract negative publicity, the Occupy movement should say ‘that’s it for now – we may be back if there is a need’. As a totally random analogy, once you ring a fire alarm to indicate there is a danger to people, you don’t stand by it and keep ringing it – if necessary, you can come back and ring it the next day.

@ 32 Watchman

“Otherwise, why is the lack of tent occupation not an issue?”

Well, there’s the possibility that the whole claim is completely made up (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/25/occupy-london-tents-night?newsfeed=true) or simply a case of honest confusion – today’s Metro points out that heat-proof tents might confuse heat-based cameras, especially considering metropolitan background warmth.

Well, there’s the possibility that the whole claim is completely made up

Someone making up porky pies about protesters? My that’s never happened before, I mean next you’ll be telling me that protesters did not attack police while they fought to save Ian Tomlinson…

A rather more important issue about the protestors than whether they occupy the tents at night is this reflection of Hamish McRae in the Indy:

Also, attacking the world financial system is to ignore that, for all its imperfections, it lifts huge numbers of people out of poverty every year, particularly in China and India but also in Latin America and Africa. Thanks to this flawed system the past 20 years have seen the greatest burst of prosperity the world has ever known.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/hamish-mcrae/hamish-mcrae-europes-leaders-first-need-to-buy-themselves-time-2375813.html