People have a right to demonstrate, but the Occupy the London Stock Exchange group does not have a right to wreak havoc on St Paul’s Cathedral, states the leader column in today’s Daily Telegraph.
Telegraph View states:
For the past decade, Parliament Square, one of Europe’s grandest open spaces, has been defaced by a “peace” camp that has successfully defied legal attempts at eviction. Are we about to see history being repeated in the churchyard outside the West Front of St Paul’s Cathedral? It has been colonised by an anti-capitalist group called Occupy the London Stock Exchange, which is aping a similar protest in New York. The protesters pitched their camp 10 days ago, and are already talking about staying until Christmas.
The cathedral initially made charitable noises, welcoming the new arrivals and asking not them, but the police, to leave its precincts. Sadly, that hospitable gesture has backfired. By last Friday, the cathedral had been forced to close its doors – for the first time since the Second World War – because the encampment posed a health and fire risk.
St Paul’s is now thought to be losing up to £20,000 a day in revenue – arguably, the sole instance of capitalism being in any way hampered by the protest. Were it to continue until Christmas, the cost to the cathedral would be well over a million pounds. Many local businesses are also suffering. Meanwhile, the London Stock Exchange, the demonstrators’ avowed target, goes about its business unscathed.
This fiasco is damaging not just the cathedral’s finances, but the demonstrators’ own cause: the public debate is not about the “evils of capitalism”, but about the way a much-loved monument is being sullied. So far, there has been a deafening silence from the Anglican hierarchy. Isn’t it time we learnt what the Bishop of London, or even the Archbishop of Canterbury, have to say about this squalid occupation? In a free society, people have a right to demonstrate. They do not have a right to wreak havoc on one of the capital’s most sacred spaces.
FURTHER COMMENT
It has been revealed that some 90 per cent of the protesters do not in fact sleep out at night. The revelation was described as a “charade” and pressure was growing on the church and other authorities to evict the camp.
“It is like a phantom camp – a big charade,” said Matthew Richardson, a Corporation of London councillor, who is calling for action to be taken.
“It just shows that most of the people don’t have the courage of their convictions and are here just to make trouble and leaving your tent here overnight is a good way to do that.”
Mr Richardson said it does not bear contemplating that services at St Paul’s could be disrupted through Remembrance Sunday and all the way up to Christmas.
“If you cannot commemorate the people who died for your right to protest then it is awful and having no services at Christmas would be even worse,” he said.
He said that the Corporation of London was ready to proceed but that St Paul’s, which is losing £20,000-a-day, was holding up any action.
“It is just a mess,” he said.
“My understanding is that the church are the ones that are holding up the process. It is frustrating but they are just muddling through the best they can.
“The church has to make a decision and the sooner, the better.”
Mr Richardson said an emergency meeting of the corporation was being held on Thursday to deal with the occupation.
A sign on one of the tents said: “All day, all week, we’ll sleep on London’s freezing streets. Solidarity.”