Let St Pauls Be St Pauls

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Now that the protest occupying the area outside St Pauls has made its point, it's time they moved on. Any goodwill they may have for their points of view is being eroded by the problems they are causing this key place of worship and tourist attraction. They are not inconveniencing 'The City' in the slightest. Own-goal.

ellisbell - fire service advice. They cannot open to the public whilst the fire service says it is unsafe to do so (camp blocks the required fire engine access to the whole of the north side of the cathedral).

BTW - anyone else amused to see how inaccurate the "tent count" measure is?

A heat seeking camera was put over the camp last might any only 20 tents were shown to be occupied.

Badgers Your post reminded me of that quote doing the rounds of tinternet, attributed to Alexander Tytler:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

thank you, meditrina. Eventually it did load. I see it's the cooking they are partially complaining about, perhaps more than the fire engine access. I suspect there are ways in which a smaller camp could be managed and not close the cathedral. Someone will have leant on the fire service to make sure the advice given was designed to close the camp completely.

ellisbell: that is a very serious accusation of malfeasance in public office.

Who are you accusing and on what grounds?

Ach, get a grip meditrina. That's not a 'very serious accusation of malfeasance in public office', it's someone speculating on an internet forum. Bit of a difference

It's not just the access for fire engines, it's the camping stoves the campers are using that are posing a risk.

The fire service wouldn't advise for it's closer unless they had too, they aren't exactly pro the current government cuts, neither are the church.

I still don't get why they haven't moved to another location in the city. If they can't get to their target (Stock Exchange), why not go to another equally important target? (they could get the river boat from just by St Pauls down to Canary Wharf, it's quite a nice trip and they'd at least be protesting in a way that'd annoy the people they are angry with, rather than people who've done nowt wrong).

Also, it was tipping it down last night, and it's a bit parky today, surely they are going to start having people drift away if they dno't actually start doing something useful, and the whole thing will be declared a massive failure...

meditrina I am just speculating in this particular case, but it is based on knowing that such things happen in this country. Politics is a dirty game, read what some of the politicians say about politics/ watch some of the programmes about political life and you will begin to get some idea.

Werewolf: when the speculation is describing a crime, then it is potentially a serious matter. Ellisbell did not say "I'll bet that...." she made an absolute statement of fact. She has stated that "someone" has committed a crime - definitely the (identifiable) fire officer who gave the advice, and presumably others in the fire service, and some nebulous "others" who may have done the "leaning".

I think our fire fighters do a marvellous job and no, I do not like to see them libelled.

ellisbell - crossed with your last

"Politics is a dirty game"

Maybe. But there are basically two choices.

1. The politicians, fire service, health & safety people, St Pauls and the Church of England are all "dirty" and conniving together.

2. The protesters have parked themselves in an ignorant and pointless place in London.

Which is the more likely?

at Badgers.

Some people really, really seem to hate the idea that everything isn't a conspiracy. Maybe that's because if lots of apparently cospiratorial things in fact just happen that way through incompetence or coincidence then it follows that there's no Grand Arch-Villain whose removal could bring the whole Evil System crashing down.

TheJoyfulPuddlejumper , sorry to hear you've had such a tough time lately; hope things are on the up very soon

BadgersPaws, I'm afraid point number 1 is exactly what many appear to think, or want to think. Don't forget the bankers are in on that as well, leaning on the CofE. It helps to justify the idea that the camp can stay exactly where it is & the needs & wishes of the cathedral & its users simply don't matter. Such a bloody shame.

"BadgersPaws, I'm afraid point number 1 is exactly what many appear to think, or want to think. Don't forget the bankers are in on that as well, leaning on the CofE."

Some people will, sometimes I'm amazed by the fantastically complex world some people need to construct in order to believe certain things.

The head of the CofE has taken quite a few shots at the bankers recently and has spoken out praising marxism because of the disdain it has for capitalism. And all of that must be a part of the cover up. I can just see the Archbishop sitting down for tea with David Cameron and giggling "oh I was so pleased with that statement I made about Sharia law and the bashing you got your chums at the Daily Mail to give me for it. Everyone is so convinced that I'm a left wing loony now and will never guess that I'm really your best chum and more right wing than Thatcher. So now I'll force St. Pauls to get those protesters to move and no one will be clever enough to see through our cunning smoke screen and realise that I'm selling out the Church of England to help your banking chums out! Shall we go fox hunting and then smack some proles up Davey boy?"

TheJoyfulPuddlejumper, DH has been in the old redundancy situation twice in the last decade, once before kids & once after, my sister twice in one year! But £25 for the weekly food budget is as tight as it gets though; you must have to be pretty skilled making it stretch to 3...

Channel Four news are reporting that the Local Authority may be seeking eviction notices.

It would be better PR to move on, especially as we are getting closer to the Lord Mayor's Parade.

Unless of course as well as the church, their target encompasses East End community groups and London's school children.

Bob honestly where do you think this protest features on the Giveafuckametre of Goldmans, JPM, UBS et al that they spend time leaning on the Church?

I was being a tad tongue-in-cheek, FrightNight

Right, so those of you who think the protesters should move, where do you suggest they go?

Or are we saying no-one is allowed to protest because it might be a tad inconvenient?

We need to remember that the problems that led to the biggest economic and political crisis of the last 100 years aren't solved. The causes haven't been addressed. Protest is necessary to stop the wealthy and powerful ignoring the concerns of ordinary people.

None of us would have the right to vote ? or any rights at all ? without protest. None of our hard-won rights were granted to us nicely by benevolent governments that just decided to treat ordinary people with respect.

No, we're not saying that. Somewhere more appropriate I think was the consensus. Somewhere that's a 'tad inconvenient' to the nasty bankers perhaps, not churchgoers. Should they just take over every churchyard in London? Or maybe..somewhere like the originally intended (and widely publicised to give the owners plenty of time to block it) target? Or they could pitch tents in every car-park & every parking spot & every railway platform in the Home Counties (by the 1st class carriages only) so that the bankers can't get to their offices?

What I want to know don't these people have bloody jobs because I can assure you most working people who be to tired for a hard days graft to get involved in this tom foolery the church is loosening 25k a day from them being shut

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2053463/The-thermal-images-prove-90-tents-St-Pauls-protest-camp-left-overnight.html

And their not even their half the time having cocktails doubt

Edam: to the camp at Finsbury Square of course.

The Church has been consistently generous to these protestors, to the extent of taking a direct financial hit (which has now also extended to small businesses in the area, who are reporting takings down 40%). And without them, the camp would never have been established for protestors would have been moved on by the police before they could set up. There was no alternate site then.

The Cathedral did the right thing then - but now there is a second site, the protestors equally need to do the right thing, and remove the harmful impact of those who were, in effect their saviours.

As they seem unwilling to do this, thhen it is clear they are more interested in harming St Pauls, than in any other target. They claim they have them, but they're only making an impact on the Cathedral. Actions speak louder than words., and their actions are harming only the church and a few small businesses.