Angry protests erupted on the streets of the City for a second day yesterday as demonstrators switched their focus from the banking system to the police. Officers again formed a "kettle" outside the Bank of England, trapping around 250 increasingly agitated protesters who had gathered in Exchange Square, and moved hundreds of others away in separate pens as tension escalated.
Scuffles broke out as chants and slogans that had the day before been aimed at bankers were reappropriated for use against the Met, and organisers criticised the "enormous police repression" of the crowds on Wednesday.
At one point later yesterday a group clashed with police outside the branch of RBS that had been attacked the day before, and two men were wrestled to the ground by officers, prompting a furious reaction from a 30-strong crowd. As more police came running, with batons drawn, one protester was led away with blood streaming from his head.
The day had begun peacefully with a group playing a giant game of monopoly outside the Stock Exchange being bought tea and Marmite on toast by a banker.
As an army of cleaners set to work, there was an eerie calm. On the walls of the Bank of England, graffiti slogans, stickers and vandalised statues remained as reminders of the throngs that had filled Threadneedle Street. In nearby Bishopsgate, walls and pavements were scrubbed, brass nameplates polished and stickers removed, as all traces of the climate camp were eradicated. But by mid-morning, before it was known that the man who died had not been a protester but a newsagent, calls went out for a solidarity demonstration outside the Bank.
Around 30 people marched from Bishopsgate to Exchange Square, where their numbers were soon swelled by many more. As isolated scuffles broke out between police and protesters, a ring of officers crept closer and the mood turned sour. Protesters found themselves unable to leave. Horses were used to pen others around the corner of the Bank as protesters who the day before had sung "Build a bonfire, put the bankers on the top" substituted "coppers" for bankers.
Meanwhile the ExCel centre in Docklands was turned into a virtual fortress, with the public only allowed to demonstrate in one small area on the edge of Royal Albert Dock, half a mile from the centre. Most of the 1,500 protesters were forced to walk more than a mile from the nearest bus stops. Many were stopped and searched. "On Wednesday I was coralled with 4,000 people for four hours for doing nothing," said Tim Smith, a carpenter from London. "Now I have been stopped and searched twice. I have been made to feel like a criminal for exercising my right to peaceful protest."