Tim Hume
The Independent
October 18, 2011
Financial workers returned to their offices in the City of London yesterday to find the hardcore remnants of a global anti-capitalist movement camped on their doorstep.
Police described the atmosphere as calm and there were no arrests on the first business day since hundreds of demonstrators occupied the grounds of St Paul’s Cathedral, next to the London Stock Exchange. The demonstration began on Saturday as part of a global wave of protests inspired by the month-long Occupy Wall Street movement in New York.
Financiers were seen hovering on the fringe of the protest camp, reading their placards and trying to understand their demands. The bolder among them, such as financial recruitment company director Matthew Clapp, wandered through the occupation engaging the demonstrators in what he called “healthy debate”.
“There’s a lot of protest, but there doesn’t seem to be much of a solution,” he said. “What are we going to do, barter cows and donkeys again? They say capitalism is bad: okay, what do they want to do about it?”
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