Occupied London Put on Notice.

At some point today (1/1/11) Saint Paul's Cathedral will issue the Occupylsx protest with a 48 hour notice to quit. That means if the protesters fail to leave within 48 hours St Paul's will begin legal proceedings to have them evicted.

Some of you have probably noticed that the St Paul's dispute is being used as a metaphor for my grandmother's situation. I must say that it's a very apt metaphor because my grandmother's interests are not represented in it in any way shape or form. In the metaphor the protesters are playing the role of the Local Health Authority (LHA) and St Paul's/the Church of England are playing the role of the Whitgift Estate. The Whitgift Estate of course being the estate of the Bishop of Whitgift - holiday home to the Archbishop of Canterbury. So by being seen to have senior figures resign in disgust and taking tough action against the protesters the Whitgift Estate is trying to save itself by throwing the LHA under the bus. I should warn them this is not the sort of behaviour that convinces me they should be allowed to continue as a going concern.

Of course by wrapping the Occupylsx protest up in my clothes the government, the Church and the City of London Corporation are hoping to silence the actual message of the actual protest. Occupylsx are unlikely to leave within 48 hours and will instead go to court and attempt to argue either that an easement has been created or their right to protest under the European Human Rights Act. The Church's long term objective is allow the protest to continue but in one of London's parks where it can be used as an open air homeless shelter/research project once all the Church run Christmas shelters kick out in the first week of January.

In other news the third quarter GDP figures have been released and show that the UK economy grew by 0.5%. They're likely to be revised downwards to 0.3 - 0.4%.