In 2011, London Is a metropolis of 60 babies to a pauper's grave , bloated bellies on malnourished, sick children and the greatest absolute and relative poverty of the entire UK and indeed much of Europe. It is also a city of gargantuan wealth, greed and opulence; a disgusting contrast being (unusually) held in sharp public focus by the peaceful Occupy London movement at St Pauls.
The most powerful forces in this city would now like that focus to blur and vanish. The conservative Mayor of London, the City of London Corporation and the church top brass have had enough, and look set to commence legal action to remove the safe, peaceful protest camp. So far, attacks on Occupy have been limited to allegations of a "part time" set-up, made by a UKIP Corporation of London councillor and a right wing national newspaper; allegations that have now been roundly discredited. The next challenge will be harder to deflect.
The vested interests within these three now quite embarrassed public bodies are vast. According to the church's website, their financial strategy at present involves "a mix of styles and approaches" having "scaled down holdings in UK company shares and invested more in global company shares and private equity." .
In acknowledgement of the UK's newest and principle religion (shopping) its extensive property portfolio includes retail parks, great chunks of high street and the MetroCentre mall; pre-Westfield the biggest shopping centre in Europe. It also operates highest end retail units in London's Savile Row, and for a mere £85, one can lunch on a steak and a glass of red at the Royal Lancaster, the luxury hotel it owns on London's Hyde Park .
The Mayor of London's love and dedication to high-finance and the City is known and outspoken, and the City of London Corporation is best summarised by the Penguin Rough Guide to London: "with its Lord Mayor, its Beadles, Sheriffs and Aldermen, its separate police force and its select electorate of freemen and liverymen, the City of London is an anachronism of the worst kind. The Corporation, which runs the City like a one-party mini-state, is an unreconstructed old boys' network whose medievalist pageantry camouflages the very real power and wealth which it holds."
So if hundreds of protesters - with an unprecedented media platform and international visibility - pitched up on the land of any companies or institutions with financial interests and a corporate strategy as fierce as these, we would all understand how impossibly uncomfortable, even singularly embarrassed this would make those bodies feel and act? But not the church or the Corporation of London; instead archive images of the Blitz play on broadcast news channels and our last bastion of patriotism, the old dome of St Paul's, begins to look the vulnerable victim again.
As mentioned in my piece for The Independent newspaper today , the most senior clergy are at work on this, none more senior than Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London and primary representative of the Church in the Royal Court, who presided over the will of Diana Princess of Wales and read the sermon at the wedding of William and Kate. Dr Chartres is not interested in health and safety, as made clear by his statement. He just wants to protesters to leave. Now.
But this morning, a non-establishment figure, the (now former) Canon Chancellor Dr Giles Fraser resigned from his position, stating in terms that conjured up almost medieval horror that St Paul's was now "on a course of action that could mean there will be violence in the name of the church".
It is not too late for the those all-powerful vested interests to do what they do best; act in their own interests, but this time in a counter intuitive way. The occupation is totally peaceful, safe and overwhelmingly supported by the public; a public that may be slower to forgive wealthy forces punishing young people for highlighting injustice.