Bishop tells London protestors to pack up

The Bishop of London has stepped into the row over campaigners camped outside St Paul’s Cathedral, saying it is “time for the protesters to leave”.

Anti-capitalist protesters set up tents outside the cathedral 11 days ago.

Richard Chartres, the third most senior cleric in the Church of England, said in a statement: “This demonstration has undoubtedly raised a number of very important questions.

“The St Paul’s Institute has itself focused on the issue of executive pay and I am involved in ongoing discussions with City leaders about improving shareholder influence on excessive remuneration.

“Nevertheless, the time has come for the protesters to leave, before the camp’s presence threatens to eclipse entirely the issues that it was set up to address.

“The Dean and the Chapter, who are responsible for St Paul’s, have already made it clear that the protest should come to an end and I fully support that view.”

His comments came as Occupy London Stock Exchange denied suggestions that 90% of the tents were left unoccupied overnight.

In a statement, the group said of the claims: “This is simply not the case. We try to keep vacancy to a minimum and operate a sign in/sign out system to help ensure this happens.

“When someone knows they will not be staying overnight, they offer their tent to someone else.

“We are ordinary people with jobs and families. We are occupying in order to register our objection to being shut out of the political process.

“The fact that we are camping out here shows how seriously we take our right to participate and be heard.”

According to a City of London councillor, police used infra-red images to establish that only 10% of protesters were staying at the camp overnight.

Matthew Richardson, who represents Coleman Street ward, said: “I was talking to one of the constables on the ground. It was a City of London police officer.

“90% of the tents are empty. They have a thermal imaging camera. A helicopter flies over with a camera and looks in.”

A spokesman for City of London Police said officers were using “a range of techniques” to monitor the protest, but added: “We’ve not been commenting on numbers and obviously that won’t be changing.”

Meanwhile, independently-commissioned photographs from thermal imaging cameras were published in some newspapers today, apparently showing several unoccupied tents.

Yesterday Robin Smith, a 48-year-old former Conservative councillor for Wokingham Town Council, said he was one of many part-time protesters at the camp.

He said: “I’d say about 25% of the people go away and come back. There are lots of normal middle-class people turning up and helping but they have to go back home and some people come once and go away.”