Looks like Occupy at St Paul's Cathedral is going out not with a bang, but with a whimper (though, given the bangs that happened when some US camps were cleared – New York, Oakland, Denver – maybe that's not such a bad thing). Protesters' legal challenge to the High Court's decision to evict them failed on Wednesday, and the Standard reports the camp is slowly dissolving itself.
The judgement doesn't deny the right to protest at St Paul's but does ban the actual encampment. About ten tents had been packed up by yesterday with what the Standard describes as "die hards" remaining; but the camp's acknowledged attraction for homeless people (and with rough sleeping on the rise, who can blame them) does make us wonder if the people remaining are all "die hards" or a mix of protesters and vulnerable people with nowhere else to go.
The City of London has called on the camp to disband itself, though protesters say the corporation's lack of an eviction timetable is "reckless". However, don't expect all activity to cease at St Paul's; Occupy in Finsbury Square and the School of Ideas are still running and unaffected by the ruling, so campers could just move location and keep a standing protest going at the Cathedral.
Photo by sinister pictures from the Londonist Flickr pool