Central London on anarchy alert

MAY DAY FLASHPOINT UPDATE

Thousands of May Day demonstrators have poured into central London chanting slogans, daubing graffiti and bringing traffic to a standstill on several key routes.

A hard core of around 1,000 protesters played cat-and-mouse with police around the West End, among them known and identified troublemakers. Around 6,000 people gathered in Trafalgar Square - including 4,000 from a TUC march - where there were reports of stones and cans being thrown at police as anarchists attempted to hijack the event. Earlier in Oxford Street, traffic halted and tensions rose as around 1,000 protesters mingled with lunchtime shoppers and kicked 20 inflatable footballs around, some as big as 3ft across.

In New Bond Street, designer stores had shut up for the day, including Ralph Lauren, Chanel and Bulgari. Around 1,000 protesters marched down the street, chanted anti-capitalist slogans and painted "Unions Rule" on the Gucci shop front. However, by 3.30pm there was no sign of any major trouble and police said they had yet to make a single arrest.

AA Roadwatch said traffic was slow across London throughout the day as several roads were closed for short periods while protesters gathered at different points.

Many of the large groups of demonstrators walked in circles shouting "don't get boxed in" - determined to avoid a repeat of last year when they were corralled by police for six hours at Oxford Circus. More than 5,000 police were on the streets.

Assistant Commissioner Michael Todd, in charge of policing the protest, said the Met was operating an "in-yer-face" style of policing today.

The protest ringleaders were communicating with mobile phones, he said. He described them as "rabble looking for a ruck", adding: "The danger is that if we don't follow groups like this, they can do what they want in a very short space of time."

One worry for police was that the Globalised Resistance contingent marching with the TUC to Trafalgar Square might break away once the traditional speeches had ended and "melt-off" into Mayfair to reinforce groups of agitators bent on mayhem.

Officers were closely monitoring the crowds amid fears that a hard core of between 300 and 400 activists was intent on causing trouble.

Around mid-afternoon there were reports of clashes between some anarchists and police outside the National Gallery, with protesters hurling cans and stones at the police lines.

At 3pm, London Mayor Ken Livingstone, Lord Harris, the chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority and Lee Jasper, the Mayor's police and race relations adviser, arrived at Scotland Yard for talks with Met Commissioner Sir John Stevens over the May Day operation.

Mr Todd said leaflets directing protesters to Mayfair were "sinister" urging demonstrators to target rich people. "That doesn't sound to me like a dignified, lawful protest," he said.

The first disturbance of the day came soon after 9.30am outside Horseferry Road magistrates' court where 200 members of the anti-roads Critical Mass Group, including cyclists, blocked traffic. They were joining around 100 members of the Wombles anti-capitalist group - White Overall Movement Building Liberations through Effective Struggle - demonstrating outside the trial of seven of their members arrested for alleged public order offences in Oxford Street last October.

Protesters blew whistles and shouted: "Free the Wombles" before police reinforcements were drafted in and the procession of cyclists was moved on. Hundreds of environmental campaigners and protesters against the war on terrorism massed in Grosvenor Square outside the US Embassy, where they were greeted by a massive police presence. The crowd remained good-natured.

On their journeys from Camberwell Green and Camden, hundreds of cyclists were flanked by police motorcycle outriders and followed by dozens of officers in vans. They passed the major banks in Mayfair and many upmarket shops which had not taken the precaution of boarding-up their windows.

At a Starbucks coffee house, a usual target for anti-capitalist protesters, a manager of an independent bank on Berkeley Square said: "Our bank could be seen as the epitomy of the fatcat society these people hate so much. But we are not boarding up, that is exactly what they want.

? Reporting team: Colin Adamson, Alexis Akwagyiram, Harriet Arkell, Hugh Dougherty, Danielle Gusmaroli, Claire Hu, Keith Poole, David Taylor.

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