TakingStock - Mayday protests.

In preparation for the Mayday anti-capitalist protests the Metropolitan police may have taken their ‘zero-tolerance’ approach a step too far.

In the foyer of New Scotland Yard a beret-clad journalist, claiming to be from a radio station in the US, was denied entry to a press briefing, after police officers grew suspicious of his appearance. A grumpy looking officer shook his head, and pointed to the exit.

There to hear how groups of anarchists are preparing to tear down the walls of capitalist hegemony in the City, including the ICAEW’s bastion of corporate power and E&Y’s HQ of exploitation, TS heard journalists mutter at the treatment of their fellow hack. One reporter was brave enough to utter the police could not discriminate ‘based on the way we look’.

But it was the journos who looked nervously for their beret-clad ‘colleague’ after a hack said the glass windows made the pressroom an easy target for a terrorist attack …