Times have clearly changed. A decade ago, a May Day riot resulted in a fair amount of damage and the crusties tried to invade the Liffe floor. They made a crucial mistake though, as they failed to realise that most of the people there were quite determined to defend their pitch. The result was that the crusties got a bit of kicking.
But the City has moved on from that period of confidence. Bankers and brokers were advised this week that the antics they used in 1999, such as waving wads of cash at the crusties as they passed, was not advisable. Instead, they were told to dress down and blend in, which quite frankly is hard if you’ve had a bath in 2009.
I too have mellowed and so I decided to avoid the City yesterday. But a mucker who braved it says he was unimpressed with the whole thing. “I went down to Bank at 11:30 to take photos. There were more people with cameras than genuine crusties; it was like a carnival,” he says. The crusties bravely attacked a branch of RBS, even though it was some way from Bishopsgate where the fat-cat bankers supposedly destroyed their wealth, and they threw a few missiles.