It's been suggested that the detectives responsible for Charles's safety were on a different wavelength from those trying to quell the protests of the students. But I'm not convinced they were.In one of my previous Blogs, I highlighted the way the police used an out-of-formation police van to draw the protesters into vandalous acts and it seems possible that the danger faced by the Prince of Wales was part of the same strategy.
Much of the police's operational decisions continue to suggest that they have two conflicting objectives when attempting to control these demonstrations. The first of these objectives is the legitimate task of ensuring the safety of the demonstrators, bystanders and property along the route. The second of these objectives is the entirely illegitimate effort to make the demonstrators behave as badly as possible.
Against this background, doesn't it seem possible that the decision to route the car carrying Charles and Camilla towards the protesters was a deliberate and calculated act?
If there was sufficient confidence that those charged with protecting the Prince could handle the situation if it got out of control, isn't it possible that Charles and Camilla were deliberately placed in harm's way to maximise the propaganda victory over the students?
It's notable that the Cenotaph was once again left unguarded and, this time, a couple of students yielded to the temptation to desecrate its sanctity. It continues to be far more notable that thousands of protesters completely respected this monument but it doesn't appear to suit anybody's purposes to draw attention to this.
We are constantly being told that the protesters are being infiltrated by anarchist groups but there has not been a single iota of evidence to support this theory and based on what I saw when I attended the second demonstration, I do not believe this to be the case.
If anarchist groups are really responsible for all this violence, why aren't they crowing about it? Why aren't they putting up their spokespeople to exploit the opportunity to talk about their aims? And why haven't the police identified a single individual from one of these groups among the protesters?
In fact, the vandalism and violence appears to be being carried out by ordinary student protesters who are being goaded by unnecessarily confrontational police tactics into committing criminal acts.
Unfortuabnelty, the students themselves have bought into the propaganda that outside agencies are infiltrating their marches in a bid to enact violence and vandalism. They seriously need to examine the likeliness of this.
At the protest I attended, the police formed a second 'kettle' just as students were starting to disperse because of the cold temperature and because of boredom. They were dribbling away at a modest rate and there was no way that the police could claim that they posed any kind of risk to public order.
Why then did the police decide to contain them using the faceless force of shields, helmets and batons? And why did they do this with unapologetic brutality? What possible legitimate purpose is served by the poolice's decision to escalate a situation that looked like it was calming down?
These are the questions that the media needs to address. And they can start by asking Clarence House who decided that Prince Charles's route should make it virtually inevitable that he and his wife would get caught up in the attack? And someone should ask Prince Charles how he feels about the possibility that he was a mere pawn in the police's effort to demonise the protests.
you wanted to create a system designed to guarantee corruption, you couldn't do much better than FIFA's discredited method for choosing between World Cup bids.