Violence erupts as bankers take to picket lines

The City of London today saw the bloodiest confrontation yet between police and bankers as the blockade of Threadneedle Street continued. Officers wielding batons and shields broke up crowds of bankers who were then charged by police on horseback. Nearly one hundred picketing bankers were arrested bringing the total detained during the month-long blockade to more than two thousand. Hundreds more bankers were reported injured. The confrontation will do little to ease tensions between bankers and the government who seem more determined than ever to defeat what they refer to privately as 'the enemy within'. But bankers' leader Fred Goodwin remains defiant. "Thousands of my men have put their whole working life into digging every last bonus out of these moneypits," he said. "We won't give them up without a fight."