Take a look at the video (link below). These shots were captured at the student demonstration in Whitehall on Wednesday.

It shows the police van, which would become the target of vandals, shortly after it had parked up. The shots were filmed by a Sky News cameraman at 12:48pm - 12 minutes before the decision to contain thousands of protesters.

Does it portray a tense, volatile situation, in which police officers are in a vulnerable position?

This is an important question. On the day of the protests, the Met released a statement saying the carrier had been left because "officers felt vulnerable and decided the best course of action was to leave the van", yet the first obvious acts of vandalism towards the van did not occur until just after 1:05pm.

blogs.news.sky.com/frontlineblog/Post:25...30-abab-bbeb70b3cb98

Sadly I think it says that the Police are totally useless at their job rather than cunning and conspiratorial. A very stupid waste of taxpayers money to abandon a vehicle into the middle of a massive crowd. The officer who left it should be fined for the repairs./