Ed Miliband warns of St Paul's protest

The protests at St Paul's Cathedral are "danger signals" and reflect the concerns of millions of people, Labour leader Ed Miliband has said.Writing in the Observer, Mr Miliband said the protesters reflected a wider crisis in confidence about the values of those in business and politics.He also repeated warnings about the dangers of "predatory capitalism".Those who have been at the London site since 15 October are protesting against inequality and corporate greed.In the newspaper article, Mr Miliband warned only the "most reckless will ignore" the Occupy London protest and others around the world."The challenge is that they reflect a crisis of concern for millions of people about the biggest issue of our time: the gap between their values and the way our country is run."I am determined that mainstream politics, and the Labour Party in particular, speaks to that crisis and rises to the challenge," he said.Although Mr Miliband acknowledged that many people did not agree with the protesters, he warned that people felt "let down" by aspects of business, finance and politics which seemed to be in touch with the richest 1%, but badly out of touch with the other 99%.Record unemployment, rising inflation, squeezed living standards and turmoil in the eurozone added to the "sense that the economy is on the brink", he said.Protesters have been outside the central London cathedral since 15 Octobe He went on to say "business as usual is not an option" and "productive, responsible behaviour which benefits business and most people in the long term" was the way forward."In every generation, there comes a moment when the existing way of doing things is challenged," Mr Miliband said."It happened in 1945. It happened in 1979 and again in 1997. This is another of those moments because the deeper issues raised by the current crisis are too important to be left shivering on the steps of St Paul's."BBC political correspondent Carole Walker said Prime Minister David Cameron had been far more cautious in his response to the protests.Last week, Mr Cameron said the Archbishop of Canterbury had spoken for the whole country when he called for greater responsibility at the top of society.But the PM has also said the freedom to demonstrate does not include the freedom to pitch a tent anywhere in London.Meanwhile, the banker chosen by St Paul's Cathedral to address the concerns of protesters has warned that the market economy has "managed to slip its moral moorings" with "disastrous consequences".Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, the former chairman of Lazards Investment Bank, Ken Costa, said the finance industry had lost sight of the need to do good as well as make money.He said he would be "exploring pragmatic ways of uniting the financial and the ethical" and maximising shareholder returns should no longer be the "sole criteria" for judging how a company is run.But he insisted the market economy was the most successful system yet devised for improving living standards and that there was a moral imperative to create wealth.Last week, the Corporation of London abandoned plans to take legal action to try to force the estimated 200 protesters to leave the site outside the cathedral.In what was described as a "great U-turn" by the Occupy London Stock Exchange (OLSX) group, the corporation made an offer to allow the protesters to stay until 2012 but urged them to "shrink" the size of the camp to enable it to clear the public highway.Cathedral authorities have invited the activists to take part in negotiations to try to end the demonstration.The OLSX campaign said the corporation's offer would lead to it leaving St Paul's on an agreed date in 2012.