well the implicit question in the title, should we have the right to remove a protest just because it's an eyesore, I would have to say no. In terms of permanency I don't suppose anyone should have that right, there may be plenty of others who would like to use the space to air their views, so I'd be pro limited regulation for any protests lasting over a certain period of time, whatever is sensible, be it 24 hours or a week. I have to say that I was never inured to the Tamil protests that lasted several weeks last spring. I found them deeply poignant and heart-breaking and of course ultimately futile. Colombo had set upon a cynical and brutal strategy to end a horrible 30 odd year civil war, and nothing London was going to say was going to have any effect frankly. In the light of Libya we (the international community) now seem surely obligated to step in whenever a government brutalises it's own people. The fact that we've fallen at the first Syrian hurdle suggests that in fact no precedent has been set, merely a blip. But I digress.