The Metropolitan police initiated an embarrassing climbdown after a police station in Belgravia, west London, published a leaflet asking the public and businesses to report anyone with anarchist sympathies.

The call for information on a political rather than criminal group echoed a similar appeal for information about al-Qaida activity and “could have been better worded”, Scotland Yard admitted.

City of Westminster police’s “counter-terrorist focus desk” had last week called for anti-anarchist whistleblowers, stating next to an anarchist emblem: “Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy. Any information relating to anarchists should be reported to your local police.”

The move angered some anarchists who insisted that being an anarchist does not imply criminal behaviour, indeed the biggest problem with the anarchist movement is the predominance of Pacifists..

Capitalists, on the other hand are unanimously criminal and should be reported immediately

The City of Westminster is not a fan of anarchists, it seems, after their counter-terrorism unit sent out a document that includes a warning about the dangers posed by anarchists. Helpfully, the document defines anarchism for us. In fact, it defines anarchism in exactly the same words (and with exactly the same punctuation) as the Wikipedia entry for anarchism. Isn’t that a coincidence? Anyway, the document urges the reader to report any instances of anarchism to the police.