As Christmas Eve dawns, the tent hamlet that popped up in front of St Paul’s Cathedral more than two months ago is still there. Today, the mood in the London outcrop of the global Occupy movement is relaxed – a little festive even – compared with the encampment’s tense October stand-off with church and city authorities.

But one thing that has not changed is the jovial jumble of causes and slogans. In defiance of those who dismiss the movement as having no unifying agenda, the protesters are happy for each individual to define what they are there to achieve.

Yet there is a strange absence in the cacophony of demands. Almost no echo can be heard from a long tradition of economic protest movements, which, since the dawn of recorded history, have put one unambiguous demand at the top of their agenda: cancel the debts, redeem the debtors.