Courtesy A/P

Looks like the big leaders are hiding from the crowds. Who can blame them?

Thousands of G-20 protesters jammed downtown London on Wednesday and some tried to storm the Bank of England, pelting police with eggs and fruit and rocking the barricades designed to control them.

Demonstrators shouted ”Abolish Money!” and clogged streets in the financial district known as ”The City” even as Prime Minister Gordon Brown and President Barack Obama held a news conference elsewhere in the British capital.

Demonstrators hoisted effigies of the ”four horsemen of the apocalypse,” representing war, climate chaos, financial crimes and homelessness.

Helicopters hovered above the protests and some buildings were boarded up in case the protests turned ugly. Many banks had extra security and hundreds of police officers lined the streets.

Fearing they would be targeted by protesters, some bankers swapped their pinstripe suits for casual wear and others stayed home. Bolder financial workers leaned out their office windows Wednesday, taunting demonstrators and waving 10 pound notes at them.

Musician and political activist Billy Bragg said the time was now to make a difference. “It’s better than sitting down shouting at the television at these bankers,” he said. “We cannot go back to the way things were before to the million-dollar bonus culture.”

And protest they should.