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Anti-War Protest in London, March 2008

I attended a protest march in London yesterday in opposition to the wars currently being engaged by the UK. These photos are available in a Flickr set.

Arriving at Trafalgar Square

Crowds at Trafalgar Square
Manchester University SU at the Protest

Manchester University Student Union sent two coach-loads of people.
Temporary Stage Errected

A temporary stage was set up.

George Galloway speaking on said stage.
Banners and slogans everywhere

Emotive slogans.
Placards being constructed en site
Tens of thousands flooded Trafalgar

Tens of thousands of people flooded Trafalgar Square and the surrounding area, but what little media coverage there was of this played the numbers down.
Missing the point..?

The fact that McDonalds just carried on regardless was fairly amusing.
World's #1 Terrorist

Damn straight.
Hand-written placards are striking amid the mass-produced

The majority of placards at the protest were produced in the thousands by organisations (I carried one from the CND), so more sincere, hand-made versions stood out well.

I took this video as we approached Westminster Bridge. The chant is supposed to be “This is what democracy looks like; this is what democracy feels like”, but a change seemed fitting here…
At Westminster

Final phase of the rally at Westminster.
CPGBs were loud

CPGBs started chanting about revolution. Great to see people enthused, but that wasn’t really the topic of the day chaps.
Summation

I noticed these placards lying around at the very end, seemed to sum up the feeling of the day.
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George Galloway speaking in Manchester 20/02/08

Audio from George Galloway’s speech this afternoon at Luther King House in Manchester.
Some elements are taken from from his confrontation with the US senate in 2005 (video is well worth watching, despite it’s length - Galloway is unshaken and resolute throughout).

MP3 audio (40kbps, 11.1MB download) / Ogg Vorbis (32kbps, 5.5MB download)
Note that quality is similar in both files, go with Ogg Vorbis if you can to save on bandwidth.

Apologies for the poor audio quality, the recording was made on my mobile phone, which saves to the AMR format. I cleaned it up (or tried to) using Audacity.

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Liverpool picket of Ann Widdecombe’s anti-abortion roadshow

Just got back from this - not a bad turn-out, maybe 100 people. Police were actually pretty pleasant from what I could tell, got a little aggressive about use being on public property at the start but nothing remarkable.
We basically stood and chanted for about an hour, then left, nothing eventful since she’d apparently been in the hotel the whole day.

The only thing that riled me was that there were nearly as many people from the Manchester SU (who I went with) as there were from Liverpool! I realise the populations are different, but if Manchester can transport that many, where were the Liverpudlians?

Once the police had pushed us off the Liner Hotel's property
Once the police had pushed us off the Liner Hotel’s property.

In the crowd, with horses in the background
Placards and horses.

More placards
The placards were supplied by the SWP. The one on the right reads “get your rosaries off my ovaries” - great slogan.

Sorry the pictures are so blurry - not much light and being in the middle of a crowd makes it hard to frame a shot properly.

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Canada, I thought you were cool

Apparently, Canada has only two main broadband providers, both block port 25, and one blocks a great many other ports as well. This does not sound like a modern infrastructure to me!

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It’s been a good week.

[...]
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Saddam Hussein sentenced to death. There can’t be many people surprised at this outcome, and now, naturally there are accusations that Bush et al timed the announcement specifically so that it was “two days before pivotal midterm elections”. Seems like everything is going to get worse before it gets better.

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Could Tony Blair be getting back into my favour? He is meeting with executives from US biotech firms in California, and is expected to promote Britain as an ideal place for stem-cell research.

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