Brown Backs Down

Well, we all turned up of one mind..........if it meant getting arrested, it meant getting arrested. With prison overcrowding were we really likely to see mass arrests? Maybe the plan was, if it was a tincywincy protest it was worth risking, but whilst the erstwhile mass support for Stop the War has melted away, protesters were out today in large enough numbers to have made it a tad embarrassing for MR B if the march had been stopped. I went with my pal Sharon - pic right (she who is banned from the House of Commons for shouting down into the chamber to agree with John McDonnell on 18th March 2003), she had gone prepared to be arrested, unlike me (never that well organised - I just took my mobile and Blackberry!) she had a clean pair of knickers, dental floss and baby wipes (one apparently doesn't get any toilet paper if arrested).

But today was a potential Rubicon and I was disappointed that so few of my fellow citizens saw that. As Martin Niemoller said in 1945

First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.

What was interesting was that the law dragged up by Gordon Brown was the one enacted to prevent the Chartists demonstrating. At a time when this same man spouts mealy mouthed words about Burma and every child being precious he doesn't want those of us who are outraged by an illegal immoral and unjustifiable war which is killing the very children he claims to care for, to have our voices heard.


I was disappointed that there were no Lib Dem speakers, I will take this up with STWC but I was delighted to see David Howarth in Trafalgar Square. So, Sharon took a few pix, which can be seen here, sadly you are unlikely to see any coverage anywhere else.