Marchin'

A few observations from today's march. The first was that I was totally unaware of the scale of this protest. People as far as the eye (aided by a 300mm zoom lens) can see, but as I arrived over an hour late (having taken my father to the cardiologist in the morning), I was somewhere at the back, not realising that the front of the procession was by then at its destination - Trafalgar Square. I covered the two miles from Marble Arch Tube station to Trafalgar Square in two hours and twenty minutes - three quarters of a mile per hour, the pace was very slow. So slow that my smartphone pedometer didn't even recognise my motion as 'walking'.

The crowd was very diverse - many families with small children, even the smallest of whom demonstrated great resilience - there was no crying or messing about. And some very old people, some on wheelchairs, some with walking sticks.

The crowd was good natured and peaceful. The police were prepared for such a crowd - I must have seen between 15 and 20 policemen, mostly community officers (volunteers) on the route to Trafalgar Square. There were more down by Parliament and a small group of armed officers outside Downing Street. But compared to London's 'yellow vest' protests, where police almost outnumbered protesters, this was a clear sign that the police expected no trouble and had no trouble. No one was heckling or jeering this massive parade as it passed.

Below: referencing Father Ted and Withnail and I (oft-quoted on this blog).

My personal favourite banner from the march. There were many amusing banners showing whimsy, wit, political awareness and love of the EU. Much more than I'd have thought possible before the referendum; a new political awareness has been generated - and I'd agree with commentators who are saying that this is the beginning of the end of the UK's two-party system that goes back around a century.

Of great concern to Labour Party activists on the march was the whereabouts of leader Jeremy Corbyn. He's not popular among the stop-Brexit crowd. He's losing a lot of votes - the worst government in living memory, and the opposition Labour Party is four percentage points behind the hapless Tories...

Below: there has to be a Polish angle... The Solidarność banner reminded me of the last time I was in Hyde Park on a political protest - December 1981. We marched from here to the embassy of the People's Republic of Poland... "Mr Tusk was right!" - reference to his line about the special place in Hell reserved for those promoting Brexit without a sketch of a plan of how to go about doing it.

Below: the only Brexit-related celebrity I encountered today - the heroic Steve 'SODEM' Bray (Stand of Defiance European Movement), who's outside Parliament every day (when MPs sit). I stuffed a tenner into the box to help fund his ongoing protest.

Below: by the time I'd got to Trafalgar Square, it was half an hour after the speeches had finished...

Left: looking across from outside Big Ben as the crowd disperses. One tech problem I had today was that trying to live Tweet photos from the march, there was evidently insufficient bandwidth. My phone froze and then died, I was unable to restart it. Only after plugging it into the mains at my father's did it finally respond to my button-pushing. With probably tens of thousands of people uploading to the social media at the same time, the mobile network was obviously overloaded.

A great day - let us hope that good prevails over bad. And if you're a UK citizen or resident, and you haven't done so already, please sign the online petition to revoke Article 50. It's really easy to do. As of the time of writing, 4.7 million people already have.

This time last year:
Edge of town

This time three years ago:
The Name of God, Consciousness and Everything

This time five years ago:
The clash of narratives

This time six years ago:
The Church and democracy

This time seven years ago:
Prime lens or zoom?

This time eight years ago:
Warsaw's failed bid as City of Culture, 2016

This time nine years ago:
Stalinist downtown at dusk

This time ten years ago:
The End of an Age of Excess?

This time 11 years ago:
Snowy Easter in England