Fek Orf Dubya
Tony Bliar told us invading Iraq would make Britain safer, despite British intelligence telling him that invading Iraq would actually make Britain more at risk of a terrorist attack. But our Tony knew best, and invaded anyway… And so here we are months later, thousands dead in Iraq, but still no WMD, no Saddam, no peace in Palestine, and not even a hint of Bin Laden’s capture. And now Britons are a major target for terrorists. Thanks Tony.
At least a lot of the British public realise Bliar and Bush have blood on their hands; organisers of today’s anti-Bush march in London were hoping for 100,000 people, but in the end it exceeded everyone’s expectations—the BBC says 150,000, the organisers 200,000, and even the police 110,000. Whichever figure one trusts, not bad for a dreary Thursday afternoon! As a result, the second full day of his state visit did not have a single moment’s exposure of the President to the public.
More importantly, the endless rolling roadblocks, the so-called sterile areas and swarms of police were replaced by a colourful mass of peaceful protest. And as the President’s motorcade melted into the early evening gloom through the gates of Buckingham Palace, there was an overwhelming sense of Britons reclaiming their capital city.
Too fucking right—sane, peace-loving Americans are more than welcome, but Bush most certainly isn’t. I was going to say that the march featured a representative cross-section of society, but to be honest it was more like a giant queue at the post office, what with all the pensioners and mothers with pushchairs. Still the Indy’s description of the demo is pretty good:
They came prepared with graphic placards demanding vengeance against “Bush the No 1 Terrorist”, vacuum flasks and lunchboxes packed with cheese sandwiches. From sex workers to Muslim clerics, City executives to American expats, and retired teachers to giggling schoolgirls, they were the noisy coalition that yesterday brought central London to a polite and very British halt.
On the afternoon in which Downing Street swapped the pomp and circumstance of George Bush’s state visit for hard politics, it fell to thousands of protesters to provide the symbolism of the day by marching through the capital against the American President and, to a greater or lesser extent depending on which banner was being waved, everything he stands for.
Some of the placards do seem to have baffled foreign journalists—is “Bog Off Ape Boy” really that weird? Quite succinct I thought.
I arrived in Trafalgar Square by about 4.30pm, which was pretty packed by then, in time to watch the unveiling of the statue of Dubya.
I decided to beat the rush and saunter off before the symbolic pulling down, but got home in time to enjoy it on the news anyway.
Earlier in the day at Westminster Abbey, Bush met with British families who had lost relatives in the Iraq war. Well, the ones that wouldn’t cause any embarrassing scenes anyway:
Val Titchener, 55, whose son Matthew was killed in an ambush in Basra in August, but who had not been asked to meet Bush, said she didn’t mind her exclusion. “I would probably lose my temper if I met with him, so he’s probably lucky I wasn’t there,” she told NEWSWEEK. “My son did a job that he loved. I would have supported him in whatever he did,” she added. “I wouldn’t deface his memory by getting political and screaming and shouting.”
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