UK News 23-09-2002 Countryside Comes To Town who: Countryside Alliance what: Celebrates peaceful end to Britain`s biggest ever protest where: LONDON when: Yesterday snippet: "The pro-hunting `Liberty and Livelihood` countryside march through London on Sunday became the largest political protest in recent British history," reports The Financial Times. "More than 407,000 people marched through Whitehall demonstrating about the threatened hunting ban, the depressed farming industry and poor rural services." "In an era of political apathy, the sight of a vast tide of humanity - and not all of them welly-booted, tweeded or flat-capped - standing up to be counted was enough to put a lump in the throat of anyone who valued democracy," says The Telegraph, uncharacteristically giving a political voice to its resident technology expert Robert Uhlig. "This was a demonstration by people not accustomed to demonstrating," says The Guardian`s Emma Brockes in an amusing article which rather trivialises the historical weight of the occasion. "Throughout the march the only aggression shown by a crowd of 400,000 people was marital bickering between couples unsure of where they were supposed to be going." The Sun, meanwhile, cuts to the political quick with its photo spread. Three topless young ladies, Clare, Jo and Annalise, fasten tiny countryside campaign stickers to their nipples to promote hunting, fishing and shooting while a tweed-capped young farmer is pictured holding aloft his makeshift banner with the message "We`re mostly here for the TOTTY". [... more]

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