UK News 21-11-2003 200,000 (ish) Protest Against Bush who: George W Bush what: Greeted by at least 110,000 protestors on state visit where: LONDON when: Yesterday snippet: "Up to 110,000 protestors - according to police figures - were involved in Thursday`s huge demonstration in central London against US president George W. Bush`s state visit to Britain," says The Financial Times. "The demonstration was `absolutely massive`, said Lindsey German, co-organiser of the Stop the War Coalition. `At least 200,000, maybe more`." "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," says The Independent, noting that the demonstration passed off with only 58 arrests by 9.30pm. The protestors "marched from Bloomsbury to Trafalgar Square via the Houses of Parliament, a route agreed with Scotland Yard after days of hard negotiation more befitting an international peace treaty than a two-hour demonstration." The Telegraph manages to find only one among them who isn`t a soap-dodging student, to paraphrase self-confessed Labour-voting "millionaire" businessman John Hayes who "spent £108 on a first-class rail ticket" to come and join the throng. Mr Hayes doesn`t feel much affinity with the masses, though. "They`ll all be on benefit, I should think," he says. "Yesterday`s terrorist attacks in Turkey, the most serious assault on British interests in recent history, did little to deter the marchers," says The Scotsman. "Many were convinced that Tony Blair and Mr Bush`s policy in Iraq had `opened a can of worms` and said the blasts were part of the repercussions of war." President Bush ends his state visit to today with an informal trip to Mr Blair`s "home" constituency, the village of Sedgefield, where the two men may make a trip to the local pub, The Dun Cow Inn, for a quiet pint, surrounded by hundreds of police in a £1million security operation. [... more]

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