I can't think of a better venue than Hyde Park given the number of people there. The demo was so huge that it needed a huge venue for the rally. I'm not sure where else you think the demo should have ended. Rather than just milling around the streets people were able to hear the speakers, meet up and organise. Direct action has its place but this demo achieved what it needed to. It showed the level of public opposition to the war and made it more difficult for the trade union bureaucrats to back Blair's warmongering. A job well done.

It`s reasonable to assume that the huge mass of
people could have by its share size blocked London.
A good effort although today.
But is it enough?

The real way to do the government a huge favour is to roam around central London smashing up fast food restaurants, coffee bars and luxury cars. That way, both politicians and the media can dismiss you as just the usual rent-a-mob intent on mayhem, rather than a group of people with a serious point to make.

As it happened, today's demonstration was hugely impressive. I can't help but think that the turnout would have been nearer 4000 rather than the 400,000 that has been reported if the event had been advertised as the usual stop the city/smash capitalism jaunt. You are deluding yourself if you think that any more than a handful of today's demonstrators would have got involved in something more confrontational if only they'd been properly encouraged.

Rather than keeping those people "off the streets", the march's organisers had actually got them out of their homes, away from their TVs and together in one place where they can see that there are many, many people that share their point of view on this issue. They are an example for what I'm sure is a far greater number that feel the same way but weren't able to go today. By bringing those people together, they can better organise continued resistance to the proposed war. That is a major achievement.

There's a time and place for direct action and today most definitely wasn't it. Given that you found huge numbers of people turning out to support your professed cause "boring", you might consider leaving politics to people that believe that debate and persuasion is sometimes as important as action.

Ironically, the argument of the antiwar movement is that physical conflict should be avoided except where absolutely unavoidable (or for some people, avoided entirely) - something you don't seem to agree with.

There's plenty of "excitement" to be had with the International Solidarity Movement in Palestine and Iraq if it's thrills you're really after, but I can't help thinking the type you're into involves bragging in the pub after a few hours of running around London making a nuisance of yourself, rather than putting yourself to any real inconvenience and in any real danger.

You might consider that leaving politics to people that believe that debate and persuasion is sometimes as important as action has got us no-where and this war will still happen, unless we actively prevent it, otherwise it still means death, mayhem and conflagration in the Middle East. I didn't advocate smashing and looting, but civil disobedience and direct action, that need not neccessarily mean trashing Starbucks, but disrupting the Labour Party conference farce.

Greetings from another country in Europe.
Many have seen the demo in the evening news.

But only few know that US has made air raids
against Iraq within the last 24 hours.

And Corporate News are already jawing
and broadcasting distortion, distraction, diversion and
deception. To cap it all: propaganda

The nightly news are already, deliberately making false
accounts from todays events in Hyde Park.
At least a quarter of a million people showed up today.
But do you know what they are telling on the tv?
"Thousands took part in a demo."
Not mentioning hundreds of thousands.
Not even mentioning tens of thousands.

Corporate Media paving the way for the established lies.
And the War seems to fit better into their schedule.

No Name is right.

We can demonstrate on the streets but it wont take
us far. And the airplanes are over Iraq, already.

Time is running out...

compliments for today's demo in London..

also in italy we are going to have a very big demo against war , but this is not enough!

this time in order to break the corporate media censorship veil stronger action is needed.
let's think about something like mass civil disobedience or whatever we can invent.

Living here in the US, I have to give those of you in the U.K. heaps of praise for the turn out that you produced in Hyde Park. The size of the turn out and the nonviolent manner of the demo is more than enough to show the world that people are very serious about this. However, in the US hardly any mention of this has been given so the message here is literally falling on deaf ears.

Again, I can only laud you there and lament that we are not more active here.

I believe assembling in Hyde Park was the best idea, given the sheer size of the demonstration. Yes, mass civil disobedience works, but with any kind of civil disobedience, you have to find a way to control the crowd. With 400,000 people, you have the problem of the errant protestor, one kid, who gets brave and breaks a window or something similar, in an otherwise completely peaceful demo. When that happens, the police take it upon themselves to arrest him, the rest of the mob sees that and gets pissed off, and then the whole thing goes to shit.

Civil disobedience is good, but you have to have people you can rely on to carry it out without screwing up, and in a crowd of 400,000 people, you can't trust everyone.

so yeah, great demo. carried out exceptionally well. if we can keep to this kind of demonstration and give protesting a better face, we may well get the full million next time.

This demo hasn't achieved much and hasn't stopped the governments head long rush towards war. We should have done much more than just walk from A to B to listen to another load of speakers like we have done on a thousand demonstrations before. People should have took over Oxford Street or something after the and tried to bring the whole West End to a standstill and been a lot more militant! The whole of central London should have been sprayed with anti-war slogans as well.

Maybe the next demo the National Don't Attack Iraq Day of Action will be better. The American and British governments are planning to commit mass destruction and genocide on Iraq just so they can get their hands on Iraqi oil. People should have been in a much angrier mood and really done something to make an impact even if that meant mass rioting and violence in the West End! I for one would have liked to see the army recruiting office in the Strand get totally trashed!

Noone's commented on the awful crush at Embankment - which couldn't have held even the numbers of people that the organisers were expecting. Also why weren't the roads closed to traffic? Loads of people I know gave up at Trafalgar Square, having spent several hours waiting to move on the march, and ages getting a few hundred yards up the road.

And I agree with first poster, there was a real sense of anti-climax in Hyde Park, and no focal point, just people milling around.

Could people have got together and taken over the lanes from traffic as is their right on a demonstration of this size - after all, they closed the route to traffic for the COUNTRYSIDE ALLIANCE.

It had inspirational moments but it was at the same time the biggest and the most oppressed march I've ever been on.

we definately need to be expressing our anger at the prospect of war on iraq by other means than marches that are totally sanctionned by those in power, ie. those we are essentially protesting against. i don't really see how it's a protest if they're letting us do it. the route is approved -channelling us so we don't cause too much disruption, like it's more important that we don't affect saturday afternoon shopping, that we don't bother motorists or scare the inhabitants of downing street than that we are opposed to their murderous plans. the speakers are acceptable, heaven forbid that anything inspiring or radical or effective be said. whilst of course i think it's wonderful that so many thousands of people were on the march on saturday and i wouldn't have wanted to miss it myself, i just don't think we should let our dissent be organised for us, because like that it can never be threatening or powerful. we need to be more creative and spontaneous and independant in our protest, in future perhaps a day of action can be announced and then people can really come out onto the streets, not to trudge along the path they've dictated for us but to be everywhere and anywhere we see as effective, relevant and important, the american embassy for example, and with banners and placards we've made ourselves not just pick up the mass-produced swp ones cos we haven't bothered. if we let them control our protest like they try to control every other aspect of our lives then that renders it meaningless.

I was told by the coach driver that the police had refused to close a road to allow coaches to park and that coaches were hounded round by police all after noon, many not being allowed to park anywhere. The coach driver said himself, its because they do not agree with what you are doing. So, these people (using the term loosely) who are supposed to protect the public (yeah, I know, I know) can leave me and a five yr old struggling to find a coach that isn't there on a busy road (park lane) that they don't close off to traffic until after 5pm, in danger of death by BMW, with no obvious crossing and a heavily barriered centre.
The shambles getting out of London was dangerous. Wouldn't be anything to do with the fact that getting coaches back late costs us more, would it? Did the Countryside Alliance get the usual road closed off for coaches and vulnerable bags of meat (ie. people) trying to get through the traffic?