I was there at the march and the rally, the march was great, really high spirits. However, the rally was really boring, I stayed until the end, but couldn't help but notice loads of people wandering off as they got bored, we should have mentioned April 12th's march at the start of the rally, not near the end. Plus we should have stopped worrying about candidacy in elections etc, and worry about what needs done to stop this war, like some serious mass protest against major organisations and buildings nearby etc. Socialist candidates are too worried about being elected and not worried about truly effective protest.
Anyway.
Take care evryone.

"Socialist candiates" are never going to get elected, so why worry about it?

I totally agree with the comments above about the Leicester march. It was refreshing to see so many people there from across the Leicester community and full credit to all those involved in organizing it. However, the speeches at the end were a complete turn off for anyone walking past - surely the people that we are trying to reach. I respect the Socialist Alliance, SWP and others who organized this march for their dedication but to turn the event into an anti-capitalist rant or an electoral platform was completely stupid. The supreme irony came when one of the local Labour concillors stood up to speak out against the war and got barracked by some elements in the crowd. As I said to one idiot that was shouting 'Fascist" at him, "are you trying to stop this war or make some cheap political comment." These local marches are massively important if we are to swing public opinion back against this war but we've got to have better strategies for using these events and some people have really got to start using their heads and thinking a bit more about why the hell we're doing what we're doing.

Chris must be the only progressive in history who is suspicious that the police are talking up numbers of protestors. They do that on pro-hunting marches, but do does anyone really think that the police are secretly anti-war? More likely it exposes Chris' feelings about marches not being exciting enough for him and his chums.

I just called it how I saw it: the police were saying that there were 2,000 people there, I thought there were fewer. I imagine that the reason is that they have got very little experience of counting up to 2,000.

As for the anti-capitalist rants, you've got a point, but the problem is that the world and her mate all want to get up on the podium and go on too long. Mea culpa. This is the quid pro quo for getting groups to support it, and I can't see an easy alternative to it, unless the anti-speech brigade organises itself into enough people (30 would probably do it in Leicester) to organise a demo without the help of the ABP.*

Not exciting enough? Narr - some demos need to be boring. I was happy that there was no excitement, cos I'd have been one of the people dealing with the consequences.

*Another Boring Party.

it's fine to have marches, and yes, rallies are boring as hell, just backslapping in many cases...but then what are we doing beside the marches????
if you really want to do something its time for direct action, no messing about, however you want to do it, letter, whatever...just start doing something, we dont have the time to sit here discussing this...