The last week has seen a rising tide of anger in Britain at the Israeli attacks on Lebanon. This is reflected in the mood and size of the two marches and lobby, all organised at short notice.
Up to 25,000 turned out on Saturday 29 July, perhaps up to two thousand on the mid week lobby of Bomber Blair's Downing Street residence – and then a massive 100,000 this Saturday (5 August).
Apart from the impressive response at short notice the other important thing was the youthfulness and wide ethnic mix of the protesters.
A seasoned veteran said about the first demo: "It was like a London bus". By which she meant a much wider range of people than usual, more typical of London's mixed population than we normally see on demonstrations. The massive 2003 anti Iraq-war demo of up to two million is in another league of course.
The other notable feature for us, was the enthusiasm with which our Socialist Appeal leaflets were literally seized, at times. We handed out 4,000 leaflets and could have done that several times over, something we haven't seen for a very long time.
It almost certainly reflects a thirst for explanations of a difficult political situation. Obviously there were a wide range of opinions represented on the protests and people new to politics want to get to grips with the issues – as well as express anger. Which fully justifies the effort in getting out two Socialist Appeal leaflets in a fast moving week.
