March 20 saw demonstrations around the world to mark the 1st anniversary of the US/UK invasion of Iraq. While the National Stop the War Coalition had originally called for a decentralised day of action with local events, in the great traditions of internal democracy and imagination for which they are famous, they decided instead to call a demo in London (again!). As ever those of us from the rest of the country dutifully trooped of to join the festivities.

Two coaches went down from Nottingham, not a bad turnout given the political context, but nothing to write home about given the size of the city. The weather was similarly not great with occasional bursts of rain. Numbers of people on demos is notoriously difficult to gague, but there were certainly more people there than I had expected.

The demo followed a typically unexciting route from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square, for the typically unexciting speeches. I met up with a friend which helped to make the day more interesting and a group of us gave out leaflets promoting the new Grassroots Opposition to War (GROW) network. We met a ridiculouly large number of people we knew along the way, suggesting that the British progressive movement is even more incestuous than I had realised.

On reaching Trafalgar Square we gave out the remainder of our leaflets and, deciding that we couldn't be bothered with listening to people tell us why we were there, gave up on the speakers and headed for the pub. Priorities, priorities!