Well, I hope Euan Ferguson enjoys little leftist joyfest.

In the meantime, those of us who have some concerns about nerve gas, nuclear missiles, and a philosophy dedicated to the destruction of all things Western, including the right to march down a street, we can examine the people who are represent the Left's alternative to military strength:

Two elderly women, hand in hand in furs, passed through, still humming the dying notes from his 'Give Peace A Chance'.



...There were nuns. Toddlers. Women barristers. The Eton George Orwell Society. Archaeologists Against War. Walthamstow Catholic Church, the Swaffham Women's Choir and Notts County Supporters Say Make Love Not War (And a Home Win against Bristol would be Nice). They won 2-0, by the way. One group of SWP stalwarts were joined, for the first march in any of their histories, by their mothers. There were country folk and lecturers, dentists and poulterers, a hairdresser from Cardiff and a poet from Cheltenham.

...I called a friend at two o'clock, who was still making her ponderous way along the Embankment - 'It's not a march yet, more of record shuffle' - and she expressed delight at her first protest. 'You wouldn't believe it; there are girls here with good nails and really nice bags .'

...'I'm not political, not at all. I don't even watch the news,' said Alvina Desir, queuing on the Embankment for the start of the march at noon. 'I've never been on a march in my life and never had any intention. But something's happened recently, to me and so many friends - we just know there's something going wrong in this country. No one's being consulted, and it's starting to feel worrying - more worrying than the scaremongering we've been getting about the terrorist threat. I simply don't see how war can be the answer and I don't know anyone who does. And, apart from anything else, as a black woman in London, it feels dangerous to spread racial tension after all that's been done.'

...Linda Homan, sitting on bench at 9.30 in the morning, watching a bright and dancing Thames, had come down early from Cambridge and was wondering at that stage whether many would turn up.

...'I've never felt strongly enough about anything before. But this is so different; I would have let myself down by not coming and I think this will be something to remember.'

For Linda, like so many along these streets, it was her first march. Twelve-year-old Charlotte Wright, who came up by train from Guildford, Surrey, on her own. 'My parents aren't very happy about this but I think it's important. Bombing people isn't the right way to sort a problem out.' Jenny Mould, 36, a teacher from Devon. 'I drove up last night. It took seven hours but it was definitely worth it; the Government should, it must, listen to the people, otherwise what's the point in democracy?'

Retired solicitor Thomas Elliot from Basildon, Essex, a virgin marcher at 73, said: 'I remember the war and the effect the bombing had on London. War should only be used when absolutely necessary.'

Andrew Miller, 33, from New Zealand, whose feeling, echoed by all around, was that 'all the different groups that are marching today show the world that the West is not the enemy, that British people do not hate Islam and Arabs and the coming together of people is the greatest way forward.' Lesley Taylor, a constitutional law lecturer who's lived across here for 29 years, holding a forlorn placard reading 'American against the war.' Why only one? 'I don't know any other Americans here. In the Eighties here I saw a lot of anti-American resentment, and now it's back. I accept that the perception of George W. Bush has something to do with this, but still... these are the same people the thinking middle-classes, who were so shocked and honestly sympathetic after September 11: how can they turn so nasty so quickly?

...In Hyde Park itself, a long line of purple silk lay on the grass, facing Mecca, and Muslims took off their shoes to pray. Beside it, artist Nicola Green had set up her Laughing Booth, and was encouraging people in to, obviously, start laughing, on their own, and be recorded; it was, she says, the most disarming of all weapons. The sky above the nearby stage grew dark, and the park grew even more astonishingly full.



If these airheads are examples of "the thinking middle class," God help us all. Maybe when London was being bombed, as the man who believes war solves nothing remembers, they should have set up a laughing booth to stop Hitler.