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Blair Out of Nottingham!
Author:John
The Demo against Blair was marvellous. In less than 24 hours we got 100 people there, with banners, placards and megaphones. There were two well attended preparatory workshops on Friday night.
We gathered outside the Portland Building and marched over to the Conference Centre guided by the students on a non-standard route through a wooded area, and got to within 10 metres of the main entrance. The police seem to have expected us to go along the main road to their "designated protest area". You can guess how far away that was.
They kept trying to shove us along to their "designated protest area" and we had to sit down and explain to them that we liked it where we were. There then followed several blood-curdling threats involving section this and that of various acts, but we held our ground, and when their ten minute warning lasted more than half an hour, we knew we had won the right to stay.
The Labour Party were holding a National Policy Forum to be addressed by Blair. He arrived by helicopter and went in by a back door. That's a victory for us.
Someone from the Student Labour Group who was inside, said that every time anyone opened the door you could hear us outside chanting "Troops out of Iraq, Blair out of Nottingham" and "What's Blair Talking? NONSENSE!" (in honour of Walter Wolfgang).
One or two people tried to leave the protest, and were stopped by the police (God knows what act that was under). We then told the police that in 30 minutes (at 12:30pm) we would all march off to the "designated protest area" if those who wanted to go home could leave. They made us wait an extra five minutes but, as we counted down the seconds (59, 58, 57..) of the last minute they let us go.
We got mentioned on teletext and on the BBC Online News and (someone's just texted me) Monday's Evening Post.
The Demonstrator of the Day Award goes to the Jack Russell Terrier that barked the whole time (but wouldn't go on the megaphone).
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