Numbers on Trident/Iran/Iraq demo

[detective-boy]

Surely you are not implying dishonesty ?

I never believed anything I was ever told if it could mean more overtime / staff / time to complete a task being required.

And something like this - which would be viewed as not having any great significance within the police service in any event - would fall in that category.

 

[Blagsta]

and yet people blindly follow the leaders each year, even though the leaders don't think twice about lying to their 'followers'

Who was following a "leader"?

 

[TAE]

I never believed anything I was ever told if it could mean more overtime / staff / time to complete a task being required.

Interesting.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Do they? Do you actually have any reliable evidence of this then?

I know everyone thinks they are, but that is not what you are saying.

Fine. I don't have any specific evidence of this, because nobody does; numbers aren't ever counted.

The fact is that anyone who thinks that there were just 10K people there yesterday is a fucking idiot, unless they were marching round in circles for all of the independent photos taken at different times. Similarly, every single march ever where the cops have said "oh there were only <10% of the people that were there>" there. I'm hardly a hardcore protest warrior but I've got a bloody brain, I can look at pictures.

It's well known that the official police estimate is crap. Even the mainstream media compensates for it, they ignore the police estimate of numbers routinely and split the bracket.

 

[detective-boy]

I can look at pictures.

Very rarely do photos show more than a fraction of the whole event. Without knowing exactly where and when they were taken they would not usually give any strong basis for reaching an overall conclusion.

After all, the makers of films manage to convince us of the existence of huge marauding hordes whilst using a relatively small number of extras.

It would be an interesting exercise to actually count numbers and compare them with police, organisers and participants estimates.

 

[The Sick Anchor]

Who was following a "leader"?

so everyone on the march just marched where & when they wanted to go then did they? different groupings where free to set off where they wanted to at what time they wanted where they? the march stewards would have happily allowed that would they?

 

[yourmom]

Preston Respect have got their photos up - looks more than
10,000 to me

http://www.prestonrespect.org/gallery/index.php?gallery=./Demo Feb 24 2007&image=feb2416.jpg

 

[kropotkin]

They're not. But no-one will believe that.

The fact that you probably believe that should tell everyone reading this something.

 

[detective-boy]

The fact that you probably believe that should tell everyone reading this something.

Yeah. That I'm right about the second bit.

 

[TAE]

Isn't trafalgar square 110x110 meters ?

So 100,000 people would mean 8 or 9 people per square meter if the place is packed.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Blairwatch does a good job on the figures: http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/1660

 

[The Sick Anchor]

i've never really understood the infatuation with numbers relating to things like this, we've seen whether there's 2 million or 50,000 they do fuck all anyway, so why so much energy & effort expended on talkinig about numbers

 

[Squatticus]

Isn't trafalgar square 110x110 meters ?

So 100,000 people would mean 8 or 9 people per square meter if the place is packed.

Not really, if you count the whole area the people stand in (i.e. not just the plaza in the middle), its really something like >150m x >150m.

(You can check this on Google Earth - correct me if this is wildly inaccurate)

So 100,000 people would have to be 4 per square meter, which is pretty feasible.

I'm not saying that there were 100,000 there on Saturday, mind, just that its more than feasible to have them in the square. Anyway, not everyone on the march is usually in the square at once - lots do the march then drift off before others have arrived.

 

[JHE]

...why so much energy & effort expended on talkinig about numbers

Perhaps because the interesting question is: who are the biggest fattest most shameless and unbelievable liars? Mr & Ms Plod or the Social Workers? I think the Social Workers take the prize.

 

[kropotkin]

Blairwatch does a good job on the figures: http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/1660

Ha- very good!

All of which proves not a lot, except that it's extremely unwise to trust the police figures, which in statistical terms go in the discard pile. Let's expand the data set a bit - the Square isn't used solely for anti-war marches, and there have been two other large crowd events in the last couple of years that received wide coverage - the first is the 6/7/2005 2012 Olympics Award:
Seconds after London was proclaimed the Olympics winner the crowds that had packed into every inch of Trafalgar Square were sprayed with confetti.

The second is the Ashes celebration in September 2005.

The tens of thousands gathered in Trafalgar Square cheered highlights of the exhilarating summer series and interviews with each member of the victorious squad before a rendition of 'Jerusalem' rounded the presentation off.

[Note the photos, particularly of Michael Vaughan in front of a frankly enormous crowd]

and additionally

England's players joyously belt out the hymn Jerusalem one more time along with an estimated 100,000 well-wishers

while the Scotsman has

TRAFALGAR Square was transformed into a land fit for heroes yesterday as more than 30,000 gathered to toast the England cricket team's victory in the Ashes Tests.

Now, the Square is 110x110 metres, according to the GLA. That's 12100 square metres. Now, I reckon you can get four people in per square metre, which brings us up to a notional maximum capacity of, broadly, 50,000. 10,000 people would make the square look decidedly empty - if your commuter train came into the station 20% full you'd be well happy. From the photos I can see, the area is not 20% full, it's more like 80%, which would put 40,000 people in the square alone when Davide was taking his photos, not counting those still on the march.

So, what have we established? A large turnout for the Square itself is 30,000 to 50,000 people. More people were outside the square. I reckon we can conservatively estimate the turnout to be 50,000+, or sixteen times what the Met Police told the country's leading non-conservative Sunday broadsheets. Mind you, since their own website of forthcoming events doesn't mention the 24th February demo, perhaps they forgot.

 

[kropotkin]

The website quoted above links to the Met cops estimates to the Independent of only 2-3000 people, which easily trumps the SWP claims of 100,000 for mentalism.

 

[Blagsta]

so everyone on the march just marched where & when they wanted to go then did they? different groupings where free to set off where they wanted to at what time they wanted where they? the march stewards would have happily allowed that would they?

What are you on about?

 

[JHE]

The website quoted above links to the Met cops estimates to the Independent of only 2-3000 people, which easily trumps the SWP claims of 100,000 for mentalism.

It's probably a misquote, then. Reports I've seen say that Plod's estimate was that there were about 10,000.

 

[The Sick Anchor]

What are you on about?

it's not that hard to grasp, try and read the posts in a narrative style and the answer should soon pop out, if not ask someone for help

 

[Blagsta]

it's not that hard to grasp, try and read the posts in a narrative style and the answer should soon pop out, if not ask someone for help

The reason I ask is because you appear to be projecting your own stuff onto other people's experience. I certainly wasn't following any leaders. I joined the march at Green Park and left and rejoined a couple of times.

Anyway, you miss the point - it's a march. It has a route. It's not about autonomous action or whatever, its about a show of solidarity. The fact that you continually sneer at and dismiss any actions that don't fit in with your view of what politics should be, makes you as prescriptive as the trots you continually rail against. Let people make up their own minds. By all means, put the point across that autonomous actions, community organising, workplace organising etc is vitally important and that marches must not stand as a substitute for these things - but alienating people is not the way to go about it. Marches can stand along side these things, and often do.

 

[TAE]

4 per square meter, which is pretty feasible.

Even 4 per square meter is very packed and that would have to be accross the whole area.

 

[emanymton]

I’m not any good at guessing numbers.

What I know about Saturdays demo is that I was at the front and left Hyde park at about five past one and arrived in Trafalgar square at about five past two making the route almost exactly an hour long (it moved faster than most demos though). When I got to Trafalgar square I texted a fried I was due to meet to find out how far off he was and the reply simply said “at the back still in Hyde park”.

Which I think makes it pretty big or at least much bigger than I was expecting.

 

[The Sick Anchor]

The reason I ask is because you appear to be projecting your own stuff onto other people's experience. I certainly wasn't following any leaders. I joined the march at Green Park and left and rejoined a couple of times.

i think you missed the point of that one, but never mind

Anyway, you miss the point - it's a march. It has a route. It's not about autonomous action or whatever, its about a show of solidarity. The fact that you continually sneer at and dismiss any actions that don't fit in with your view of what politics should be, makes you as prescriptive as the trots you continually rail against. Let people make up their own minds. By all means, put the point across that autonomous actions, community organising, workplace organising etc is vitally important and that marches must not stand as a substitute for these things - but alienating people is not the way to go about it. Marches can stand along side these things, and often do.

the only opposition i've voiced to marches like this has been on threads like this, i'm not sure how that translates into not letting people make up their own minds or indeed alienating people. perhaps you can expand on that one please?

for people to make up their own minds it's always best that they here arguments from both sides of the story, then charged with as much information as possible they can decide for themselves after careful consideration of all arguments posited. if the actual truth is that marches are the way to go, then that should stand up to any criticism of it, and it should be all the stronger for its 'collision with error' which helps raise things from being a dead dogma into a living truth. so far from not letting people make up their own minds as you say, i'm merely providing them with a better basis from which to do so

you however seem to have a desire to prevent that happening and tick me off for alientating people when all i'm doing is putting the case for the opposition. i do await your examples of me not letting people make up their own minds and those who i have alienated however, it should be most interesting, and i'm touched that you've charged me with such influence

 

[Squatticus]

Even 4 per square meter is very packed and that would have to be accross the whole area.

Quite. I was responding to a post which implied it was impossible to get 100,000 people in Trafalgar Sq.

 

[justuname]

STWC/CND/SWP have written to the Met querying how they got their figures (below). Fair enough, in fact something GLA councillors should be asking about, but where is the 100,000 figures they told everyone on the march? If it's ok to tell your supporters there's 100,000 why not say that to the cops (in a letter accusing them of changing their figures??).

BTW I'm not obsessed with numbers (some of the most effective demos I've been on have been very small indeed) - it's the casual, cult-like dishonesty of the current left establishment around the SWP that gets me. You fool a few folk for a while but it kind of undermines accusations of 'Bliar'.


Stop The War Coalition
Press Release
Monday 26 February 2007

The organisers of the Troops Home / No Trident Replacement demonstration in
London on Saturday 24 February are unhappy about the Metropolitan Police
estimates on the numbers attending and have sent the following letter to the
Police.

***

Early on the day of this demonstration you reported that between 2 and 3000
were on the march. This was later upped to 10,000, a figure widely accepted
by the print media on Sunday.

>From 2.00 PM until the end of the rally at 4.30 PM Trafalgar Square was full of
people, which included the North terrace under the National Gallery, and the
west and east side pavements. The Greater London Authority (responsible for
management of the Square) estimate that 12 ? 15,000 were present in the Square
?at any given time? during this period. This was in a fluid situation whereby
the last marchers left Hyde Park over 1 hour after the head of the march arrived
in Trafalgar Square, when people arrived at the rally and left early and in a
situation when many thousands never reached the Square at all.

You are aware that over 150 coaches arrived in London from across the
country so at least 7,000 non-Londoners were present and this takes no
account of those who arrived on trains and in their own cars.

If photos of the demonstration are examined it will be noticed that the vast
majority of demonstrators are not carrying placards. Yet, Stop the War
distributed 3000, CND 2000, BMI 500 and other affiliates several thousand.
In addition many arrived at the demo with their own placards and there were
numerous banners, drummers and other flags and paraphenalia

We request a meeting with the Metropolitan police to discuss this matter so
as to allow us to better understand how you make your calculations as to the
numbers attending Stop the War Coalition / CND / BMI demonstrations.

Sincerely,

Lindsey German, National Convenor, Stop the War Coalition
Kate Hudson, Chair, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

 

[nosos]

BBC says the organisers claim 60,000, which makes it stranger. Cops say 10,000. I'm sure it's between those figures.

I'd say 60,000 is probably fairly accurate.

 

[The Sick Anchor]

BTW I'm not obsessed with numbers (some of the most effective demos I've been on have been very small indeed) - it's the casual, cult-like dishonesty of the current left establishment around the SWP that gets me. You fool a few folk for a while but it kind of undermines accusations of 'Bliar'.

exactly, the shameless hypocrisy of it all is outstanding, fair enough you'd expect the organs of the state to lie & downplay levels of 'popular protest' but you'd expect more of the organisers

i remember being at a respect rally in london one day and they claimed something stupid like 700 people attended the meeting, even though the actual legal limit of the venue for people was about half of that, that incident really struck me as they were prepared to openly lie about how many people where there, when it could easily be proved that this was bollox by simply checking the capacity limits on the website of the venue itself

(i can't remember the exact numbers, but it was something along those proportions as to 'claimed' against 'actual capacity of place' )

 

[TAE]

Quite. I was responding to a post which implied it was impossible to get 100,000 people in Trafalgar Sq.

I didn't mean to imply it's impossible.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

It would be an interesting exercise to actually count numbers and compare them with police, organisers and participants estimates.

As I pointed out, this is frequently done here in Dublin, where a particular protest-goer habitually stands to the side and counts everyone on all but the largest demonstrations. This is possible because Dublin is a much smaller city than London and demonstrations therefore rarely reach anything like 10,000 people.

This is exactly the kind of experiment you and Fridgemagnet are talking about.

Time after time his count is (a) significantly below the organisers estimate and (b) even further above the police estimate. Which is exactly what pretty much everyone's anecdotal experience would suggest.

 

[Blagsta]

i think you missed the point of that one, but never mind



the only opposition i've voiced to marches like this has been on threads like this, i'm not sure how that translates into not letting people make up their own minds or indeed alienating people. perhaps you can expand on that one please?

for people to make up their own minds it's always best that they here arguments from both sides of the story, then charged with as much information as possible they can decide for themselves after careful consideration of all arguments posited. if the actual truth is that marches are the way to go, then that should stand up to any criticism of it, and it should be all the stronger for its 'collision with error' which helps raise things from being a dead dogma into a living truth. so far from not letting people make up their own minds as you say, i'm merely providing them with a better basis from which to do so

you however seem to have a desire to prevent that happening and tick me off for alientating people when all i'm doing is putting the case for the opposition. i do await your examples of me not letting people make up their own minds and those who i have alienated however, it should be most interesting, and i'm touched that you've charged me with such influence

If you put the case in a way that didn't sneer at people, acknowledged the value of marches as an introduction to politics (they were for me back in the late 80's and the anti-war marches have been for people I know) and actually talked about other things people could get involved with, then I'd be in complete agreement with you.

Lose the shitty attitude, basically.