Well, whose idea was the Condoleezza Rice visit? I bet they're popular now! What a PR disaster this has turned out for these experts in spin. Everywhere she has been met by large protests:at the Blackburn school on Friday, outside the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, last night in Liverpool where at least 3000 gathered on the Catholic cathedral steps, today when a thousand mainly locals braved torrential rain in Blackburn on the last day of her tour.

It's not just the size of the protests but the support. LIPA students turned their backs on Rice. Blackburn school students refused to go into school. Jennifer John sang Imagine at the concert but then went on to an unscheduled Give Peace a Chance. That's a really brave thing to do and apparently Straw was furious.

It's also the hundreds and thousands of little things that make up a demo: the homemade placards and the different slogans that come forward; the bands like the samba band in Liverpool; the coffin which a kind Liverpool undertaker lent us free of charge on condition we returned it (I hope he's got it back); the music and poetry and creative ways people express themselves.

So these demos were real carnivals of protest where everyone felt great and that we'd achieved a great thing. The north west has said she's not welcome here. Even the civic reception with Muslim leaders looked very sparsely attended on TV.

There are a lot of thanks due to a lot of people but especially Merseyside
Stop the War Coalition, and Blackburn Stop the War and their colleagues across Lancashire. Also to Carmel and her family for all their hospitality and eveyrthing else.

Got back to London after 4 days of travelling, speaking and demonstrating, to find Jack Straw dismissing the protests. He'd thought the one in Blackburn was small. It din't feel like that or sound like that either. Anyway, how big is big? The 2 million who marched before the war who he ignored, the 100,000 who marched two weeks ago in London. Are they big enough for you, Jack?

In one way I suppose we should be grateful to Condoleezza for building such big protests which will only help Stop the War in the north west. Maybe they'll send us Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld next.