The missing figures

How can there be such a great discrepancy between the estimates of organisers of demonstrations and those of the police? Last weekend it happened again: the police put out a figure of 4-5,000, which they graciously upped to 10,000 by the end of the march. The organisers estimated 80-100,000.

You might say, you pay your money and take your choice. Except much of the coverage simply took the police figure ( and often the early figure) and didn't print the organisers' estimate. When that happens it begins to look like deliberate skewing of the figures to minimise the impact of the anti war movement. After all, if you really thought only 5,000 people turned out to oppose Trident and call for troops out of Iraq, then you would conclude the movement had declined so dramatically that it wasn't worth doing anything.

Whereas, back in the real world, most people on the march thought it was the largest for some time. Stop the War, CND and BMI gave out something like 5000 placards between them. Probably there were several thousand more placards from a variety of points of view on the march. Look at the pictures. The large majority of marchers were not carrying placards, hence the march was many times bigger than the 10,000 supposedly on it. Add to that a 20,000 capacity for Trafalgar Square (and it was full for 2 and a half hours with many people leaving or never getting to the square), the large number of coaches, the people still stuck in Hyde Park two hours after the front of the march left.

You figure it out. Even the police have admitted today that their estimate is now 20,000, which makes you wonder how they do it and why it takes so long. With all these revisions upwards, perhaps in a few days they'll agree with our figure.