Liberty and protest

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): I am going along to Trafalgar Square at 1pm to support the call for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq. I was under the impression that they are being withdrawn, and that the Prime Minister was backing the Chiefs of Staff and extricating UK forces as fast as possible to be compatible with declaring victory (and if face-saving speeds exit I'm not going to demonstrate against that). But the most worrying thing about Brown's trip to Iraq was not his announcement of a further reduction of 500 spun as 1,000 but the implication, and the reports (Nick Robinson seems authoritative), that actually there has been a reversal of the exit policy. The Stop the War Coalition who have made the call have been sectarian rubbish and thrown away the greatest single mass movement Britain has seen. But there are now some good people on the platform (Eno forever!) and the entire demonstration has allegedly been banned under the anti-Chartist 1839 Metropolitan Police Act, thus making it irresistibly attractive. Henry Porter had an excellent column on this in the Observer, putting the ban in a larger context of Government closing in upon freedom and liberty. In particular the decision, made by the decree of Jacqui Smith, with no parliamentary or public debate, to allow nearly 800 quangos and authorities access to all our phone logs without a warrant. This applies to mobiles too, with full positional information. It may not be working yet but what this means is that if you attend the demonstration tomorrow and act quite peacefully the police will be able to identify and fine you weeks later without the safety of numbers. One of the themes Henry P has been banging on about is the lack of opposition to manifestly extraordinary, unjustified and - literally - unwarranted intrusion. This is a second reason I am going to the demonstration, if they want to know where I am, then I am going to tell them: I plan to keep my mobile ON.