Author and activist George Monbiot is probably the closest the British anti-globalisation movement (or trade justice movement, as it prefers to be called) has to a guru, so it was no surprise he packed out Coach E of the Globalise Resistance express this lunchtime.
Not only was it standing room only, rapt listeners were literally crammed into the overhead luggage racks to catch a glimpse of their hero.
After holding up the Guardian's front page photograph today, which it is fair to say has done little to endear Bob Geldof, let alone Tony Blair, to the travelling demonstrators, Mr Monbiot said: "What was lost, when the G7 finance ministers trumpeted their deal on debt relief a few Saturdays ago, was the outrageous conditionality. But something can be done to turn that conditionality against the wealthy nations. The poor countries can unite, and refuse to pay the debt, and reverse the power relationship. When the bank is owed $2.5trillion, the bank is in trouble, and the poor nations in a position of strength.
"Bush and Blair are trying to desperately rehabilitate themselves – they ballsed up in Iraq, so their primary purpose at the moment is to draw attention away from it and to poverty and climate change.
"But when they talk about corruption [in African states], corruption is a two-way transaction. And those giving the bribes are multinationals, usually based in the G8 nations. If you want to bribe a nation, base your company in Jersey, because the government refuses to close that loophole."
Guy Taylor, the spokesman for Globalise Resistance who has had the unenviable task of organising a train full of anarchists, added: "The G8 attention is on good governance and corruption in Africa, but British aid money is tied to developing markets in these states, and is given to outfits such as the Adam Smith institute – now that's corruption."
In the following travelling debate, as the train trundled through Nuneaton, Rugby and Crewe, another speaker claimed Stop The War had been barred from affiliating to the Make Poverty History campaign, and that speakers at Saturday's rally in Edinburgh had been forbidden to criticise Bush. Interesting, if impossible to substantiate from a moving train. Time will tell. He ends on a rousing cheer: "It's not up to Geldof what's on our placards!"
Meanwhile an enormous contingent of activists from Poland, who have been up and down the train selling "Hands Off Mother Earth" T-shirts to help fund their trip, have fallen soundly asleep in Coach D, after an 18 hour cross-continent coach trip to catch the train.
