This late on Sunday, the day after the 200,000-plus Make Poverty History march, the far lower turnout for the Stop the War Coalition's demo is perhaps a reflection of fatigue more than anything else. We're not sure of the numbers yet, but, if you want an idea, the length and breadth looked a little like a 50m Olympic-size swimming pool had been drained of its water and filled with people standing in reasonable proximity to each other.
Others were weary too: a little tired of having their city become the site for week-long protests. On the non-march side of the barriers lining the protest route, one Edinburgh resident, a student from County Down who declined to be named, was blocked from getting his bus home by the marchers. He used the 40-minute delay before the demonstration actually started as a chance to harangue them.
The exchanges began with one vendor's attempts to sell the Socialist Worker newspaper to those who were simply hanging around and waiting for the march to go. Then it started: the student asking how they could march as one when they all came with different ideas; if it was right that Edinburgh should pay for the extra cleaning and waste disposal; and if marchers had the right to march did he not also have the right to go about his city in peace?
The marchers came back with the answers – marching had got people the vote, the protesters brought extra money into Edinburgh – but the strangest moments came when the marchers and student got into the numbers. There were never 200,000, he said of the circular anti-poverty march around Edinburgh. Yes there were, said the protesters – pointing out that was a police figure. "Well, some of them went round twice," the student replied.
The march then moved and he was free to cross the road and catch his bus.
