CondiWatch - The Lone Protester

It was an honour to see a part of the Great Game come to my neighbourhood close enough to get out in the street and shout at. We had two weeks notice of this return visit by the Secretary of State after she had shown our foreign secretary, Jack Straw, around her home town of Birmingham, Alabama last year.

Liverpool and the Northwest of Britain is not Jack's home. He grew up in Essex and has his real home down in the South of England. He only holds a Parliamentary seat near here, in Blackburn. It is the rule, not an exception, in this dysfunctional state that the elected representatives in most regions to come from the same tight clique of the great and the good.

I got to the protest outside the town council meeting on 15th of March. Becka and Martin held a poster which said: "Condi Rice not welcome here. (Try the Hague)", in reference to the place where war criminals are supposed to held for trial.

We were there for about an hour as all the councillors went in, including the leader of the minority labour block, Joe Anderson. He stopped to have a word with us. He said he was against the Iraq war, but not against welcoming Condi Rice's visit, because -- like the Liberal Democratic leader Charles Kennedy on Bush's triumphant visit to London in November 2003 when 400,000 people took to the streets to block his victory parade -- he believes that dialog is more important than a public message that such people have no business walking free in a civilized society. Apparently, protocol requires that you do not to bring up politics when you meet an an international statesman if you are a mere local representative. Your body is required just for the photographs...