Greenbelt

Wake up to Trade Justice

I made it all the way through, and didn't get at all wet. Much of the night I was helping man Greenbelt's stand - giving out leaflets and answering odd questions - which meant I had a great excuse to stay indoors.

Rumour has it there were 20,000 people taking part overnight. That's perhaps five times the expected attendance. Walking down Whitehall through the crowds at 4am was quite an experience, made all the more impressive after accounting for the fact that these thousands would be here all night.

The timing of the event hasn't been great. Attention was focussed on Downing Street, but presumably since Parliament's been dissolved, Tony Blair's technically just Labour Parliamentary candidate for Sedgefield and no longer Prime Minister.

These three pictures should give a little of the flavour of the event. The first shows Thom Yorke performing a short acoustic set in Methodist Central Hall. The second photograph is a small fragment of the crowd at half four in the morning; the last shows part of the dawn procession.