I confess I am not a very patriotic sort of person,
but this week I have suffered twice from the familiar
combination of BBIV (blood boiling with indignation
in my veins) and HUIN (hair standing up at the back
of my neck) out of a sense of shame for my country
and its government.

I watched the television while Chirac, rightwing
president of France, and Putin, KGB apparatchik
and prime minister of Russia, combined to talk
plain common sense on the proposed American
war on Iraq.

They pointed out that the UN had passed a
resolution in favour of disarming Saddam Hussein
of weapons of mass destruction, and that no one
in their right minds would be opposed to such
a project.

In pursuance of that aim, inspectors had gone
into Iraq. From 1991 to 1998, these inspectors had
found and destroyed an enormous quantity of such
weapons. Sent back in last year, they have not
been impeded in their work, and have not yet
found any evidence of such weapons.

The sensible approach, said Chirac and Putin,
was to let the inspectors get on with the job.
Only in extreme circumstances, if their work was
openly obstructed, or if nuclear or chemical
weapons or the means of constructing them
were found and not destroyed, should there
be any resort to force and even then, preferably,
by United Nations troops.

Chirac and Putin were not alone even among
heads of state. In Germany, Belgium and Greece,
to name but three European countries, the people
and their representatives think the same way.
My sense of shame arose from the absence in
this sublimely moderate and sensible coalition
of any representative of the British government
or indeed the British opposition.

Tory and Labour leaders cling together to proclaim
the most fantastic and monstrous proposition that
before we even have any proof of these weapons
of mass destruction or the likelihood of their use,
the most powerful armed forces in the world should
unleash an attack on one of weakest and most
defenceless countries on earth.

Even more shameful was the resort by
10 Downing Street, in defence of this proposition,
to the most disgraceful plagiarism and deceit,
of the kind which would in the old days have most
certainly and properly got Alastair Campbell the
sack from the Daily Mirror. The shame was finally
compounded by reading of the performance of
the British parliament and its Speaker in preventing
a parliamentary debate on any of these historic
and urgent developments.

I wrote here several months ago of the importance
of demonstrating against the war. There can be no
doubt that the vast demonstration last September
altered the government view about the opposition
to war. This was not a barmy army, but a vast array
of anxious people. Official catcalls of "appeasers!"
and "pacifists!" were replaced with more presentable
arguments. Now the stakes are much higher, and
so is the mounting tide of outrage.

Why is Britain the first to rush to the aid of the
United States adventure? Why are our troops going
to the Gulf when even the troops of countries whose
governments are ostensibly in favour of the war are
tactfully held back? Are there any depths to which
the government information and intelligence services
will not sink in their campaign to halt the irresistible
rise in hostility to the war?

And above all what can people do about it?
How can voters respond when their sheepish
representatives can't even debate the matter
in parliament? These are questions that are no
longer restricted to a small coterie of people
who are "interested in politics".

It seems suddenly that everyone is interested;
everyone except Julie Burchill and Ian Duncan Smith
is shocked and everyone wants to do something
about it. On Saturday, the cliché will become the truth.

The eyes and ears of the world will be fixed on
the London streets and on Hyde Park. The size
and fury of the demonstration will have an impact
on real events the like of which I have not
experienced in a lifetime of protest. Hyde Park
will once again host a demonstration, like that
of the Reform League in 1867 or the suffragettes
in 1908, that can change the whole course
of politics. Go to it.

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/antiwar/story/0,12809,893937,00.html