I believe Tony Benn is wrong about SOCPA, which he called here the 'serious crime disorder act'. Benn claims the reason the governent did not use SOCPA was that they had realised it would be 'overdoing' it. Has he not noticed the 1.2 million slaughtered in Iraq, and thousands in Afghanistan? When has the UK government ever been concerned about overdoing it - well maybe apart from when they think they will lose votes and/or authority. The real reason for not using SOCPA is that under section 132 (3) (a) and (b) public processions are specifically excluded from SOCPA and are actually covered under the Public Order Act. A political march would be included in this. Benn is either very uninformed (not impressive for anyone claiming to want to return to being an MP) or he is pretending not to understand the real reasons.

In any case was it really a surprise that, YET AGAIN the STW coalition claimed that a march route had not been authorised only for that position to be completely reversed at the last minute? VERY FISHY I would say...