Organisers estimated that there were 40-50 people in attendance, an impressive turnout given the dire weather. Unfortunately, your intrepid reporter was not so hardy, nor so punctual, and only made it for the final ten minutes.

By the time I arrived, campaigners were well into the swing of things with some enthusiastic (if not exactly catchy) chanting underway. The protest had been called by Nottingham Stop the War Coalition and people had arranged themselves around the ubiquitous white banner. Leaflets were distributed to the few passersby, but sensibly given the conditions, which militated against walking anywhere, the tactic seemed to be to make the protest as obvious as possible to drivers making their way down London Road.

The protesters had various concerns about the BBC's coverage of the recent assault on Gaza. Besides the DEC controversy, they contend that BBC has given free airspace to that smooth talking spokesperson for the Israeli Government, Mark Ragev, and generally played down or ignored protest against Israeli policy. Locally, one of the biggest marches that Nottingham has seen for some time (in support of Gaza), was reported by Central TV and the Evening Post (and Indymedia!), but was ignored by the BBC in Nottingham.

The BBC agreed to send a delegate down and there was some hope that they might make a brief speech on the BBC's position, but in the end all that happened was that somebody stuck their head out a door, accepted a letter of protest, had their photo taken doing so and then disappeared back inside. Clearly Auntie has little interest in engaging with the concerns of licence payers.

Fortunately, given the weather conditions, the demo wrapped up shortly after this. Impressively some people had been there for well over an hour by this point. The organisers thanked people for coming along and extendied particular appreciation to Indymedia's own Tash who was also in attendance to cover the protest, something the BBC themselves were unable or unwilling to do, despite having rather less far to travel. Demonstrators were directed towards Indymedia for photos which will follow in a day or two all being well.