Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

15 February 2003: What Do They Want? Victory for Saddam

Ten years ago today, Lloyd Evans joined the anti-Iraq war march in London. Evans had an open mind about the war, until he joined the peace movement and met Bianca Jagger. Here is the piece in full from our archive.

I’m bursting with excitement. I can hardly get the words down fast enough. There was an amazing occurrence in Hackney last week at a meeting of the Stop the War coalition. I swear this happened. A protester said something perceptive. You don’t believe me? No, really, I was there. He was an old guy with white hair and a lovely crinkly face. ‘The bigger the march,’ he said ruefully. ‘The bigger the insult when they ignore us.’ I almost fell off my chair in astonishment.

Nobody at the meeting disagreed. No one suggested a change of tactics. And none of that surprised me at all. For several months, out of curiosity rather than conviction, I have attached myself to the peace movement.

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