I spent a large part of the 1980s on political demonstrations where the size of the crowd was consistently underestimated in the media. “The size of the crowd at the CND demonstration was estimated at 250,000 by the organisers – official police figures put the number at two dozen”.
It’s therefore very tempting to see the estimates of the numbers on yesterday’s Countryside Alliance march as being doctored in the opposite direction. The papers are saying over 400,000 people marched.
But I wasn’t there and I therefore have no way to make my own estimate, so I’m just going to have to accept the published figures. I’m not going to lower myself to using the same tactics that were used against me twenty years ago.