Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Has anyone been following the Unite The Kingdom/Raise The Colors rallies in the UK? Did they pull big numbers (the protesters have an incentive to inflate their numbers, of course, and the establishment has an incentive to deflate them)? Has there been a noticeable shift in the political discourse around them?
As the other posters have said, numbers for the march appear heavily inflated and it wasn't that massive. At the same time, it does seem to represent a noticeable shift. Protests arranged by Tommy Robinson or involving him in some way were lucky to attract thousands in the past, it was always a bit of a joke. Suddenly he's pulling in huge crowds and everything has a veneer of acceptability to it that it didn't in the past.
More options
Context Copy link
I doubt it was more than about 200,000. 3 million was obviously laughable. Aerial footage suggests fewer than at some of the largest Gaza protests, which police estimated had ~300k protesters. The largest ever protest in the UK was against the Iraq War, police estimated 750,000 people attended, there was little aerial footage but from some pictures of the route it does appear substantially larger.
More options
Context Copy link
Casually following, mostly through osmosis not actively pursuing, I believed the protesters claimed 3mil attendees, the official number is ~110k. The official number has some smart-looking analysis backing it up, the protesters have drone footage that certainly seems to show a lot of people, but frankly I have no idea how to estimate large crowd sizes. My instinct is to believe the smaller number, if only because in almost every protest I can remember ever hearing numbers reported on, the police reported number is usually several times smaller than the protest leadership's claimed number.
Not wanting to rain on that parade (which actually happened. The rain I mean), but when I've observed photos or footage from any politically related event it is always taken in a 'just so' way to provide a verisimilitude of larger attendance.
More options
Context Copy link
The aerial photos looked like a lot of people, but then consider that Glastonbury Festival is supposed to be 100-200,000 attendees. Using that as a comparison I'd say ~100k is a lot more credible than 1 million, and 3 million (Glastonbury x >10) is total bollocks. Even the anti Iraq war march only claims 1 million.
Re political discourse, there seems to be an ongoing process of the window shifting to encompass more right leaning views and less left leaning/woke views. I'd say it started with the BBC dropping Stonewall in 2021 and the ruling on Maya Forstater's case in the same period. Now it's moving beyond trans scepticism to include anti immigration and the sort of birth rate discourse I've been reading here for years.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link