Small Crowds At Royal Wedding 29

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I have been watching the BBC coverage of the Royal Wedding build-up. Try to put aside all of the hype, and look carefully at the actual crowds. They are not actually that deep, there is no sense of crush – people are standing with a reasonable amount of space when they go in for their crowd interviews – and there is plenty of space on the pavements to pass behind those people ranked behind the barriers. The crowds are much, much smaller than they were for Charles and Diana’s wedding (I was in London that day). Despite an obvious BBC policy of interviewing lots of token black guests, the crowds are also overwhelmingly white and, judged by the crowd member interviews to date, composed of embarassing simpletons.

Like many of my readers, I was on the demonstration against the Operation Cast Lead Israeli attack on Gaza, which went from Hyde Park along Bayswater, down Kensington Church Road and along Knightsbridge. It was crushed, twenty abreast, and the tail was still leaving long after the head had arrived at destination. That was a longer route than this royal procession. It undoubtedly had more people than this event, and the Metropolitan Police put the number at 40,000.

If today’s event was an anti-war demonstration, the Police would tell us it was 30,000. As it is a royal occasion, I have no doubt they will claim 3,000,000.

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29 thoughts on “Small Crowds At Royal Wedding”

  • mary

    Spot on Craig. I was on that Gaza demo too and the the Met always underplay the numbers. It’s a pathetic display of bias against the proles who dare to protest.

    The most excruciating of commentary is coming from Huw Edwards and his pal Simon Schama.

  • mark_golding

    Oh it is those nasty beastly natives causing trouble for the monarchies and the elite, beastly people with a beastly religion, the awfully bad weather *and* a lack of loos I might add – altogether a rather beastly day.

    Royal wedding day bottled (cold) air for sale – Royalty in a bottle, a truely unique gift of love.

    http://www.wix.com/wattuk/royalair#!products

  • mary

    Meanwhile the evil goes on in Gaza.
    http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/04/201142911436609267.html

    Note all the male royals are in the uniforms of killers. Also that the chief killer, Gen. Richards, is in the congregation and singing the hymns lustily.

    Camilla looks a bit flaky and is a nervous wreck. Wonder what goes through her and Charles’ minds when they hear the admonition – those that God has joined in holy matrimony, let no man put asunder….

    Mrs Middleton looks very pleased with her endeavours.

  • John

    Heard on the BBC news that some OAPs had been arrested for ‘Planning to behead an effigy’ – is that really a crime? #offwiththeirheads

  • Clark

    It’ll be “biting the heads off jelly-babies” next. No, sorry: “Suspicion of conspiracy to plan to bite the heads off jelly-babies”. Jelly-child protection is very important.

  • Anon

    “Wonder what goes through her and Charles’ minds when they hear the admonition – those that God has joined in holy matrimony, let no man put asunder….”

    Mary, thats what I was thinking!. Still, they have so much neck I doubt it even registered in their minds…hypocrites.

  • TFS

    And just to be slightly off-topic

    I don’t think voting should be secret. As a democracy, we lose to much with secret voting, not least of which is vote rigging.

  • The Judge

    I was going to go out for a six-mile walk this morning, but the weather wasn’t really reliable enough, so I stayed in bed.

    Regarding the numbers, I saw a headline on the BBC ‘News’ site which said that there were 5 000 street parties taking place the length and breadth of the sacred realm. Now, if we consider that some of these parties may be taking place in urban residential areas whilst others may be happening in small villages, then if (to be generous) we take an average of 100 per street party that means that no more than 500 000 people were taking part. That’s about 1/120th of the population. Not much sign of an overwhelming surge of support for PR-boosted feudalism really, is it?

    But then, we’ve always known that the Met and the embedded media operate a flexible exchange rate on these things. Any pro-Establishment manifestation (such as today’s) will be tallied on a basis of 1 Real = 2 Plods, so that the Met will report 5 000 as 10 000; any pro-ruling class ‘protest’ (such as that by the Country Landowners and Serfs Federation a few years back) will be counted on the basis of 1 Real = 1 Plod; and any protest opposing the interests of the powerful will be reckoned on the basis of between 2 and 10 Reals to the Plod, so that 100 000 actual attendees will be ‘estimated’ as being anywhere between 50 000 down to 10 000.

  • Anon

    “embarassing simpletons”
    .
    One of the most deprived communities around where I live is blocking off the roads to hold a street party, these people are paying homage to the very establishment that can`t give them employment, who tells them lies and at this moment are busy cutting their poverty unemployment benefits and calling them feckless. As you say…”embarassing simpletons”.

  • danj

    Yes, I would say the numbers were difficult to count … because there were so many. There is no point pretending otherwise. Who knows what the exact numbers were but it was more than the Gaza march and a lot more than any protests about Syria from all those concerned about human rights in the Middle East. However you slice it … it was a lot.

  • Giles

    I’ve always enjoyed Craig’s blogs, but I think I’ll steer clear in the future having been put off by the acrimoniousness of his two Royal Wedding posts and the comments beneath them.

  • Anon

    Was Rupert Murdoch invited ?. You know for a moment I thought I saw Mohamed Al Fayed there, my eyes must be playing tricks on me!.

  • Anon

    “I believe the al Fayed lookalike was the King of Tonga.”

    Thanks for that Mary, I won`t need to get my eyes tested now.

  • Jaded

    I have had it shoved down my throat the whole week how 2 billion ‘may’ watch it on TV. Really? I wonder if this was only pay per view in the U.K., for £4 say, how many households would have actually purchased.

    I’ve desisted from commenting for quite a while. I hope you are in good health Mr. Murray. I just wanted to add a quick message to those ‘agents’ that tried to bring Craig’s site crashing down. What’s it like to be LOSERS? They came, they saw, they got their butts kicked and slithered off in tears. Ha ha ha. 🙂

  • Peter Hargreaves

    “the crowds are also overwhelmingly white and, judged by the crowd member interviews to date, composed of embarassing simpletons.”

    Something like a million people took part in central London. Millions more chose to enjoy the event at home. It was an enjoyable day and, to be honest, a bit of relief from the gloom and misery of the modern UK.

    As for referring to your fellow citizens as “embarrassing simpletons” you are displaying breathtaking intellectual arrogance.

  • ingo

    1/3 of the crowd of subjects, seem to have been US citizens deprived of historical pagentry, they are the most gushing royals around.
    As for Mary’s apt post above, this one seems to mark another reversal to form by the Netanyahu Government. It is not enough for Palestinians to be united and the accrimony is entering another step of obfusecation away from any binding deal, towards more settlements in East jerusalem, the Westbank and more violence and oppression.
    We all know what will happen next.
    http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/04/201142817747522257.html

  • Hamish Scott

    Yes Craig, I noticed the relatively thin crowds (in proportion to the hype). The crowds were no thicker than the Pope got along Princes Street (which is about a mile long) when he visited Edinburgh last year. Considering the relative population of Edinburgh to London and the relative proportion of Catholics to everyone else in Edinburgh it seems the Pope was more popular.

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