Today Britain buries the last of its veterans of the Great War. It’s the end of an era – another link with the past has gone forever. But will we ever learn from the past?

Harry Patch died last month at the age of 111. A remarkable feat in itself. But Harry had been in the British Army during the horrors of the Great War and had fought at Passchendaele. He was a hero. All the men who suffered that war, whether volunteer or conscript, should be remembered with great honour and Harry symbolised the last of these men.

It seems that Harry had asked for his funeral to symbolise peace and reconcilliation – the unification of soldiers from the UK, France, Belgium and Germany stands as recognition of his wishes. All these countries that in Harry’s life time were at war not once, but twice, are now peaceful friends. But there is still war and fighting in the world. Perhaps we can all learn from an old man to live in peace. We owe him, and so many who have died before him, the peaceful lives we now live in our country.

We will remember them – it’s all we can do now.

BBC correspondent Alan Johnston has been released.

I think this sums it up nicely …

Yesterday I took part in a ‘mass lone’ demonstration against the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act. This was the bill brought in order to remove long term protester Brian Haw from Parliament Square, but because it wasn’t made retrospective he is the only person now allowed to legally demonstrate there without the need for official permission. The SOCPA requires demonstrators to apply for permission to hold any sort of demonstration or protest within a zone around Parliament and Whitehall. Not only does this waste valuable police time by causing them to process unnecessary paperwork, but it’s also a huge infringement on our civil liberties and freedom of speech.

I’ve been aware of the lunacy of this act of Parliament since its introduction two years ago, but it was highlighted by Mark Thomas on a Radio 4 programme broadcast a couple of weeks ago. In it he explained his campaign against SOCPA and how he discovered that if various people wanted to demonstrate at the same time, but for different reasons (safety in numbers!) then they would each have to apply for individual permission. So began the ‘mass lone’ demonstrations held once a month in Parliament Square. The programme went on to detail Mark’s discovery that if he wanted to demonstrate for different reasons in different locations within the SOCPA zone that he would have to apply for permission for each location, which inspired his record breaking 21 protests in one day. It was this that we were all emulating yesterday.

Last week the police at Charing Cross received over 2000 requests for permission to demonstrate, including the 20 different protests and locations which I was applying for. With my permission granted I headed for Parliament Square, which was to be the collective first location of all the protesters. From there I set out with Clair on our planned route which took in many interesting, and some difficult to find, locations on Whitehall, Hungerford and Westminster Bridge and around various government department buildings. My protests, and I think those of most people taking part ranged from the serious (G8 promises on poverty, stopping people trafficking) to the less serious (bring back the skylon) to the downright silly (are there Slitheen in the cabinet, equal rights for daleks). I even managed to crowbar in requests for repeats and DVD releases for The Goodies! The point of the protests was not necessarily to make important points or political statements at each location, but to highlight the lunacy of SOCPA.

It was interesting the variety of reactions which our protests got. More obscure things got very confused looks from passers by. The best reactions I got were from people on Westminster Bridge where I was demonstrating for “Equal Rights for Daleks“. Many people seemed amused by this and one person even stopped to ask why. My final demonstration, back with all the other protesters in Parliament Square, was calling for all episodes of The Goodies to be released on DVD. This was probably only seen by other protesters, but from the very positive reactions I got this is a very popular cause! (The only person who questioned it was Mark Thomas himself, who I think I persuaded to my way of thinking!)

It was a fun, if tiring day. As it was very sunny and we were in a popular area of London there were large numbers of tourists around, many of whom asked if they could take pictures of us as we stood with our placards. It’s good that our messages will be seen around the world, but I wonder if they understood why we were there?