Anti war meeting at Queens Hotel

[AlanG]

ok popped along to this tonight and heres breakdown and views on what was said:

First speaker - guy from FBU.
spoke about the firefighters strike (d'oh) and general Union struggle and solidarity with other public service workers

Tommy Sheridan
Went on for about 20-25mins, his usual speech style, everything youve heard from SSP in past few weeks. Speech only let down by his usual random pausing for effect, or something anyway. Also snipe at SNP saying that they welcome them in the anti war camp but if they want to speak at rallies and hand out leaflets they should at least help with some bloody organising. Probably bitter that the SNP got loads of coverage cause of Feb15th demo and they did bugger all organising

Third speaker - from Dundee nurseries
Spoke about their pay dispute with local councils and what action theyre planning

fourth speaker - Jim McFarline SSP MSP candidate in Dundee West
more general SSP positions on issues for upcoming election

fifth speaker - Tayside North top of list candidate SSP
very funny speech, good speaker, pretty much same as before but mentioned more about the fishing quota changes etc

then people from floor came up who had arranged earlier

Susan something, Iraqi exile who is against war.
She was imprisoned by Saddam for 17days and fled country afterwards, gave fantastic info about make up of ages in country, numbers of kids sufferring from Cancer etc, then descended into bizarre irrational spiel about cursing Bush and Blair and hoping they died etc, completely killed effect she had.

Some guy asking for donations for cost of hall(cost 150, managed to raise 165)

final woman from coalition for justice not war blethering on about bush info from the internet and then also mentioned she found herself wishing Blair would get cancer sometimes she hates him so much. still thats 2 psychos out of 9 hehe

that woman may be quite upset though as on her row and right in front of me were two people who were quite clearly undercover cops guy had the flat sensible shoes, random leather jacket and no sense of humour and woman beside had somethign hidden under her coat that kept clicking and beeping every 2mins or so (obviously recording equipment of some kind) kept me n Dode amused no end.

Altogether a productive evening, looking forward to demo on friday adn saturday