A jumble of chants at London’s ‘Hands Off’ protest

On Saturday, April 5, some 1,300 protests took place in cities across all 50 states of America as well as in some other countries.

Britain was one of them.

A few hundred people gathered in Trafalgar Square in London to express their horror at Donald Trump’s grand and ugly dismantling of the system and order of US government, of international relationships and diplomatic alliances.

I was one of those people and I noticed a problem with the protest in terms of its chants. These were a jumble of all-sorts and did not seem to have been formulated in advance to articulate our objections to what Mr Trump is doing in his second term.

As an example, here is some suitable material for chants, organised around rule of law, which Mr Trump is shredding in the United States:

• No Kings, America is a Nation of Laws

• America is about rule of law not law of the jungle

• America: Rule of law not rule of Trump

The Turkish protest near by had a great deal more energy than the American. The Turks stamped their feet and bellowed into microphones, waved huge flags and created a great deal of energy.

The American event was much quieter. But it did have some great signage. I wish those had been used for the chants.