| Author | Message | | funglefoot | | Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2003 11:44 pm Post subject: |
| Royal International Air Tattoo,
Rogue International Arms Traders
15th to 20th July 2003
Unfortunately my ticket was mislaid in the post....
Therefore I am unable to comment on the proceedings only to say that judging from the photos published at:
http://www.fairfordpeacewatch.com/picturegallery.html
it seems to have been a fairly subdued event.
Lots of protestors but not many paying public...
If time can be made available from more urgent matters,
relating to the Gloucestershire Constabulary,
here is plenty of space for reportage on the RIAT.
| |  | | funglefoot | | | | Timmyg | | Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2003 7:05 am Post subject: |
| 200,000 according to BBC attended the two open days on Saturday and Sunday.
RAF benevolent fund say it was one of the best turnouts since leaving its temporary home in Coltishall Leistershire??? When the same figure was reached. | | | | funglefoot | | Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2003 10:37 am Post subject: |
| | Timmyg wrote: | 200,000 according to BBC attended the two open days on Saturday and Sunday.
RAF benevolent fund say it was one of the best turnouts since leaving its temporary home in Coltishall Leistershire??? When the same figure was reached. |
Well under expectations then... With all the publicity of the Iraq War they would have expected much better. | | | | funglefoot | | Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2003 10:36 pm Post subject: |
| ROGUE INTERNATIONAL ARMS TRADERS
http://www.fairfordpeacewatch.com/press27.07.03.html
| | | | Timmyg | | Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2003 11:35 am Post subject: |
| Id love to agree with you but unfortunately that just is not the case, the numbers were actually more than expected.
The figures were down by 30,000 average expectaions in total for Riat over the two public days, this was expected due to the horrendous traffic problems of last year and with many people being stuck in the car parks and areas surrounding in some cases for up to 4 hours. Many complaints were received and numerous watcher types on newsgroups and watcher sites complained and intimated they would not attend this year and leave it for the next year to see if the traffic mess was sorted out.
The traffic problems of last year were so s erious that the RIAT was almost moved to Lynham this year, but specialist traffic control consultants were brought in and advised on quick fixes.
The dealer part of Riat was officially suspended this year, although various firms still sent reps, the thousands of workers for various firms like BAE and Marconi and the many International arms makers and dealers etc did not provide their usual hospitality and staff day out, which would you believe is a perk of the job for lots of the Defence workers in this country, a day out at Riat and their own firms hospitality, beats sports day on the local green. This accounted for large numbers not attending, if this had happened as usual all records of attendance would have been broken.
The ATC, Air training Corps actually made up the numbers in a private youth day before the official 2 days with over 15000 youngsters in addition to the 200,000 attending and paying for benefit of RAFBF.
Paying numbers it seems were down by only 10,000 over the whole period.
We have to take care not to just believe what we want to believe, and maybe mix with others that are not all of the same belief of ourselves, alls going well General, is what the General wants to hear and if we surround ourselves by like people with the same beliefs as ourselves we will get the story we want to hear, might not always be the story though.
Id love to believe Riat was affected by recent moves on the international scene, but it seems the reasons are more mundane. | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
