29 January: make it Judgement Day for Blair

Friday 29 January is now confirmed as the day for Tony Blair's appearance at the Chilcot inquiry on the war in Iraq. As I reported earlier, Stop the War is gearing up for protests on the day. Now the day is known it's much easier to publicise the protests - and I recommend taking the day off work and getting along to the events in London, or (like me) getting involved in organising a local demonstration.

Also, Stop the War has today announced a major public meeting about Afghanistan on Wednesday 27 January. This will be the start of 3 days of intense activity, which continues on Thursday 28 with a demonstration at Gordon Brown's international conference, and concludes with the Iraq inquiry protests on Friday 29. Speakers at the public meeting include George Galloway, Tony Benn, Kate Hudson (CND), Lindsey German (Stop the War) and The Guardian's Seumas Milne.

Our local event is now confirmed for 29 January, Grey's Monument in Newcastle, at 5pm. There will be a campaign stall at Grey's Monument this Saturday, 1-2pm, to advertise it. As elsewhere, we will be demanding the inquiry is not a whitewash and calling Blair to account for his and George Bush's illegal and disastrous war. There will also be local activity on 28 January - details to follow.