Brian Haw had a few weird ideas amongst the good ones in his head — in that he was not unusual. But the weird ones do not mean that we don’t all owe him thanks for the good ideas and the way he acted on them. For ten years he sat in his deckchair, inches from the trucks and taxis, staring across the road, a constant reminder for the Members of Parliament who were battling their own consciences and their own constituencies to take us to war. Every once in a while one of our representatives would catch a glimpse in the corner of their eye as they walked past a window or raced across Bridge Street from Whitehall. They knew they were being watched.
He deserves our thanks for something else, something unintended. Brian Haw made Parliament Square a place again.