Brogue mail looms large as a minority are mobilised, all the way from Sloane Street

David Jennet arrived at Hyde Park Corner shortly after 9am yesterday, not to march, but to flog whistles for a pound each. By 10.45 he had sold almost his entire consignment of 500. Did he agree with the grievances of those marching? "I don't know nothing about it, mate," he said. "I'm from Southend-on-Sea."

Jim, in the ice-cream van opposite Knightsbridge Barracks, was a little more clued-up. "It's about the right to hunt, innit," he said, handing a 99 to a girl in jodhpurs. "Which as I see it is no different to my right to sell ice creams." His face darkened at the very idea that someone might threaten to confiscate his Hundreds and Thousands.

As for the hundreds and thousands marching from Hyde Park – a multitude so great that those at the back took more than three hours to start moving, and remained standing in the shadow of the Albert Memorial long after the vanguard had reached the end of Piccadilly, some two miles east – their placards and banners declared a bewildering range of grievances, way beyond the proposed ban on fox hunting. Susan Philipps from Wiltshire had a beef with the BBC. "Biased Bigoted Cronies", thundered her banner. "I heard a woman on News 24 saying that we should sell our farms for low-cost housing," she spluttered. "And yesterday they wouldn't let [the Countryside Alliance spokesman] Simon Hart finish what he was saying."

Ianthe Blake, also from Wiltshire, wielded another pointed placard – "Pissed Off about Post Offices Closing!" Her village, Pewsey, had lost two post offices in three years, she said, not to mention a butcher, a bank and a building society. She blamed supermarkets and the Government.

The Prime Minister, indeed, has surely never been more demonised than he was yesterday. Anti-Blair slogans ranged from the cruel – "TB, Nasty Little Bug, Stamp Him Out" – to the cute – "I'm Tony Blair, Get Me Out Of Here" – to the curious – "Toe Knee Blur, Get Your Priorities Right" – to the clumsy – "Tony Blair Your [sic] Not Fair If You Won't Let Us Coarse [sic] a Hare" – to the considerably more direct – "Bollocks to Blair".

Several banners likened him to Robert Mugabe. "Blair – UK's Magabe [sic]" proclaimed one. I gently pointed out the spelling error. "Oh no," wailed John East-Rigby, from the New Forest. "I looked it up on the internet last night." I shared with him one way of never misspelling Mugabe, pointing out that it is "E ba gum" backwards. "I'm afraid he's dyslexic," explained his wife, Cherry.

The East-Rigbys, like almost everyone on the march, were in excellent cheer, although the general air of joviality seemed to depress Hugh Earl of Highgate, north London, proprietor of Prometheus Pellets. "This won't achieve anything, we're far too well-behaved," he moaned.

Whether or not it will achieve anything, the Liberty march succeeded impressively in its aim of mobilising the self-styled minority. What it did not quite cast off was the perception that, as distinct from the simultaneous Livelihood march, it was an outing for toffs. Brogue male loomed large. As did Annabel Lewis, marching to defend fly-fishing in a pair of roe-deer antlers. "Hands off my Hairy Mary", said her placard. "It's a type of fly," she explained. I asked where she was from. "Sloane Street," she said.