Why our ideas about protest and mob psychology are dangerously wrong | Dan Hancox

Myths about the madness of crowds, long propagated by politicians and the establishment, have been overturned by new research

I don't expect measured analysis from Suella Braverman, but even so I was taken aback this time last year when I heard that she had described the Palestine solidarity demos as hate marches". Earlier that week I had walked with my friends - some Jewish like me, some not - in a crowd of 500,000 others over Waterloo Bridge, and looked west down the Thames towards parliament, as a British Muslim girl of about eight years old led chants through a loudhailer: Gaza, Gaza, don't you cry / We will never let you die."

In many years of attending and reporting on protests, rallies, general strikes and riots, I have rarely experienced more orderly, peaceful, family-oriented mass gatherings than these demonstrations.