Jeremy Corbyn at CND's Hiroshima Day 70th Anniversary Ceremony in Tavistock Square

Yesterday, August 6, was the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, when, for the first time ever, an atomic bomb -- dropped by the US -- was used on a largely civilian population. I have been an implacable pacifist, and an opponent of nuclear weapons (and nuclear power), all my life, and a particularly important staging post in my development was when I was ten years old, and I watched the whole of the groundbreaking ITV series, 'The World at War.'

So yesterday I was at Tavistock Square, with hundreds of other opponents of nuclear weapons, for CND's Hiroshima Day 70th Anniversary Ceremony, where speakers included the man of the moment, Jeremy Corbyn, who is standing for the leadership of the Labour Party, and is drawing huge crowds at meetings around the country, for two reasons -- he presents a compelling anti-austerity point of view, which a significant number of people are crying out for, and he is genuine and honest and not distracted by the politics of personality, when it is the issues -- the common good, fighting inequality and caring for our world and each other -- that are most important.

I saw Jeremy speak -- as powerfully as ever -- and I also saw the author A. L. Kennedy, who read some powerful poems, and Sheila Triggs of WILPF (the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom), which was founded in 1915. The compere was Bruce Kent, and other speakers included Baroness Jenny Jones of the Green Party.