We reporters love crowd figures. The bigger the mob, the better the story. Politicians love them too. The greater the masses, the greater the popularity. Ask not who said: “I’m like, wait a minute. I made a speech. I looked out, the field was, it looked like a million, million and a half people.” Ah, those millions.

Back in 2011, the crowds in Tahrir Square were in their hundreds of thousands. A million Egyptians – that's the figure Al Jazeera went for. Or maybe it was a million and a half people in central Cairo. They helped to overthrow Hosni Mubarak – with the help of the army, of course, the people’s protector. Experts thought 300,000 was the greatest number of Egyptians you could cram into the Tahrir district. But what the hell? It was a revolution.

So Mohamed Morsi won the first democratic election in modern Egyptian history, but two years later the crowds were back in the streets of the Arab world’s most populated nation. Now they wanted the overthrow of Morsi and the strong hand of the people’s protector, the army. They produced a reported 22 million signatures on a youth movement protest petition. And they got General, later Field Marshal, later still President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. His publicists then announced that his coup d'état had been supported by protestors who took part in “the largest demonstrations in human history”. They touted the total cross-country crowds as 33 million, more than a third of the entire Egyptian population. This was fantastical, but obsessive.

No wonder that when Donald Trump met Sisi last year, he pronounced the Egyptian leader “a fantastic guy”. And let’s not forget that Obama’s administration went along with the utterly unverified signatures on that infamous ‘petition’. Hillary Clinton’s own State Department declared that the US could not reverse the will of the “22 million people who spoke out [sic] and had their voices heard”. But it was the scale of the 33 millions that the military used to claim legitimacy. When the BBC reported this Hollywood-style exaggeration, Sisi’s acolytes requoted the BBC as authenticating the fantasy.

Trump Inauguration protests around the World Show all 14 1 /14 Trump Inauguration protests around the World Trump Inauguration protests around the World Activists from Greenpeace display a message reading "Mr President, walls divide. Build Bridges!" along the Berlin wall in Berlin on January 20, 2017 to coincide with the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United State Getty Trump Inauguration protests around the World An activist holds up a sign at the "We Stand United" rally on the eve of US President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration outside Trump International Hotel and Tower in New York on January 19, 2017 in New York Getty Trump Inauguration protests around the World Protesters burn a U.S. flag and a mock flag with pictures of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump outside the U.S. embassy in metro Manila, Philippines Getty Trump Inauguration protests around the World Filipino protestors hold placcards during a protest rally in front of the US embassy in Manila, Philippines, 20 January 2017. On the eve of President-elect Donald Trump's inaguration as the 45th president of the United States, Filipinos and Fil-Americans held a protest in front of the US embassy in Manila to denounce the incoming US president. Getty Trump Inauguration protests around the World Hong Kong police officers and security guards look on as an anarchist protester belonging to the Disrupt J20 movement sits after using a heavy duty D-lock and motorcycle lock to chain himself to a railing at the entrance gate to the Consulate General of the United States of America in Hong Kong to protest the inauguration of United States President-elect Donald Trump, Hong Kong, China, 20 January 2017. Two activists were arrested and taken away by Hong Kong police during the demonstration. Getty Trump Inauguration protests around the World A banner is unfurled on London's Tower Bridge, organised by Bridges Not Walls - a partnership between grassroots activists and campaigners working on a range of issues, formed in the wake of Donald Trump's election, which aims to build bridges to a world free from hatred and oppression. Getty Trump Inauguration protests around the World Protesters chain themselves to an entry point prior at the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump in Washington, DC, U.S. Getty Trump Inauguration protests around the World Bridges Not Walls banner dropped from Molenbeek bridge in Brussels, Belgium, 20 January 2017, in an Greenpeace action part of protests Wolrd protest in solidarity with people in the US, the day Donald Trump sworn in as the 45th President of the United States. Getty Trump Inauguration protests around the World A woman holds an anti-U.S. President-elect Donald Trump placard during a rally in Tokyo, Japan, Getty Trump Inauguration protests around the World A Palestinian protester holds a placard during a demonstration against the construction of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and against US President-elect Donald Trump, on January 20, 2017, near the settlement of Maale Adumim, east of Jerusalem Getty Trump Inauguration protests around the World Banners on North Bridge in Edinburgh as part of the Bridges Not Walls protest against US President Donald Trump on the day of his inauguration Getty Trump Inauguration protests around the World Russian artist Vasily Slonov (L) and his assistant carry a life-sized cutout, which is an artwork created by Slonov and titled "Siberian Inauguration", before its presentation on the occasion of the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, in a street in Krasnoyarsk, Russia Getty Trump Inauguration protests around the World A woman holds a banner during a march to thank outgoing President Barack Obama and reject US President-elect Donald Trump before his inauguration at a park in Tokyo, Japan, 20 January 2017. EPA Trump Inauguration protests around the World Palestinian demonstrators protesting this week against a promise by Donald Trump to re-locate the US embassy to Jerusalem Reuters

The BBC’s Arabic service had some doubts. Only “tens of thousands” had massed for Morsi’s overthrow. But the damage was done. A local Egyptian television channel stated, “CNN says 33 million people were in the streets today. BBC says the biggest gathering in history.” The BBC authenticated no such figure, as journalist Max Blumenthal – one of the only American writers to seriously question this ballyhoo – pointed out.

Then a single anonymous “military official”, who may or may not have existed, claimed that 17 million had protested at Morsi’s rule and demanded new elections. Though slightly less ambitious a figure than 22 million or 33 million, this statistic was also delusional, an “alternative fact” if ever there was one. But step forward a man who understood personal popularity and who craved admiration and who also, no doubt, thought Sisi “a fantastic guy”. This eminent statesman then really did tell us that “17 million people on the street is not the same as an election – but it is an awesome manifestation of people power”. Yes, it was Tony Blair.

“Alternative facts” again. But what would you expect of Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara, who gave us weapons of mass destruction and 45-minute warnings and who did not, apparently, notice the million Brits (according to the BBC) who marched on British streets in 2003 because they did not want to invade Iraq?

The 2013 Egyptian figure dipped briefly to 14 million. But even that was pretty “alternative”. An Egyptian blogger worked out that if each Cairo protestor occupied 0.45 square metres of body room, the total number of pro-Sisi demonstrators you could fit into the centre of Egyptian cities was only 2.8 million.

Pretty measly. Not even twice the size of Trump’s million and a half. But let’s stay with Trump’s million for a moment. For when Lebanese protestors wanted to condemn the murder of their ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005, hundreds of thousands of them turned out in central Beirut and demanded the withdrawal of the Syrian army from their country. Reporters liked to call this the ‘Cedar Revolution’. Were there 500,000 Lebanese demonstrators, as AP suggested? Or between 800,000 and 1.2 million, as others proclaimed? Let’s say a million – although Hezbollah produced a rally of perhaps half a million (possibly 800,000) a few days later in support of Syria.

As Washington rounded on Damascus, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad took umbrage at the anti-Syrian protestors. The Cedar Revolution was anyway a title invented not by the Lebanese but by a US State Department official. Assad complained that his Beirut antagonists were fewer in number and talked of camera ‘bias’ and spoke with anger of zoom lenses. “Zoom out and count,” read the next posters carried by the anti-Syrian protestors. At Trump’s inaugural, of course – and at Obama’s first inaugural with its larger numbers – the cameras didn’t ‘zoom’ at all.

Trump nominee Mick Mulvaney admits Obama's inauguration crowd size was bigger

But you could see what Trump’s weird spokesman meant when he said that this was “the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration”. Whatever the final results of the US election that gave his master victory, Sean Spicer was untruthfully saying what his master truthfully wanted to hear: that the will of the people must be done. Crowds matter. When the Egyptian army staged its coup, Sisi’s friend Blair did actually say that it had done so at “the will of the people”.