A LONE EGG thrower aimed and missed the Prime Minister 's car as Tony Blair arrived at the enthronement of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The young man, dressed in a white body suit, threw the missile as the PM's car drew into the King's School gate in the city at 2.35pm.

The anti-war demonstrator was arrested and taken away in a police van minutes before the enthronement of Dr Rowan Williams began.

Hundreds of banner-waving protestors, demonstrating largely against the impending conflict in Iraq, filled the city's Buttermarket, outside the Christchurch Gate, the entrance for most guests.

Beating drums and chanting "No bombs", "We want peace and when do we want it now?" and "Stop the killing, stop the hate, we don't want the bloody war" they started gathering from around 1pm.

Extra steel barriers had to be brought in to contain the crowd as 2,000 guests began arriving at the Cathedral.

In his address Dr Williams said that being human meant people recognising and accepting everybody was different.

He said: "No one can be written off; no group, no nation, no minority can just be a scapegoat to resolve our fears and uncertainties.

"We have to learn to be human alongside all sorts of others, the ones whose company we don't greatly like, whom we didn't choose, because Jesus is drawing us together into his place, his company."

He said an "authentic" church had a difficult job to do. "The Church can't believe and say whatever it likes, for the very sound reason that it is a community of people who have been changed because and only because of Jesus Christ, " said Dr Williams.

"The Church of the future, I believe, will do both its prophetic and its pastoral work effectively only if it is concerned first with gratitude and joy; Orthodoxy flows from this, not the other way around, and we don't solve our deepest problems just by better discipline but by better discipleship."

Listening to him in the congregation were Prince Charles, Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy, Canterbury MP Julian Brazier, former special envoy to the late Archbishop Lord Runcie, Terry Waite, and church leaders from around the world.

As Mr Waite arrived he said the new archbishop's view of exercising extreme caution over the war with Iraq was a sensible one. He said: "He has the support of a lot of people in that."

The protestors moved to the Cathedral Precincts' Postern Gate by 2.45pm and were demonstrating noisily as Prince Charles arrived flanked by a police motorbike escort.

Just a handful of supporters of the new Archbishop's stance on war, students from Kent University, were at the other end of the city at the King's School gate for the arrival of the PM.

Canterbury College student Steve Crompton, 23, joined the main anti-war protest. He said: "We didn't join the London march and see this as our chance to get our view across, peacefully not forcefully."

Police estimated that there were about 200 protestors. Kent Police spokesman Mark Pugash said: "We anticipated that there would be people protesting and as long as they do it legally it's their right to do that."

Demonstrators also included those for and against the teachings of Dr Williams. Supporting Dr Williams was the Rev Pat Alden from St Giles and St Matthew in Camberwell.

"He's certainly a person that will bring a freshness to the Church," said Mrs Alden.

Speaking against Mr Williams was the Rev Andrew Price, from Wimbledon. "Clearly he does not believe in the authority of the bible," he said.