Category: Political Issues

The protest march reaches the St Helier open space in front of the hospital

I don’t often go to Sutton, a town in South London, part of Surrey that was absorbed into Greater London in the local government reforms of 1965.  It really isn’t a place there is much to go there for, unless you need to shop, and there are plenty of other places for that.  I did spend a little time in the area in 1997  when I was photographing London and its buildings, though I think I found relatively little to interest me in Sutton itself. Since then then only time I can remember returning is when with seven friends we put on a photography show in the library there in 2007.

One of the campaigns that I’ve come across regularly taking part in various protests about the NHS, against cuts in services, creeping privatisation and hospital closures has been KOSSH, a slightly sinister sounding name standing for ‘Keep our St Helier Hospital ‘, and when I got an email telling me about their planned march celebrating the 70th anniversary of the NHS and against the plans of the Epsom and St Helier trust to close A&E, Maternity, Paediatrics, Emergency Medicine and Surgery, Intensive Care, Coronary Care and the Cancer Centre at one or both hospitals and sell off the sites, I was interested to join them and photograph the event.

Of course, as so often it wasn’t the only event I would like to have covered. Also taking place in Central London was the annual Pride march, which I’ve photographed most years since the early 1990s, as well as several other local events. But Pride isn’t what it was, and the march in particular has become such a corporate event that I’ve rather lost interest in photographing it. Last year’s event had been enlivened by the Anti-Racist & Migrant Rights Pride march, which had managed to take pride of place at the front of the main event (though only because they were not allowed to join the main march) but there appeared to be nothing like that planned this year, though later I heard that a group of anti-trans feminists had put in an appearance.

So my plan for the day had been to go to Sutton and photograph the march, then go into Soho and photograph on the streets there after the official march. But it was a very hot day, and by the time I had marched all the way to St Helier Hospital and photographed the short rally there,  I was exhausted, and caught the two trains to take me home for a cool drink and a rest.

St Helier Hospital (the site includes the Queen Mary children’s hospital) is one of the few buildings in the area that had attracted my attention back in the 1997, on high ground a mile or two north of the centre of Sutton, in one of the largest council-built estates in London. The St Helier Estate was a ‘garden city’ cottage  overspill estate built by the London County Council between 1928 and 1936 outside of London,  and with over 9000 homes was the largest such development by the LCC other than Becontree, and the hospital there, in a modern style, was opened in 1938.

Closing either of the hospitals would lead to longer emergency journeys in what is often a very congested part of London.  The full range of services would only be available at St Georges in Tooting. Back in 2003 I sat in an ambulance for around an hour stuck in traffic on my way there – until one of the medics accompanying me suggested I might have an emergency – and even then with blue lights flashing our progress was slow. The proposed cuts would reduce services at a time when needs are increasing and are proposed only to save money to meet government cuts which call for huge savings by the trust.

The die-in at the end of the march wasn’t huge, and quite a few of those who started the march, including several in poor health, didn’t manage to complete it in the summer heat, though I’m sure none actually died. But it made the point that hospital closures will lead to people dying, particularly those needing emergency treatment.

More at NHS at 70 – Save St Helier Hospital

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My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

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I was born before the start of the NHS but it has been there for almost all of my life, there when I’ve needed it. Some of my earliest memories are of going to the clinic where my mother was given free orange juice, which I loved, though I remember it as being rather viscous and sweet compared to the orange juice I now drink every morning at breakfast. And they also gave her cod liver oil, which was rather difficult to get me to take, though I’m now sure it did me good.

Of course the NHS wasn’t then welcomed by everyone, and was brought in against considerable opposition, both from doctors and from inside the Conservative Party. And it has never been perfect; in particular dentistry has never really been properly brought within the ambit of a health service to meet the three core needs set out by Aneurin Bevan:

• that it meet the needs of everyone
• that it be free at the point of delivery
• that it be based on clinical need, not ability to pay

and there were years when I couldn’t afford NHS treatment that have left a legacy in my current lack of real bite (though I get by.)

But even with this, we have moved far beyond the days of my parents, when the extraction of all of a person’s teeth and their replacement by a “full set” was a popular (and quite expensive) coming of age or wedding present. They woke every morning to see their teeth grinning at them on the bedside table in a glass tooth-mug, soaking in some tooth wash and part of the routine of rising was to put their teeth in.

There have of course been many medical advances since July 5th 1948, and treatment under the NHS has improved greatly. When I think of the many treatments I’ve received over the past fifteen years that have kept me alive and more or less fit to work, about the only ones that would have been available back in 1948 were aspirin and the concerned care of doctors and nurses.

There have been some set-backs too. Many were appalled at the introduction of prescription charges by the Conservative government in 1952 (the 1949 Act by a Labour government had made this possible – and led to Bevan’s resignation.) They were free again for three years in the 1960s and are now £8.80 per item, 176 times the 1952 rate, though actually rather greater than this as the initial charge was ‘per form’ and since 1955 it has been ‘per item’. The amount these charges raise is relatively small in terms of the NHS budget, perhaps around £400m, mainly because almost 90% of prescribed items go to those of us who qualify for free prescriptions.

While prescriptions are now free for people living in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, our current government has announced a crackdown on faudulent claims for free prescriptions in England, an expensive sledge-hammer to crack an insignificant nut. Many of those currently accused of having falsely claimed to be eligible are found to actually qualify for exemption, but have simply not applied or not kept their paperwork up to date.

The prescription crack-down is perhaps simply and example of the general Conservative apoplexy at the idea of people getting something for free that they or their friends could be profiting from. More and more aspects of our NHS treatment are now being handed over to private companies to deliver, and the NHS is continually being weakened by this back-door privatisation, sliding slowly into the hands of healthcare businesses. And once this process is more or less complete – unless we get a government that reverses it – those companies will be keen to go further, to move to a US-style insurance-based system with exorbitant medical costs and people being turned away because they have conditions their insurance does not cover or because they have been unable to afford the insurance payments.

And, as I point out on My London Diary, those in government who legislate the future of our NHS have considerable legal and declared financial interests (as well as others with interests that for legal reasons they are not obliged to declare) :

“A report by Social Investigations in 2014 found 65 Conservative peers, 12 Lib-Dem peers, 37 Labour peers and 33 Crossbenchers with interests in private healthcare companies, as well as 63 Tory MPs, 3 Lib-Dems, 14 Labour members and one other. Some held directorships, others were shareholders or had received payments from companies for various services etc.”

Aneurin Bevan never actually said “The NHS will last as long as there’s folk with faith left to fight for it” though he certainly did say that people would have to fight to keep it and its principles alive. At no time in its history has it been so much under threat as now, and this march showed that there were still people prepared to fight for it, though it is hard to be confident that we will win. I’m hopeful that it will see me out, but fearful that its demise might see the death of me.

More text and far too many pictures including those of the speakers and politicians supporting the event at NHS at 70 – Free, for all, forever

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There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

To order prints or reproduce images

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The trouble with protesting outside the new US Embassy in London is that almost nobody sees the protest. The area around is still something of a building site, and even when the tall blocks of flats around are completed and sold, relatively few of them will be inhabited, with many going as investments to overseas investors, few if any of whom will actually ever live there and many will never even visit.

The path around the embassy leads nowhere; only those going to the embassy on business will use it, and the protest I was going to photograph was timed for after the embassy was closed. The only people who came to see what was happening were the police and security on duty, as well as one embassy employee in a suit who came briefly and took a few photographs.

So my photographs – and those taken by some of the protesters – are the only public face of the protest, and while mine have appeared on Facebook and on my own web site, as well as on the site of the agency I sent them to, they have not yet been sold for any use. Guantanamo is no longer considered news by the media, and there are no longer any detainees with a UK connection that might make them so for the UK press.

It would be slightly more public to hold this and other protests on the main road in front of the embassy, but it is set back well from the road, and some of the connection would be lost. But at least the protest would be seen by those going along the road, which at the rush hour does have a number of pedestrians, cyclists, cars, buses and other vehicles passing – rather busier in total than the old venue in Grosvenor Square. Or perhaps there is somewhere ele in London sufficiently connected with the US as to be a suitable site for protest?

So while the protesters put in time to make their way to this rather out of the way place, and I worked hard to exploit the visual possibilities of the situation – in some ways rather more exciting than Grosvenor Square, if nobody actually sees the protest itself or the photographs, our time and effort is rather wasted. Torture continues at Guantanamo and I fear this and similar protests will have little effect in stopping it.

You can see more pictures from the protest at Torture protest at US Embassy and please feel free to share the pictures and this post. The images (except for the top one, which I didn’t send as it wasn’t a part of the protest) are available for editorial use from Alamy though almost impossible to find through their rather opaque search system.

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There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

To order prints or reproduce images

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So much about Brexit and the way we are moving away from Europe makes no sense. Referendums don’t really fit into our constitution, but they are clearly not binding, but Prime Minister Cameron staked the future of the country on one and clearly lost. Since that decision, Theresa May spent most of her time digging a deeper hole to appease the Conservative right, only too late to come to the realisation that negotiations mean you have to negotiate, too little and far too late with her Chequers proposals.

It seems most likely that no deal will be made, and that if one is it would not be able to get a majority in Parliament. So the government is trying hard to find procedural ways to avoid giving MPs the meaningful vote they were promised. Whatever happens then is anyone’s guess, but it seems likely that the government will fall, and my only hope is that a new government will come in which will go back to Europe and make a sensible deal, probably involving us remaining inside the customs union.

We are clearly however in a situation where almost nothing is impossible, but in the short term for most of us things are going to be tough, while a few of the most prominent advocates of leaving the EU will literally be laughing all the way to the bank, having made a financial killing at the country’s expense.

Quite where a ‘People’s Vote‘ would fit in I’m not sure. Nor I think are all those running the campaign, which for some at least is simply another way to attack Jeremy Corbyn. But for most I think it was something much more positive, and expression of their wish to remain closely tied to the rest of Europe and continue the kind of free movement we have enjoyed.

What is beyond question is that the British public were lied to at the time of the referendum – and that the huge majority of the lies came from those promoting Brexit. There was also considerable breaking of the rules on election spending, again mostly from the same side. Most of those who voted to remain feel cheated, as do a significant number who voted leave, some of whom have expressed their feelings strongly on the matter.

Although opinion polls now show a good majority would vote to stay in Europe, a second referendum would involve a second campaign when dedicated Brexiteers would be strengthened by calling ‘Foul!’ and those running a second Brexit campaign indulging in the same lying and cheating that won the first. Hopefully the lies would be less convincing second time round, and enough of the older voters who gave Brexit their small majority will have died and been replaced by young voters who see their future in Europe to reverse the first vote, but I’m not entirely convinced the result would be different.

Many more pictures at Many Thousands March for a People’s Vote

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There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

To order prints or reproduce images

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Although the arguments for building an extra runway at Heathrow seem now to be even weaker than when it was ruled out back in 2009 and those of us who live near the airport celebrated, and the arguments against far clearer, well-funded lobbyists have managed to put it back on the political agenda, reviving what seems clearly a corpse. Politically it is quite a curious mixture, with some trade unions supporting airport expansion, along with aviation industry figures.

Brexit has also played a part, with prominent Brexiteers supporting expansion as necessary to increase our trade with the rest of the world after we leave Europe, though Boris Johnson who opposed the third runway when Mayor of London, and is now MP for Uxbridge, which would be adversely effected has promised if necessary to lie down in front of the bulldozers. Of course, as he was then Foreign Secretary and thus a part of the cabinet he would have been obliged either to vote for the Government motion or resign when the vote came on the Monday after these protests – and he conveniently found some mythical Foreign Office business to take himself out of the country.

A small group of people had been protesting with a two week hunger strike outside the Labour Party HQ (though they had been elsewhere when I went to try and photograph them) and most of them came to take part in both the Friday evening protest and on Saturday.

As I wrote in My London Diary in June:

“Heathrow expansion would be a disaster not just for those who lose their homes or would suffer increased pollution under the flight path in a city with already dangerous and often illegal levels of pollution thought to result in around 10,000 premature deaths in London each year, but will add the the already growing threat of irreversible climate breakdown that could threaten the future of human life on the earth.”

The recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will I think change the game so far as aviation is concerned – as well as on many other issues, forcing even our current government to take more environmental issues far more seriously. Aviation is of course a global issue, and there will be considerable pressures from many other countries which are likely to make the growth forecasts on which the Heathrow decision was based totally absurd.

Despite the vote which came on the Monday following these protests it is very unlikely the third runway will ever be built.  Brexit and the economic crisis that will precipitate will almost certainly lead to its cancellation on cost grounds, and the disruption the building would cause to traffic around London is unthinkable. Politically also any attempt to go ahead with the project on the ground is likely to be impossible, and it seems almost certain that the next government – of whichever party or coalition –  will reverse the decision.

More at:
No Heathrow block Parliament Square
Vote No to Disastrous Heathrow Expansion
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There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

To order prints or reproduce images

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I didn’t warm to Julian Assange as a person when I briefly met him in 2011, but I guess he had other things on his mind.  But when various allegations were made about his conduct with women in Sweden it did seem that a case was being constructed on rather flimsy ground  – and later dropped – to try to enable the US authorities to get their hands on him. They wanted to lock him up in isolation for life for revealing illegal and immoral activities by the US military and security services to the world.

I’m a supporter of freedom of information, and think that Wikileaks is carrying out a great service in releasing information which the US and other governments were keeping hidden; Wikipedia comments:  “Supporters of WikiLeaks in the media and academia have commended it for exposing state and corporate secrets, increasing transparency, supporting freedom of the press, and enhancing democratic discourse while challenging powerful institutions.”

It came as a surprise to realise that Assange had been inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London for 6 years on 19th June 2018, though I have been there a number of times and photographed his supporters on the pavement opposite. Our government is too scared of upsetting the USA to allow Ecaudor some way to fly him to their country and has spent huge sums on security to prevent this happening. Ecuador has come under increasing pressure from the US to hand him over, and have for some months been refusing access to him and have taken away his internet connection – though recently announcing some limited access  following a visit to the country by the UN Special Rapportuers for Freedom of Expression & Refugees, this does not yet appear to have been implemented.

Ciaron O’Reilly

The BBC has been accused of publishing fake material and misleading statements in many of its reports on Assange – and certainly along with most other UK media has adopted a very negative attitude towards him. A recent article on the BBC website about the lengthy Special Protocol recently imposed by Ecuador on him quoted a statement clearly from a parody account as being by him. The new protocol appears to many to be designed to provide Ecuador with a pretext to withdraw diplomatic immunity in the event of some minor transgression of its draconian terms.

Joe Black

There was of course no sign of Julian Assange today, though Horvat Srecko, one of his friends and close associates did come to speak, and there were others there including well known peace and human rights campaigners, including Peter Tatchell  and Ciaron O’Reilly.

Lauri Love

Also speaking at the event was Lauri Love who fought a long and succesful battle against extradition the the USA on hacking charges  – and had he lost would now be sitting in isolation in a small cell for the rest of his life.

Peter Tatchell

The even attracted a small crowd, including many who have regularly come to show solidarity with Assange outside the embassy. Among them were a number of Ecuadorians who urge their government to continue to protect Assange.

Assange in Embassy for Six Years

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There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

To order prints or reproduce images

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It was hard to believe it was a year ago that we all woke to the terrible news about the fire at Grenfell Tower – though those in the area had been up all night since it started early in the morning.

Hard to believe too how little has so far been done, at least by Kensington & Chelsea Council, the governemnt and official bodies either for the victims who survived the disaster or to seek out those responsible and to make sure that such a tragedy will never happen again. Clearly the authorities are hoping that the grass will grow long enough in time to hide the crimes that made Grenfell not just possible, but virtually inevitable.

While it is right that the inquiry which finally started should look in depth at what happened, there are so many things that were obvious virtually from the day of the fire, and which we should not be waiting for years for action to be taken. There are things that could have been done virtually immediately. Promises that were made of urgent action – by the Prime Minister and others – which have simply not been kept. There should by now be people in prison, companies paying fines, councillors being banned from public office and more. The system has found it possible to try and jail a few people who tried to make false claims following the disaster, but somehow has not managed to take action against those responsible for it.

Grenfell is not the only block that was waiting for disaster to strike. There are others with the same flammable cladding, others with inadequate fire doors, others with dangerous gas supplies, others without proper water supplies to fight fires, other fire authorities that cuts have lefte without the equipment to properly tackle high rise fires, without the manning levels to tackle major blazes. Others where councils and landlords have been able to avoid adequate safety inspections. Probably Grenfell was an extreme example where a callous council and its TMO managed to bring all of these things together and to hide much of it from public scrutiny, but we should none of us be surprised to wake up to another dreadful news bulletin tomorrow or the next day. Grenfell was a warning that urgent action is needed; 14months on it is still needed.

The community response to the tragedy was immediate and enormous and such a contrast to the authorities who should have done so much more. And more is even now coming out about the poisonous fumes and particles spread about the whole neighbourhood by the fire, which will have affected many more than those who escaped the tower and had to leave the adjoining blocks. Then mental trauma many suffered – including many of the community volunteers – is also becoming more apparent, as is the continuing failure of the local council to respond adequately to the needs of those who suffered.

And the community is still keeping the issues alive by its monthly silent walks, every 14th of the month. The June march was special, marking a year since the disaster, and an estimated 12,000 of us crowded there to make our feelings felt, wearing green fabric to show our solidarity with the victims. It was a moving event and one that was difficult to photograph, not just because of the crowds.

I took so many pictures it’s hard to decide which to put in this post. And I was there not just as a reporter but to show my own support, wearing a green scarf like the others, and for various reasons rather more emotional than usual. Together I think the pictures make a good account of the event, and the captions, some rather longer than usual, add to it.

I left the march at Ladbroke Grove, as the organisers had made clear that the press were not welcome in the park where the march was ending, and walked slowly back to Shepherds Bush, though some of the wealthier parts of the area, feeling there should be millions not just thousands marching, and that we should all be angrier and more determined to see changes. To borrow a slogan we do need a society that works ‘for the many, not for the few’ and one where people’s lives really matter, even if they aren’t among the wealthy elite.

Massive Silent Walk for Grenfell Anniversary

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There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

To order prints or reproduce images

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