Category: Political Issues

One of the consequences of the government’s rescue of the banks is that it is now public money, our money, that is backing hugely polluting schemes such as the building of coal fired power stations such as Kingsnorth. As we were reminded in one of a number of short speeches outside the RBS HQ in Bishopsgate, this power station will produce as much carbon dioxide on its own as the total industrial output from some countries.

The pension payout to its former boss Sir Fred Goodwin for bravely leading RBS into bankruptcy guaranteed that the action would have wide public support – and probably from most of the RBS staff too. But though most people would like to see Sir Fred stripped of pension and knighthood and locked up for life for his crimes (if not something more appropriately severe) this was an opportunity to remind people of his and the banking system’s crimes against the planet.

Although the Climate Rush at the RBS was something of a fun affair, like other events they have organised, its purpose is deeply serious, something that seems to be lost on some of the more dinosauric Indymedia armchair comment-makers.

Protests like this are successful because of the media interest they attract, which draws some public attention to the issues involved (if sometimes despite the efforts of mainstream reporters.)

It was also closely watched by many of the RBS employees, who cannot have failed to see the point of the protest which they were being entertained by. Many walked in past a very large banner saying ‘No New Coal Awards’ which was stretched out in front of the barriers around the whole entrance area which was full of security men and police. The same message appeared on sashes and on placards along with those opposed to airport expansion.

As well as the speeches there was some singing as well as music from a bike-hauled sound system and with some lively dancing. I was sorry that I had to rush off before the end as I wanted to support the office cleaners who were demonstrating outside the Willis building at the same time.

You can download your own copy of the poster that was distributed at the event – you can see one in the top image – for ‘Storm the Banks’ coming up on April 1st at the Bank of England from the G20 meltdown site; they are also available from Freedom Bookshop.

The G20 protest will starton 1 April at 11am with four carnival parades, each led by one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from a railway station – from Moorgate the Red horse against War, Liverpool St the Green horse against Climate chaos, London Bridge the Silver horse against Financial crimes and from Cannon Street the Black horse against land enclosures and borders and honouring the 360th full circle anniversary of the Diggers.

The carnival will converge on the Bank of England for ‘Storm the Banks‘ at 12 noon. And then at 1pm there’s the Climate Camp at the European Carbon Exchange at Hasilwood House in Bishopsgate. It should be an interesting day.

Oh yes, more on My London Diary.

Saturday’s South London March for Palestine, called by Wandsworth Stop the War Coalition was supported by many organisations from south of the river and made its two mile route through the busy main roads of Balham and Tooting.

Almost three hundred people gathered outside Balham Mosque for the start of the march, including many families, and there were banners from several trade union organisations, as well as the many placards from Stop the War and Socialist Worker and rather fewer from Palestine Solidarity  Campaign.

The march had strong support from Muslims in the area, and apart from starting at the Balham Mosque it ended with a rally at the Tooting Mosque which unfortunately I couldn’t stay for.

For once it was an event it was a delight to photograph. Friendly people, helpful stewarding (other Stop the War stewards could certainly learn from this) and no hassle at all from the police,  who cleared the traffic and otherwise more or less kept out of the way, although they did insist that the march kept on moving. It was after all going down one of the main routes out of London to the south, the A24 Balham High Road/Upper Tooting Road, both also lined with shops and busy with shoppers on a Saturday afternoon.

It made quite an impressive sight going along the road, as well as a great deal of noise. Many people stopped to watch it go past and many showed their support by waving and applauding. The march was led by a group of very energetic young boys in white t-shirts with blood-red hands marking them, closely followed by some of the women of all ages  in front of the main banner which was mainly held by men – with Lindsey German of Stop the War joining them a little way down the road.

There were also several photographers from the local papers present, so I hope it got some good local coverage. I posted a short report on ‘Indymedia’ which is more or less as you can also read on My London Diary, where you can see many more pictures.

I’m against cruelty to animals. But even more I’m against cruelty to human beings and some of the actions taken by animal rights activists appear to me to have involved this. However there does appear to be a great deal of demonisation going on in this area resulting in heavy-handed policing and some draconian sentencing by judges. And of course, much of what you read about animal rights activists (and much else) in the papers or even hear on the BBC is simply sensationalist fabrication, usually around a very small and far less dramatic kernel of fact.

It would however be hard to exaggerate some of the cruelty that does go in in testing chemicals on animals and in intensive food farming in this country and in fur farms abroad. We should have adequate legislation on animal welfare and it should be much more rigorously enforced. But I feel much more inclined to support things like the RSPCA‘s ‘Rooting for Pigs‘ campaign (and eat bacon from pigs that are well-cared for) than the ALF.

I’ve also benefited from drugs that have been tested on animals – and I probably wouldn’t be here without them. So I’m not entirely opposed to animal testing, though I think there should be much tighter restrictions, that it should be limited to testing of essential drugs (and not cosmetics or cleaning products etc) and that there should be much more effort put into developing alternative testing methods. Again I’d very much support the RSPCA’s approach to the use of animals in research.

SHAC get ready to march from Bank

Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) runs a global campaign to close down Huntingdon Life Sciences, the largest contract testing laboratory in Europe, exposed on many occasions by journalists, on TV, by ex-workers and by animal rights activists – including SHAC – for various inhumane practices, breaking or ignoring regulations, incompetence and more. Home Office inspectors have also been found failing to enforce regulations.

Some of the more horrific evidence that has emerged has been about the treatment of primates captured in the wild for experiments at HLS; the company tried to stop publication of some of this material with an injection but this was overturned after a lengthy court battle. Fresh appalling evidence on their primate trade came out last year. SHAC have also exposed terrible conditions in farms breeding animals for use by HLS, as well as cruelty at some of HLS’s customers.

The demonstration in London by SHAC last Friday was impressive in several ways, not least in the wide range of people in the 300 or so it attracted and their obvious dedication to the cause.  The march around London was to draw attention to the financial backing for HLS from the Bank of England, and also by major shareholders including Barclays, H P Morgan, Merril Lynch and AXA Investment Managers and it ended at the London NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) Euronext which lists HLS shares for trading.

This was a well-ordered demonstration that hardly merited the extensive police presence, although the City of London Police do appear to have a more even-handed approach to demonstrations than some other forces.

At NYSE Euronext where the demo dispersed

More at Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty on My London Diary.

On Ash Wednesday in 1982 members of Pax Christi and Christian CND went to the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall and held a religious service in protest at Britain’s reliance on nuclear weapons and the mass destruction of innocent populations these would cause were they ever to be used.

Every year since they have come back with the same message:

in a Liturgy of Repentance and Resistance, although it’s exact form changes from year to year.

This year, outside the Old War Office, black and purple ribbons were tied to a white cross as prayers were said for those killed in wars and violence:

It’s hard to see why we hold on to our nuclear weapons, difficult even to know who they are meant to deter now, after the end of the cold war. It was a policy that never made a great deal of sense, keeping a peace that it was in any case in no one’s interest to break.

Now it is far more about national prestige, “keeping a place at the top table” particularly in the UN, and not really about defence at all. I don’t think anyone can imagine a believable scenario in which we would deliberately fire our nuclear missiles (even if the US would give us the permission necessary.)

Far easier and much more likely are the possibilities of misuse and of these  dangerous weapons being stolen by terrorists.  The government lost all the arguments over Trident replacement but still decided it must go ahead, despite the dangers and the enormous sums of money involved. And it is of course that which is the real driver.  These weapons may be useless and outmoded, their use certainly against all reason and international law, but the profits for a small group of the rich and powerful are huge. It’s decisions like this that tell us who really runs the country whichever government is apparently in power.

More about the event and pictures on My London Diary.

I was fortunate to have been born in the era of the Welfare State. Not only did I grow up on clinic orange and cod-liver oil (a doubtful privilege) but education was free, or largely so. When I had to start school early because my mother was in hospital I went to a private nursery (it even called itself an ‘Academy’ to show it was posh) but that didn’t last – I was “too rough” and was expelled at the age of three.

Students stage a sit-down in Southampton Row

But after that it was on the state, all the way from four until I graduated. My father’s earnings were low and I got a full grant to cover my living expenses at university – and managed to live on it. Of course none of us paid fees. But things are very different now than in those days when even the labour party beleived in socialism.

Of course it is much easier to get into university now. Where there were once educational hurdles there are now colleges clamouring to attract students and the money they bring – although competition for the more popular courses and places is still intense.

Listening at the rally before the march

So I had a great deal of sympathy with the students and their protest last Wednesday.  More about it and of course more pictures on My London Diary.

Postal workers held a rally at Methodist Central Hall in Westminster on Tuesday to protest at government plans to part-privatize the postal service. The government argue that this is necessary to protect pensions and to modernise the service, but it seems likely that any company taking over mail deliveries would only do so if the government picked up the pensions bill in any case.

The real problem with the post is that earlier measures allowed private companies to cream off the easily delivered profitable parts of the service, while leaving the Royal Mail to continue the expensive universal delivery service – including the delivery of its competitors post at regulated prices.

To provide a level playing field, these should have properly reflected the fact that the competitors were not required to provide a universal service.

After the rally, I photographed the postal workers – including the Deputy General Secretary (Postal) of the Communications Workers Union Dave Ward, and CWU General Secretary Billy Hayes, as they came out into the street and walked down for a short demonstration in Parliament Square.

Dave Ward, CWU

More pictures on My London Diary

The Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq filed a claim for judicial review before the High Court of England and Wales on Tuesday challenging the government’s failure to fulfil its obligations with respect to Israel’s activities in Palestine.

They call upon the government to publicly denounce Israel’s actions in Gaza and in the continuing construction of the wall, to suspend arms related exports and government, military, financial and ministerial assistance to Israel and to UK companies exporting arms and miliatary technology and to insist the EU suspends preferential trading with Israel until that country complies with its human rights obligations.

They also ask that the government should give the police any evidence of war crimes committed by any Israelis who intend to come to the UK.

A small group of demonstrators were outside the court to support the application on Tuesday and a press conference was held including solicitor Phil Shiner of Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) and Gaza Legal Aid Fund trustee Mary Nazzal-Batayneh.

More pictures on My London Diary

I think of the modern movement as an interesting historical time in art and architecture, exemplified in architecture by the work Le Corbusier (I hope to see the show about his work at the Barbican shortly), by the painting of Picasso, the photography of Strand and Weston. For all it’s new ideas and appeal at the time, it now seems curiously outmoded, dated perhaps even more than some of the work that preceded it.

Museum, Cathedral, Ministries and Parliament buildings, Brasilia

Perhaps it’s last great exemplar in urban design and certainly one of its grandest was the new city of Brasilia, which I was fortunate to have the opportunity to visit in December 2007. The planning of Lucio Costa and the concrete poetry of Oscar Niemeyer is certainly breath-taking, but it is a future vision with some very obvious cracks around the edges.

Modernism was certainly an interesting experiment, with lessons that continue to inspire, but not a model to follow. Rather than think in terms of machines for living we have perhaps moved more towards the idea of organisms that have to live together in an environment as a central theme.

‘99% of scientists can be wrong’

So the so-called ‘Modern Movement‘ (MM) set up by those associated with the old ‘Revolutionary Communist Party‘ is perhaps an appropriately named dinosaur, based on the outworn dogma of extreme free markets. On the evidence of Thursday’s demonstration, with around 20 people in Parliament Square, it is also a very small and poorly supported dinosaur. By contrast, perhaps fifty times as many were demonstrating against the building of a third runway at Heathrow just a few hundred yards away on Whitehall.

The intervention of a just a small handful from ‘Plane Stupid‘ who came to join in with placards that expressed in simple parody the ideas of the MM was effective beyond their numbers, and clearly linked the demonstration to the ‘Living Marxism Network‘ and the ‘Revolutionary Communist Party‘. Their placards read ‘One solution: Aviation!‘,’Down With the Ice Caps‘ and ‘99% of scientists can be wrong’, and their very presence caused a minor security alert across the whole of government offices in central London.

‘One Solution: Aviation’

One of the co-founders of MM, Alex Hochuli said in a TV interview (on Worldbytes, an internet TV station that seemed to have a connection with the demonstrators) : “the ability to travel, to see the world, to work abroad, to live abroad, to have other people come here is more important than dealing with climate change.”  There you have it. This is what their protest was about. The planet can go hang just so long as a few of us in the rich world can have cheap air travel.

On the square, police and MM stewards attempted to stop Plane Stupid protesters taking part in the demonstration (see comment – I may well have misinterpreted the reaction of the MM stewards.) The police gave a warning that they could be prosecuted for taking part in an unauthorised demonstration in the SOCPA area, while they insisted they only wanted to take part in a publicly advertised and authorised demonstration. While one man slipped apparently unnoticed onto the end of the short line of protesters and stood there for around half an hour before police finally removed him, a woman was prevented by police from taking part for most of the time I was there.

You can read more about the history of the RCP and the organisations associated with it on Lobby Watch although this has not yet been updated to include ‘Modern Movement’. There is more about this event on My London Diary with more pictures of those taking part.