Category: Political Issues

Almost 4000 marchers, along with several hundred cyclists, demonstrated in London on Saturday 6 December, marching from Grosvenor Square along Piccadilly, past Trafalgar Square and up Whitehall to a rally at Parliament Square. It was a colourful event, with many in costumes and most carried placards or banners to send a clear message to the UK government that urgent action is needed to secure a future for the planet.

Posters reflected the four major themes – no to coal-fired power stations, no to airport expansion, no to agro-fuels and a big yes to a renewable energy revolution and green jobs – as well as numerous related issues.  Campaigners from many groups around the country  – such as those opposed to the building of a third runway through homes to the north of Heathrow – made their views felt.

Phil Thornhill, National Coordinator of the Campaign Against Climate Change

The march, organised by the Campaign Against Climate Change, was timed to coincide with the UN Climate Talks in Poznan, Poland, and was part of a Global Day of Action with events in 70 countries around the world. There was a large police presence, with more Forward Intelligence Teams than I’ve seen at a single event before, but despite  a few provocative actions – including what seemed some arbitrary “stop and searches” and photographing a working photographer in defiance of the guidelines – the event remained peaceful and good-natured.

Tasmin Osmond brought the Suffragette Banner from the ‘Climate Rush’ in October.

Environmental direct action continued on Monday morning, when around 50 activists from Plane Stupid cut through the fence at London Stanstead Airport and staged a lock-on. It was around 5 hours before police were able to remove them and the airport could be re-opened. Very many more such actions – but on a larger scale – are expected should the government reject environmental advice and press ahead with plans to build a new third runway at London Heathrow.

More pictures and more about the Climate Change March on My London Diary.

There are times when it’s hard to decide how to cover a story.  Although when I got an e-mail about the latest event organised by the Space Hijackers it looked as if it might be interesting, I could see there might be practical difficulties in covering it.

They had decided to hold what they called  “the restyling fashion mash-up event of the year” inside one of the larger shops on London’s busiest shopping street, Oxford St. And of course to do so without permission. Although I wasn’t sure about how the store would react to this event, I was pretty clear about one thing – they would not be happy with photographers taking pictures.

So I went along hoping that something interesting would happen outside the shop. I did recognise a few people going in from having taken pictures at earlier events, and there were a couple of police standing around watching the front of the shop, but otherwise nothing was happening. So eventually I decided to go inside and take a look.

There a found a group of people taking off various items of clothing and exchanging them with others on the shop floor, watched by rather a lot of security men and a few police. And as expected, almost as soon as I started photographing I too was surrounded by large guys dressed in black telling me I couldn’t take pictures.  Since thespace in front of my lens was by then filled at short range by large black clad shapes, there wasn’t a lot of point in trying!

All of them were polite to me (as I of course was to them) but our conversation wasn’t going to get me anywhere,  and so I walked out of the store (with one of the security men following me until I left the premises.)  I was rather surprised that I hadn’t even been asked to leave, just told to stop taking pictures.

Two other photographers who had come to cover the event were treated a little less politely, getting pushed around and one woman photographer was actually physically thrown out of the store – though I was just too far away to get a picture as this happened. They’ve also been banned from Topshop, though I don’t think either will be too worried by this.

ASBO notice and Space Highjackers pink “Get out of Topshop Jail Free” card

The demonstration, which continued on the pavement outside the shop after those taking part were escorted out of the side door, was of course a protest against consumerism and the relentless pressure on people to buy things that they don’t really need that is central to our society. One of them was served with a Notice for the Dispersal of Groups under the Anti-social Behaviour Act.  This didn’t seem appropriate for the protest in the store as it seems only to apply in public places and outside there seemed to be no evidence of “members of the public being intimidated, harassed, alarmed or distressed.”  Those few who noticed what was happening  seemed either slightly puzzled or mildly amused, though one or two stopped to join in or take photographs.

More about the protest and more pictures on My London Diary.

Ricky Bishop was a passenger in a friend’s car, driving  through the back streets of Brixton, London on a Thursday afternoon, 22 November, 2001. For reasons that have never become clear, police decided he was suspicious (being a young black male seems often to be a good enough reason, and the fact he was in a car with a white man may have added to their concerns) and decided to stop the car and take the two along to Brixton Police Station for questioning.

Four hours later, a healthy young 25 year old black man was dead. Bishop’s family and friends allege he was assaulted by police, and that they held him down and failed to giv e medical assistance when he had a heart attack.  The inquest seems largely to have served to lay bare inconsistencies in the police account, and the jury were denied the opportunity of bringing in a verdict that would have blamed the police for his death  – as is also happening in the current case of Jean Charles de Menezes.

His family and many members of the community want to see justice done, not just in this case but in many others. At the anniversary march in Brixton this year, two other men were also remembered, Derek Bennett, shot in the back by police as he held a novelty gun-shaped cigarette lighter in Brixton in 2001, and Sean Rigg, who died after being taken ill in police custody in Brixton Police Station on Thursday 21 August 2008.

You can see more about the march and rally outside Brixton Police Station on My London Diary.  Elsewhere on Current TV there is also a short video by Jason Parkinson which includes much of Ruth Kimathi’s statement about the Bishop case.

There is a particular satisfaction in photographing an event where there is really very little visually to work with, and coming up with some even half-decent pictures, and the demonstration against ID cards outside the Border and Immigration Agency provided me with that.

Nov 25, 2008 saw the start of the programme to track the every movement of all of us in the UK by our government with the start of the issue of biometric identity cards. You can read some of my thoughts about this and see the other pictures I took on My London Diary.

Wellesley Road in Croydon sprouted tall buildings in the late 1960s, in an attempt to imitate Manhattan in Surrey. Most now look rather grim and dated and they have been joined by newer buildings. The ensemble forms an efficient wind-tunnel providing a blisteringly cold gale to chill the protesters.

Among the few who came to brave the Arctic conditions was one man who has managed to get his fingerprints and DNA profile removed from the police national databases – and you can read more about him there too.

I can still remember standing in a photobooth in Montreuil around 1983 and  posing for the picture that went on my first Carte Orange, although I’ve had several since then having lost them or left them at home when coming to Paris.

For years, coupled with a Coupon Hebdo bought on a Monday it’s provided a cheap and easy way to get around the city – a week’s totally unlimited use of buses, Metro, RER and other trains at any time of day or night for a ridiculously cheap 16.80 Euro – a little less than £14 even at the current bad rate of exchange for travel within the city itself. For longer stays a monthly coupon offers even better value, and even if you are staying in the suburbs tickets to cover the outer zones as well are great value.

The impressive (if impractical) Ville Savoye, around 29km from the centre of Paris

A couple of summers ago we explored some of the haunts of the Impressionists on the banks of the rivers in greater Paris – the Seine of course, but also the Marne and the Oise, visted Le Corbusier’s Ville Savoye at Poissy, went to Pontoise and more as well as travelling around the city whenever we wanted. The ticket covering Zones 1-5 cost around £25. The cheapest way we could have done this in London would have cost around half this per day.

Le passe Navigo Découverte (from the RATP site)

However, though I feel a little sadness at the disappearance of these tickets with their reflective metal strip along the edge at the end of this year, it won’t greatly alter the cost of travel as they are being replaced with ‘Le passe Navigo Découverte’, although this will add an initial cost of 5 euros, but can then be charged with a weekly ticket at the same cost as the Carte Orange. Those who live or work in the Paris area can get a free personalised Carte Navigo, which have already been in use for some other fares for some years.

We certainly got our money’s worth out of the Carte Orange, travelling around to try and find the various shows, as well as doing a little of the tourist trail as going to find some new places to eat. I love walking around Paris (and we did a lot of it) but it’s good not to have to worry to much about where you are going, knowing you can just jump on a bus or on the Metro anywhere to take you back to the hotel when you get tired. Last year there was a transport strike, and although I enjoyed photographing the accompanying demonstration, it’s really better when they are working.

Media scrum around the front of the march, Nov 2007, Paris

Hopefully it won’t be too long before London catches up again by making Oysters usable on the overground railways and also in the whole of Greater London including those suburbs left outside the old GLC area on political grounds in the sixties.  But somehow I don’t see us matching either the fares or the service in Paris

As you can read in My London Diary, I owe my very existence to the honey bee, although the only thing I’ve done to repay my debt to the species is to eat the honey others have stolen from them.

But bees are much more important than just suppliers of honey. Bees play a vital role in the production of fruit and other foods, with around a third of our food supply dependent on their pollination.

The loss of our bees would be a catastrophe, but it seems increasingly a possibility with Varroa mites (which have killed a large propertion of our wild bees) developing resistance to current treatments which have saved those in hives, and the more recent and still unexplained colony collapse disorder which has caused huge losses of bees in the USA and is now in parts of Europe.

Bee-keeping was seen as an important source of home-grown food during the war. Afterwards interest gradually fell away but is now reviving, even in cities, where some people keep bees on rooftops as well as in gardens. The revival is a part of a greater interest in healthy foods and home growing that have seen more turning to allotments too.

Several hundred bee-keepers came to Westminster to lobby MPs for increased funding for research into bee health, and took a petition with over 140,000 signatures to Downing St.

More text and pictures on My London Diary

Ken takes the tube home a couple of days before the election in May

Londoners in May voted Ken out and a right wing idiot in, so should not be surprised at Boris’s plans to scrap most of the greatly needed improvements in public transport.

Too many other people have written about it for me to bother. As Diamond Geezer puts  it today in ‘Down the tube‘,   the new TfL “business plan has incinerated several slow-burning transport projects, each liberally doused with car-friendly petrol by our beloved Mayor.”

Yesterday, DG commented on some of the missing projects in the Mayors ridiculous “Way to Go: Planning for better transport” which were doomed to disappear:

» Cross River Tram (bugger Peckham)

I Love Peckham festival, 2007

» DLR extension to Dagenham Docks (bugger Dagenham)

Train coming in to Dagenham Docks Station, 2003

» East London Transit (bugger Barking)

New Riverside Flats along the River Roding at Barking

» Greenwich Waterfront Transit (bugger Thamesmead)

Thamesmead, 1994

» Thames Gateway Bridge (bugger Beckton)

Beckton from  the Beckton Alp, 2008

There were of course a few things DG missed that Boris also had it in for – High Street 2012 to tidy up the London marathon route will perhaps not be greatly missed (except by DG.) Most important is the Croydon Tramlink Extension to Crystal Palace, a small, relatively cheap, straightforward  and useful tidying up exercise in South London, and the Oxford St Tram scheme (part of a larger scheme already scrapped in favour of Crossrail.)