Category: Political Issues

Class War and other London anarchists were going to protest whoever won the London Mayoral Election. One banner said:

NO TO
THE CROOK
THE TOFF
THE FASCIST
OR COP

and since only 45% of the electorate bothered to vote for any of the ten candidates they may feel that London followed their advice, althought the 55% majority was surely more for apathy than anarchy.

Police watched the demonstration (if with some obvious frustration) for around 35 minutes, taking no action. Then Fitwatch sprang into action, holding their banner in front of the police photographers who had been having a field day photographing demonstrators, photographers, anyone with a beard or reading a book etc. One FIT team were surrounded on the barriers set up around City Hall, hemmed in by both Fitwatch and the many photographers present, and began to look extremely worried, if only about beiong made to look rather silly.

So along came their mates from the TSG to the rescue, pushing everyone out of the area and coralling a few of the demonstrators in waiting pens. Most made their escape thanks to a rather slow response by the police, stopping briefly to display their banner on a balcony overlooking the scene before making for the pub.

Surprisingly the anarchists were the only organised group of protesters on the day. There had been rumours that the BNP would be along to celebrate, but if so they will still hiding under the stones when I left for home.

No to the Crook, the Toff, The Fascist or Cop

It doesn’t really seem very long ago that I was photographing the closing event of Jubillee 2000, with Ann Pettifor on the stage at Trafalgar Square, but the fact that I took most of the pictures in black and white is a reminder of how much things have changes since then.

The candlelit march up Whitehall in Dec 2000

Jubilee 2000 did get things moving on debt relief, although there is still a long way to go, and since then we’ve had other campaigns – such as ‘Make Poverty History‘ which have added to the impetus.

Applause for Nelson Mandela in a packed Trafalgar Square, Feb 2005

Ann Pettifor is now working for Advocacy International, which works with “low-income country governments, and with organisations working to promote positive development, investment and environmental sustainability in those countries” and Operation Noah, a Christian-based climate-change campaign.

I went to hear her speak at a rally and seminar organised by ‘Just Share‘, “a coalition of churches and development agencies seeking to engage with the City of London on issues of global economic injustice.” Just Share is based at a city church (St Mary-le-Bow of bells fame) and the rally was held bang in the middle of the city, at Bank, in front of the Royal Exchange, with the Bank of England to one side and the Mansion House across the road. Speaking along with her was Larry Elliott, economics editor of The Guardian for the last 11 or so years.

Listening to Ann Pettifor speaking at Royal Exchange.
Larry Elliott waits to speak at right.

I’m not an economist, but as I understand it, Pettifor argued that our present ‘Credit Crisis’ is a symptom of a deeper structural problem in our economy, the creation of money by the banks in a way that is no longer linked to reserves and production, but entirely dependent on trust. Once people lose faith in the banks, we have a problem.

I wasn’t entirely sure about the link that she made with this and the traditional Christian teaching against usury, which seems to me something rather different. But I have to admit that I haven’t read her book on the subject that might make things more clear.

What I think she also argued was that the current model has allowed the exponential growth of money – and as we know, exponential growth of anything can only ever be a short-term process in a finite world.

More pictures from the event – and also information about Ann Pettifor’s book in Just Shares Take on The Bank in My London Diary

Perhaps the silliest of our Bank Holidays is the early May one, introduced in 1978 by the the Callaghan Labour government as a sop to the unions who had wanted a holiday on May Day, celebrated in many countries around the world as International Workers’ Day. But they bowed to pressure from business who didn’t like the idea of a holiday that might be on any day of the week, and instead of May 1, made it the first Monday of the year. So Britain’s workers either have to take a day off work or miss May Day celebrations except in those years where it happens to fall on a Monday.

This year it was a Thursday, and most of the unions – whose participation has always been half-hearted – wanted to forget the whole thing in favour of the local elections on the same day, including those of the London Mayor. But in the end it went ahead – probably because the Turks, the Kurds and a few others would have marched whatever – but with very little support from the unions.

As usual Clerkenwell Green was awash with red uniforms, and there were banners with images of Karl Marx and other communist notables – including a large painting of Joseph Stalin. One of my earliest memories is the newspaper and radio coverage of the death of ‘Uncle Jo’, but now we know rather more about him.

As the march left Clerkenwell Green I committed a grave sin and actually set up a picture:

Without a little arrangement it was impossible to see all of the five pictures which were being carried in line. But everything else on My London Diary is as it was.

From Clerkenwell Green I walked down to Farringdon with some other photographers and took the tube to Green Park, where the Space Hijackers were gathering to hold a May Fayre in Mayfair – from where it had been banned in 1708 when the area started going up in the world. However unlike the original it was only going to last a few hours rather than 15 days.

On the way to Shepherd Market

When the Olympic Torch was in London (largely surrounded by Chinese thugs when not hidden on the coach) police made a distinction in the way they policed those who wanted to celebrate China’s human rights record compared to those who wanted to demonstrate in favour of the Beijing Olympics. Human rights protesters were penned behind barriers and kept at a distance, while pro-Chinese demonstrators were allowed to line the route.

Police justified this by saying that they didn’t stop people celebrating – but that demonstrations were covered by the Public Order Act. So the May Fayre wasn’t a demonstration but a celebration, and whatever the police thought about this they stood back and let it happen, if keeping the event under a very watchful eye.

Although police stood across the roads leading into Shepherd Market, at least while I was there they didn’t stop anyone entering or leaving on foot, although most cars were turned away. And while those in charge didn’t seem amused, many of the officers watching obviously enjoyed watching the partying, even though they were not allowed to take part – except in the ritual encounter between FIT and Fitwatch.

A May Day entertainment

More pictures on My London Diary.

Keep the Far-Right out of London Government – see My London Diary

London waits the count of yesterday’s election, expected this evening, but woke up this morning to the news of terrible results for Labour around the country and predictions of all the pundits that Ken Livingstone would lose his bid to be re-elected as mayor.

On Saturday I went to hear Ken speak in Whitechapel, and after the meeting we travelled away on the same underground train, and I talked to him briefly before taking a few pictures.

A defeat for Ken will be a very black day for the future of London – a set-back similar to that inflicted by Thatcher when she abolished to GLC, a decision from which London was at last recovering. Cities can’t be run effectively without a proper city authority, nor by one led by a buffoon like Boris.

There are Conservatives who I could imagine making a decent throw of it, but he isn’t one – and none of those who could do the job would have attracted the media publicity that has led to Boris’s poll ratings.

I’m still hoping that the pundits got it wrong. Although I’ve not agreed with everything Ken has said and done he has got most of the real basics right, making London a much better place to live and become a cosmopolitan capital. It will be a very sad day for Londoners if he loses.

And, as I wrote for My London Diary on Sunday:

My photographs of London owe a great deal to Ken Livingstone and his transport policies at the GLC in the 1980s that made a quantum change in transport across the capital. It’s hard now to imagine the difficulties and of getting around the city before the Travelcard – assuming you aren’t in the class that always travels by taxi.

The scene in Trafalgar Square on April 20 was a pretty amazing one as it was packed out for a demonstration by the Ethnic Catering Alliance, representing the many Chinese, Bangladeshi, Indian, Pakistani and Turkish restaurants and food outlets that have revolutionised eating out in Britain.

Showing the crowd – a ‘Hail Mary’ with the 10.5mm fisheye

Gordon Brown‘s proposal that British workers should be trained to fill staff shortages that are hitting ethnic restaurants no longer able to recruit staff from the home countries seems more a gift for comedy writers than a serious proposal. And our Polish friends who came over to fix our plumbing problems (and increasingly to run so many service industries) are hardly likely to bring a great knowledge of curry-making – or be prepared to accept the below minimum wages and poor working conditions that some ethnic restaurants offer. Nor do I foresee a great marketing opportunity for dumplings.

One of the speakers brought up the very pertinent observation that very few of the sons and daughters of migrants who grow up in this country want to go into the catering industry – and indeed their parents want them to do better, to become lawyers, doctors etc. The reason was pretty clear in the square, with the contrast between the smartly cut expensive suits of some of the restaurateurs around the platform and the mass-market clothing in the bulk of the square. Although owning a restaurant can be extremely profitable, working in one tends to be a low paid and unpleasant dead end. A real symptom of the actual problem of the restaurant industry was the lack of union participation in the event.

Of course there are very real problems, and a considerable amount of victimisation of migrant workers, both those here legally and those without permission to work here (who are never illegal workers but may be people working illegally.)

One of the longest placards at the demonstration – see above – read:

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

There are thousands of
illegals in the ports,
streets & working in the NHS
and HOME OFFICE. But Only
SOFT targets like Chinese restaurants
are being raided with heavy-handed
Tactics By BIA

YOU ARE DESTROYING OUR LIVELIHOODS.
WHY?
IS THIS RACIAL DISCRIMINATION?

Those who regard the BIA, (the Border and Immigration Agency, now a part of the UK Border Agency) as an institutionally racist organisation set up to implement an inherently racist immigration policy, largely driven by knee-jerk political responses to the distortion of a racist popular press would perhaps find this naive. Rather too much like being surprised that the SS persecuted Jews. But still of course something that people – and not just ethnic caterers – should be demonstrating about.

Ethnic Catering Alliance – Save the British Curry Industry on My London Diary

The pictures of Bilal Hussein that we’ve been waiting for- in an Associated Press feature on Google News.

So all of those who campaigned on his behalf will be celebrating his release after two years of imprisonment without cause by the US in Iraq. But like his mother, who is quoted there as saying “I thank God for Bilal’s release and I hope that all Iraqi detainees will be released” we know that he is only one of many who have been detained without proper cause.

In the same feature, Joel Simon, of the Committee to Protect Journalists deplores the way that the U S Military is increasingly removing journalists from conflict zones and locking them up for prolonged periods before releasing them without bringing charges.

Of course, as the prisons in Iraq and most obviously Guantanamo Bay attest, it isn’t only journalists who get such treatment. The demonstrations in January marked six years of the illegal detention of prisoners at Guantanamo, with some now having been held over three times as long as Bilal. Binyam Mohamed was arrested in Pakistan on April 10, 2002 and the CIA took him to be tortured in Morocco for 18 months, then imprisoned him in Afghanistan before he ended up in Guantanamo, where he remains despite a request from the British Government for his release made last August.

London demo marks 6 Years of Human Rights abuse at Guatanamo

Of course the USA isn’t the only country abusing human rights, but what makes it stand out is the gap between the rhetoric of defending freedom and the practices of torture, maltreatment and illegal imprisonment used in the so-called ‘war on terror.’ It’s perhaps a continuation of the same hypocrisy and failure of understanding that led to disastrous US foreign policies that took them into Vietnam, supported dictators and corrupt regimes around the world (including for many years Saddam in Iraq and in too many South American countries to list.)

Of course there are many countries with a considerably worse record in terms of human rights in their own territory – China springs immediately to mind – and of course for its activities in Tibet as well as for its abysmal record in China itself. And of course Britain isn’t entirely blameless. In My London Diary I’ve recorded protests about human rights abuse in countries around the world. I sincerely wish there was less need for them.