Some of my favourite pictures from those I made in February 2025:
12 Days of Christmas – February
Category: Political Issues
12 Days of Christmas – January
Some of my favourite pictures from those I made in January 2025:
Tommorow some of my pictures from February.
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Howls of protest for death of the NHS 2016
NHS campaigners came to Downing Street on Friday 23rd December 2016, the day that contracts were signed for 44 areas covering the whole of England to implement the government’s ‘Sustainability and Transformation Plans’ (STP).
Including many health professionals the campaigners saw these plans as the last nail in the coffin of the NHS, effectively handing over the NHS to private companies without any public engagement of consultation, ending a public service whose vision which has long been the envy of the world, signing the NHS over for private profit.
A series of speeches was interrupted every 15 minutes by three long and loud ‘howls of protest‘, timed to coincide with three social media ‘Thunderclaps’ across Facebook, Twitter & Tumblr by several hundreds unable to be there in person.
Among speakers were Paula Peters of DPAC, Ealing Councillor Aysha Raza, trainee nurse Anthony Johnson of the Bursary or Bust campaign, trainee mental health nurse Gina, a patient and campaigner and retired Paediatrician Tony O’Sullivan, Co-chair of Keep Our NHS Public.
At the end of the rally, a small group of those present, led by DPAC and a banner listing of few of those who had died because of government cuts marched down Whitehall holding up traffic for a final howl outside Parliament and a speech there by Paula Peters.
As they came to the end of Parliament Street police came to harass them, threatening them with arrest if they did not get onto the pavement. Like many such police interventions this only prolonged the traffic holdup as the protesters were about to cross the road to the wide pavement outside Parliament but were delayed by police arguing with them.
Sustainability and transformation plans were fortunately short-lived and soon morphed into ‘sustainability and transformation partnerships‘ which by 2018 were becoming known as ‘integrated care systems‘, and then were expected to evolve into ‘accountable care systems‘. It all reflected an increasing half-baked emphasis on managers and management changes which damaged the ability of the NHS to actually treat patients.
Many feel that government policies – under both Tories and Labour – have been designed to wreck the NHS so it can be replaced by an insurance-based system – with great profits for the mainly US-based healthcare companies who make large financial contributions to leading politicians and in which many also have a direct financial interest.
More pictures at Howls of protest for death of the NHS.
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Scrooge Debenhams & Bikelife – 2018
Scrooge Debenhams & Bikelife: Striking cleaners in the Independent Workers Union – CAIWU – protest outside Debenhams in Oxford Street with a noisy rally on Saturday 22nd December 2018, one of the biggest shopping days of the year. While I was there a large group of boys and young men on bikes rode past, some pulling wheelies.
Debenhams Pay Your Cleaners
Oxford St
The workers who clean the Debenhams store were not employed by them but are outsourced, working forInterserve, a company who have the cleaning contract with Debenhams.
Interserve are lousy employers, treating the cleaners badly and paying the minimum legal wage and conditions, interested only in making as much as they can for their owners or shareholders. The minimum wage isn’t enough to live on in London and reputable employers pay workers at least the London Living Wage – an amount determined every year and roughly 30% above the legal minimum.
The workers belong to the Cleaners & Allied Independent Workers Union, CAIWU, but Interserve refuses to recognise the union or to have any talks with them about their claim for the London Living Wage. CAIWU is one of several small grassroots trade unions which has been very successful in getting better pay and condition for low paid workers.
Reputable companies such as Debenhams would be ashamed to pay their workers so little or treat them so badly and by using companies like Interserve they claim they have no responibilty for the people who work inside their shops to keep them clean.
Many of the shoppers walking by took leaflets and showed support for the cleaners and were surprised that Debenhams could legally evade their responsibilities to the workers in this way.
The cleaners had begun their picket in the early morning and were still protesting when I had to leave.
London Bike Life
Oxford St
While I was outside Debenhams a group of several hundred mainly boys and young men rode past on bicycles, some balancing just on the rear wheel of their bikes. They were obviously having fun but it looked rather dangerous as they wove in and out of traffic.
I had heard there was going to be some sort of bike ride in London that day, but could not find any of the details in advance. And when it did arrive it came as a surprise and I didn’t have time to think about my camera settings but took the pictures at the same ISO and shutter speed as I had been using for the protest on the pavement – which meant many of my pictures were blurred and unusable.
I didn’t have time to choose a different position either, though I think the yellow ‘bananas’ bus was quite appropriate.
Later I found that these ‘UK Bike Life Wheelie Rides’ begin somewhere south of the river perhaps at Tower Bridge, Druid St or Leake St, around lunchtime. They have fun swarming around the city, showing off with wheelies, stopping traffic, riding on pavements as well as roads, ignoring traffic lights, forcing drivers to stop and generally behaving badly on bikes. Several missed me by inches as they sped past while I was taking pictures.
Some certainly displayed an impressive degree of skill, but it still seemed dangerous both to themselves and to other road users and pedestrians – and an activity that gives cycling a bad name.
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Anti-Capitalist Carols in the City – 2012
On Tuesday 18th December 2012 I met a small group of anti-capitalist protesters from the St Paul’s Cathedral Occupy London camp at 3pm at Liverpool Street Station.
For the next couple of hours I went with them as they visited businesses and banks around the city to sing anti-capitalist carols against tax avoiders, bailed out banks and others in a peaceful and seasonal protest.
They had a special song for Starbucks – to the tune of ‘Let It Snow’ with the first verse::
Oh the cost of living's frightful
Some relief would be delightful
So don't leave us in the muck
Tax Starbucks, tax Starbucks, tax Starbucks
There were another three verses, reminding us and Starbucks and the customers sitting drinking their coffee that corporate and elite tax evasion costs the nation £33 billion a year.
We walked out onto Bishopsgate and they gave their next performance outside the doors to the bankers offices at 125 Bishopsgate where security were not showing a happy Christmas spirit.
Away in the Caymnans, the Plutocrats wept
Because, we the people
are listing their debts
We're no longer fooled by
Divide and delay, we're planting the seeds,
But they're making hay...
The group moved cross the street to the RBS, reminding them the government supported the banks with an unimaginable £1.162 trillion. The several carols there, included:
Silent debt, holy debt
All is owed, all is wrecked
Round on poor; father, mother and child
public services tendered and priced
sleep in poverty please
sleep in poverty please
There were similar performances outside the various other banks as we made our way through the city towards the Bank of England. There was a another carol for Ramsay Health Care, a company involved in the creeping privatisation of the NHS, on Old Broad Street:
What shall we do with our public services
What shall we do with our public services
Shall we sell off our public services
That's where Thatcher left it!
When we got to HSBC on the corner of Old Broad St and London Wall everyone walked inside to sing, including some of the police who were by now taking part – if silently – in the proceedings. After a couple of carols – and some posed photographs – the group went out.
On Old Broad Street there was another Starbucks – and again the carollers went inside to entertain and inform the customers.
Next it was time to visit another bank – the RBS on Threadneedle St – and by now a few more singers had joined the group.
We walked up to the Guildhall – the medieval centre of the City, which had its own carol, to the tune of Good King Wenceslas:
Bad George Osborne last looked out
In the Autumn budget
Nothing to be proud about
So he had to fudge it
Said though things don't look that great
We are on the right track
Bullshit George, NHS you hate
Now it's time to fight back.
On the way back towards the Royal Exchange there was another Starbucks to enter and treat to a carol and couple more banks to sing outside – Lloyds stopped them from entering.
But the finest performance of the day came inside the grand banking hall of the NatWest on Poultry, where bank staff seemed quite amused by the performance, and some from the upper floors came to the balconies to watch and listen. I’d not been inside the building before and was pleased to be able to see it – and to take a few pictures.
Again after a couple of carols the group left quietly and crossed to the Royal Exchange where they performed on the steps as city workers rushed by to Bank tube station.
By then I was getting a little tired and cold, having been mainly on the street for a couple of hours. The carol singers had decided to split into two groups now their numbers had grown to visit more places, but I decided to get on a bus and start my journey home.
More pictures at Anti-Capitalist Carols in the City.
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Lammas Lands, Leyton, Columbia Market & Bethnal Green – 2006
Lammas Lands, Leyton, Columbia Market & Bethnal Green: On Sunday 17th December 2006 I went to an event by local residents seeking to protect the Leyton Lammas Lands from the sprawling London 2012 Olympics before going to a meeting with a friend at Columbia Market. Unfortunately on my way there I got a phone call telling me he was unable to make it, so I took a few pictures there before walking on in a roundabout way to visit another friend in Bethnal Green. Below I’ll post what I wrote back in 2006 (with minor corrections) and some of the pictures from that day.
Loss of Common Land
Leyton Lammas Lands, Marsh Lane, Leyton
History seems about to repeat itself in Leyton, although the outcome may be different this time. It was in 894 that King Alfred drained Leyton Marsh and gave the local people the right to graze their animals on the Lammas Land created. (Details in this post come from a leaflet written by Lorraine Metherall and Neil Bedford, published by the New Lammas Lands Defence Committee (NLLDC) and from Martin Slavin’s Games Monitor web site – now archived here.)
In the 1890s, the East London Waterworks Company tried to take over the Lammas Lands, and on Lammas Day, 1st August 1892, a large demonstration met on the marshes and ripped up their fences. The company tried to sue one of the people involved, and locals set up the ‘Leyton Lammas Lands Defence Committee‘ (LLLDC) and fought the case in court. The water company ended up admitting defeat, paying all costs and giving money for a local essay prize.
The efforts of the LLLDC led to the ‘1904 Leyton Urban District Council Act‘, in which parliament vested the lands in the council, making them responsible for maintaining them as “an open space for the perpetual use therof for exercise and recreation…”. The act made them a permanent public open space in return for the giving up of the lammas rights, and was confirmed by parliament in 1965.
Over the years parts of the land have been taken for other uses, including railway sidings, Gas Board land and, more recently, the Lea Valley Riding School and Ice Rink. When the Lea Valley Regional Park acquired most of the Lammas Lands by compulsory purchase in 1971, they for some reason felt able to ignore the 1904 act, and have blocked public access to some areas.
The latest threat to Leyton Lammas Lands come from the London Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA). Although outside the Olympic area, the Lammas Lands are a handy place to dump the unwanted, in this case the allotment holders of Manor Gardens. In the late 1880s the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared at Eton College and prompted them to set up a charitable settlement in Hackney. The Eton Manor Settlement bought up land, including lammas land in Hackney and Leyton and set up various sports clubs and related activities including the Manor Garden Allotments.
Although the ODA is apparently set on jettisoning inconvenient requirements that were a part of its original agreement – such as the need to replace common land – it apparently still has to re-site the allotments, and its preferred site is on Marsh Lane, part of the Leyton Lammas Lands. Unfortunately the current land is unsuitable, being heavily polluted with a relatively thin layer of topsoil on top of wartime rubble.
Making them usable means removal of some existing soil and bringing in many lorry loads of new topsoil, probably half a metre over the whole site. This would mean an new vehicle access to Marsh Lane, bringing traffic the few yards from Orient Way, along with widening Marsh Lane with the loss of some of the fine avenue of trees currently on both sides. This would also need to stay open for the use of the allotment holders, and would almost certainly result in the newly widened Marsh Lane becoming a heavily trafficked short cut to Church Road.
The ODA needs the support of the local council for their application, and the NLLDC hope to raise enough local support to make them think again. It is of course possible that the courts could be asked to ensure that the provisions of the 1904 act are enforced.
[The Manor Gardens allotments were moved here in 2007 but the site allocated was in very poor condition. The ODA reneged on its promise to return them to their original site – but eventually in 2016 they were given a new site – only one fifth the area of their original site – on Pudding Mill Lane. This is now under threat from more and more tall buildings around it blocking out the sun.]
Leyton
A few more pictures from Leyton.
Columbia Market
I was in the East End partly to meet a mate at Columbia Market, but in the end he couldn’t make it. With Christmas just over a week to go, prices were high. I calculated we’d just sent several hundred pounds worth of eucalyptus twigs to the incinerator after I did a bit of pruning recently, and those three holly trees in the back garden would be a goldmine. Strangely, even at these prices, some people seemed to be buying the stuff, though by the end of they day there did seem to be quite a lot of plants being loaded back into the lorries, and there were certainly plenty of Christmas Untrees left.
Real trees of course have roots, and we always get one that has them, and grow it on for a few years between January and December. A few die off, and others eventually get too big to get through the door, and there are three that would suit Trafalgar Square down the garden. [Two huge and still growing but I had to fell one of them a few years ago.]
A few more images – including the Christmas Tree machine
Bethnal Green
I took a few snaps, and then wandered through Hackney and Bethnal Green on my way to visit another friend who had written a book, The Romance of Bethnal Green, on the area and is using some of my pictures, to take a look at the design.
There was some nice light on some of the streets and buildings, and Queen Adelaide’s head curiously lit up as I passed.
More pictures from Hackney and Bethnal Green
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Venezuela & Grenfell – 2018
Venezuela & Grenfell: A small protest outside J P Morgan subsidiary Euroclear in the City of London called on the company to return over $1 billion of Venezuelan government funds sent to buy medicines and food for Venezuela. Later I joined the large silent march from Kensington Town Hall 18 months after the terrible fire at Grenfell Tower.
Hand Back Venezuela’s stolen money
Euroclear, City of London
The USA began its sanctions against Venezuela in 2005 a few years after Hugo Chávez became president in 1999. He brought in a programme of reforms to improve access to food, housing, healthcare and education and to support socialist government across Latin America and against US influence in what that country considered as its ‘backyard’.
This programme led to economic difficulties but greatly reduced inequality in the country, with many of the middle classes badly hit. The USA imposed further sanctions after Nicolás Maduro became president, partly because of the suppression of human and civil rights, but also for its claims that the regime supported revolutionary movements elsewhere in Latin American and allegations about its role in narcotics trading. Many believe that it was the nationalisation of the oil industry was the most important reason behind the US actions.
Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, but currently earns very little from oil exports, particularly since President Trump imposed sanctions in 2017 and 2019. In the past the US was a major customer, but now because of sanctions its main sales are to China, India and Cuba. In 2025 Trump imposed a 25% tariff on all goods imported into the US from any country that imports Venezuelan oil, either directly or indirectly.
Now it seems increasingly likely that the US will openly back a coup in Venezuela, and as the recent seizure of an oil tanker makes clear, the main reason behind this is those oil reserves.
Back in 2018, Euroclear, a J P Morgan Subsidiary, was refusing to release %1 billion of Venezuelan government money that had been sent to buy medicines and food for Venezuela. They had taken the money despite US sanctions but were refusing to release it. The US then was pushing for humanitarian intervention in Venezuela but refusing allowing the money to be used to provide food and medicines. What they wanted was a change to a regime favourable to the USA.
Hand Back Venezuela’s stolen money
Grenfell silent walk – 18 months on
Survivors and campaigners, many of whom lost family and friends at Grenfell, took part in a silent walk marking 18 months since the disaster.
They hold Kensington and Chelsea Council responsible both for the tragedy and for failing to deal effectively with its aftermath, with many survivors still not properly rehoused. They want justice and those responsible brought to trial, for the community concerns to be met and changes made to ensure safety for all.
Still in 2025, after an expensive and lengthy public inquiry, little has changed and there has still been no justice.
I commented back in 2018, that it seemed surprising that “the campaign has not been more forceful. Obviously those for those most closely affected by the terrible fire, trauma makes a more purposeful serious of actions difficult or impossible, but the wider community seem also to have been affected. It was unfortunate that some people set up a rival organisation to United for Grenfell which has gained much of the publicity but has failed to make any real gains and has perhaps served to de-radicalise despite its left-wing connections.“
I’ve written more about Grenfell in a recent post, noting the difference between the official response between here and the recent fire in Hong Kong, where there were arrests in the days following the fire – but we are still waiting for any here.
Many more pictures at Grenfell silent walk – 18 months on.
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Guantanamo Bay Protest, Whitehall 2003
Guantanamo Bay Protest: The protest opposite Downing Street on Saturday 13th December 2003 was I think the first protest against the illegal detention camp that I attended, though there were many more later. Co-incidentally it took place on the day in Operation Red Dawn that US forces captured the deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein near Tikrit in Iraq.
Saddam was held in prison in Baghdad in comfortable conditions, allowed to keep a diary, write poems, smoke cigars and even have his own private garden where he planted seeds for some months before being handed over for trial to the interim Iraqi government. Eventually he was found guilty of crimes against humanity and hanged at the end of 2006.
Those who were taken to Guantanamo – mostly innocent of any crimes – as we know were treated very differently. Subjected to humiliation, frequent torture and caged in terrible conditions. Few were ever brought to any trial and most were eventually released after many years of confinement.
The camp was set up in January 2002 and a total of roughly 780 men from 47 countries were brought to Guantanamo. At the start of 2025, there were still 15 held there. 9 had died while being held. Of the 780, only 8 men have ever been convicted, and 4 of these convictions have since been reversed.
Many were captured and sent there for the flimsiest of suspicions – including one man from Belgium arrested in Kuwait for wearing a Casio digital watch. Another was a taxi driver and the only journalist held there was an Al Jazeera cameraman. Most were just unlucky, often foreigners captured by bandits and sold to the US army as a handy source of income.
I wrote a short opinion on My London Diary in 2003, and captions to a few of the pictures that I posted which I’ve re-used here.
“Justice is simply not happening for those imprisoned at Guatanamo Bay. What is happening is in breach of the conventions on human rights. It makes nonsense of the claims of the USA to be fighting against terrorism when they are acting in this way. Most of the Muslim world seems convinced the USA is a terrorist state because of actions like this.
It wasn’t a huge demonstration, at times there seemed to be more speakers than demonstrators. I turned down an invitation to speak, though I think it was just a case of mistaken identity … but at least this didn’t lead me to be incarcerated without trial.”
More pictures on My London Diary
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Boycott Workfare Surprise Party – Brixton 2012
Campaigners held a brief ‘Boycott Workfare Surprise Party’ in the British Heart Foundation shop in the centre of Brixton in a protest against the charity using free forced labour by unemployed people in their shops.
Previous governments had introduced various schemes to provide work for the unemployed, particularly for young people which involved training, usually while performing socially useful tasks, such as the Youth Training Scheme. But Workfare, introduced by the coalition government in 2012 meant that those who had been out of work for some years had to work for six months without pay, often at profit-making companies, in order to keep getting their benefits.
There were a number of different workfare schemes brought in under the coalition and Tory governments including ‘Community Work Placements‘, introduced in April 2014 which forced “claimants to work for up to 30 hours a week for 26 weeks in return for Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA)” but was scrapped in 2015.
The protesters came from the anti-workfare group Boycott Workfare and met in Windrush Square in Brixton, where two PCSO’s tried with little success to find out what they intended to do.
The small group then walked off down Brixton Road and went into the “British Heart Foundation shop armed with Christmas decorations, Santa hats and crackers as well as a banner and placard. Shop staff argued with them as soon as they started to party and protest.” I went in with them but was soon was told I could not photograph inside the store; I didn’t argue but left and continued to take pictures through the many glass windows to the shop.
After around 15 minutes the group left the BHF shop and posed for photographs outside before packing up and moving to protest outside Poundland, which also uses free workfare labour, abusing the unemployed. They handed out leaflets to those entering and leaving the shop and to passersby by.
The next stop was Superdrug, where a security guard came out and told the protesters they were not allowed to protest on the street outside. They laughed at him and told him he was mistaken – they had every right to protest on the highway.
He saw I was taking pictures and threatened to smash my camera. I moved back behind some of the protesters and told him he would be breaking the law if he touched me and continued taking photographs.
The protest continued, and the protesters explained why they were protesting. The security man wasn’t aware that Superdrug were using free labour of unemployed people who had no choice but to work for nothing or lose their benefits.
He calmed down and after a few minutes went back inside Superdrug. The protest continued, handing out leaflets to those walking past on the busy high street. When they began discussing which shop to go to for their next protest I decided I’d done enough and left for home.
As I commented, “Workfare is supposed to offer a way for the unemployed to get into work, but many employers are using it as a free labour supply, cutting down the number of actual jobs available by getting the work done for nothing by the unemployed… Some employers also seem to be using workfare to attack workers’ terms and conditions and attacking trade union organisation by replacing unionised workers by the unemployed.”
More pictures at Boycott Workfare Surprise Party in Brixton.
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US Climate Wrecking, Mumia & Stop The War – 2011
US Climate Wrecking, Mumia & Stop The War: Friday 9th December 2011 I went to Grosvenor Square for a protest against the US blocking any progress on reducing world carbon emissions and also photographed a protest calling for the release of Mumia Abu-Jamal, “the world’s most famous death-row inmate” on the 30th anniversary of his alleged crime. From there went to Housemans bookshop for a crowded launch party of a book on 10 years of Stop The War campaigning.
USA Climate Treaty Wrecker
US Embassy, Grosvenor Square
COP 17, the UN Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, was due to end on 11th December by the USA was blocking any progress on adopting the worlds’ only emissions reductions treaty, the Kyoto protocol.
The USA was leading a small group of countries – also including Canada and Japan – in preventing global agreement. The protesters blamed the US policy on the lobbying by US industries, and in particular the Koch Brothers, climate change deniers whose huge fortunes come from fossil fuels and were the major funders behind the extreme right Tea Party movement in the Republican Party. No longer active as it shifted the party to the extreme right positions it now holds
The Durban talks overran by 36 hours and failed to agree on a global plan, instead pushing the debate in the future, agreeing to establish a legally binding agreement by 2015 which would come into force by 2020. But further opposition again led by the US at all later COPs have prevented that happening.
The protesters from the Camapaign Against Climate Change held up a giant 8 metre by 4 meter banner with some difficulty in front of the embassy ‘condemning the Koch brothers and their “dirty money” for preventing progress in tackling climate change. Continued opposition to any effective action by the US seems likely to result in much of the world becoming uninhabitable by the end of this century, with billions mainly in the world’s poorer countries dying.’
More pictures at USA Climate Treaty Wrecker.
Mumia Abu-Jamal 30th Anniversary Protest
US Embassy, Grosvenor Square
A second group of protesters marched to the US Embassy on the 30th anniversary of the killing of police officer Daniel Faulkner after the officer had stopped Mumia Abu-Jamal’s younger brother at 4am in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mumia was alleged to have run across from his parked taxi to intervene. He was wounded by a shot from Faulkner and a revolver registered to Mumia which had fired five shots was found at the scene.
Mumia, a journalist and former Black Panther, was found guilty and sentenced to death in 1982, but supporters claim that the crime was not properly investigated. They aalso say he did not get a fair trial, with a predominantly white jury, ineffective legal support and incorrect direction to the jury by a racist judge. Another man is alleged to have admitted to the shooting.
In jail during various legal appeals, Mumia wrote the book ‘Live From Death Row‘ (1995) in which he described his life in jail and the corrupt racist nature of the US Justice system. Eventually a federal appeals court decided that a new sentencing hearing was needed as the instructions the jury were given were potentially misleading. But the US Supreme Court in October 2011 not to consider the case but his sentence was reduced to life imprisonment.
At the protest there were several speeches giving details of his case and a lengthy statement about the life imprisonment decision was read. But like many of his supporters around the world those at the protest felt that sentence was unacceptable as they held that “Mumia was innocent of the crime and in prison because of his race and his revolutionary views, held by a racist system.”
Mumia Abu-Jamal 30th Anniversary Protest
10 Years of Stop The War Book Launch
Housemans, Caledonian Rd
I was pleased to have a few of my pictures included in ‘Stop The War – A Graphic History‘ published to mark 10 years of campaigning.
The book includes images by well-known graphics artists including Banksy and Ralph Steadman. I was particularly pleased to meet David Gentleman, whose graphic posters have inspired the movement – and of course feature in many of my pictures.
There are also pictures from a couple of dozen photographers, though most of the photos come from half a dozen of us. For me of course that seemed in many ways the most important section of the book as a historical record.
Many artists and photographers were present at the opening as well as leading figures in the campaign, including Tony Benn who contributed the foreword to the book.
More pictures at 10 Years Stop The War Book.
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