12 Days of Christmas -some of my favourite pictures from those I made in July 2025.
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12 Days of Christmas -some of my favourite pictures from those I made in June 2025.
More pictures from July 2025 tomorrow,
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12 Days of Christmas -some of my favourite pictures from those I made in May.
More of my favourite pictures from June 2025 tomorrow.
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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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12 Days of Christmas -some of my favourite pictures from those I made in April 2025.
More images from May 2025 tomorrow.
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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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12 Days of Christmas -some of my favourite pictures from those I made in March 2025.
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Some of my favourite pictures from those I made in February 2025:
Some of my favourite pictures from those I made in January 2025:
Tommorow some of my pictures from February.
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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: 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.
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.
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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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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