Class War Hunt IDS, Orgreave Truth and Justice: On Friday 14th November 2014 I accompanied Class War on a walk around Chingford as they attempted to confront local MP Iain Duncan Smith and then travelled back to Holborn for a protest outside the Independent Police Complaints Commission urging them to take action over brutal attacks on protesters by police at Orgreave in 1984.
Class War Hunt Ian Duncan Smith
Chingford
Class War had recently decided to contest the forthcoming 2015 General Election, not with any expectation they would win seats or even save their deposits but “to launch a furious and coordinated political offensive against the ruling class with the opportunity an election gives us to talk politics to our class.” And they hoped to “make ourselves central to the campaign in a funny, rumbustious combative and imaginative way.”
They were in Chingford to support Marina Pepper who had decided to stand as Class War candidate against Iain Duncan Smith, (IDS), then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whose incompetence and discriminatory policies had made him a figure of hate among every disadvantaged group in Britain.
IDS was scheduled to attend a job fair in Chingford that morning to meet and encourage the job seekers, but when Class War arrived they found he had only called in briefly and left long before the event was open to the public. His stand was there but the man was not.
Although many at the job fair were there keen to find jobs, others were only there because they had been threatened with losing benefits, sanctioned unless they travelled to attend the event.
Class War protested briefly inside the job fair, then for a couple of hours outside the building – holding a ‘Wanted’ poster for IDS, showing his picture as ‘Wanted for Mass Murder‘ of the 10,600 people who died in 2011 after having been found fit for work by Atos administered tests; a statistic so damning that the Department for Work and Pensions stopped publishing any later figures.
The group then went to search the streets of Chingford for IDS (who clearly wasn’t going to be there) and to look for his constituency office, closed on Fridays. Although they knew the address it wasn’t too easy to find, its doorway and small nameplate hidden from the road behind some rubbish bins.
Their then candidate Marina Pepper repeatedly rang the bell but nobody came to the door. She and others then posed for some photographs in front of the door. I think they then went to the pub, but I left for the station.
A few days later it emerged that Marina Pepper had a connection with private education that was clearly incompatible with her being a Class War candidate and she was replaced as the Class War candidate for Chingford and Woodford Green by Lisa Mckenzie.
More at Class War hunt Ian Duncan Smith.
Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign at the IPCC
Holborn
Two years after the Orgreave case had been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission there had still been no action against any of the police officers involved in the brutal assaults by police at Orgreave on 18 June 1984, although 39 pickets had been paid compensation.
Among the speakers at the event were NUM Yorkshire area chairman Chris Skidmore, Granville Williams of the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign & Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) National President Ian Hodson, Bridget Bell of Women against Pit Closures and RMT Senior Assistant General Secretary Steve Hedley. There are pictures of all the speakers on My London Diary.
There were a number of colourful trade union banners at the event, including the the North Selby NUM banner, the last NUM banner to be produced, with its graphic illustration of the miner’s strike.
One police officer seemed to have a particular personal grudge against the Shrewsbury Pickets’ banner, attempting to get those carrying it to move it away, claiming it was obstructing the pavement.
Clearly this was untrue, though by standing in front of it after they refused to move he clearly was obstructing the pavement while arguing with them and then making a very long entry in his notebook.
The pickets long campaign was eventually successful in 2021 when the Court of Appeal quashed all their convictions.
More on My London Diary at Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign.
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