Climate Lobby

People going to lobby their MPs at the Houses of Parliament is seldom a good thing to photograph. Mostly the actual meetings take place inside offices either in Parliament itself or in Portcullis House around the corner, and even if you can get in to these meetings there usually is little to photography. The last time I actually lobbied my MP we went in as a small group to the St Stephen’s Tavern, just across the road from Big Ben and I did take one or two pictures, but the lighting was all wrong.

So when groups are taking part in a mass lobby of Parliament, they usually have a photo-call or a rally beforehand, at which there are rather greater opportunities for taking photographs. The Climate Coalition’s mass lobby was a little different to most, partly because of the scale and instead of going into Parliament to see MPs they had arranged for the MPs to come out and meet their constituents.

The various constituencies were each allotted a position along a long line stretching through the gardens next to the Houses of Parliament, across Lambeth Bridge and then down the Albert Embankment back towards Westminster Bridge – spread out along about three-quarters of a mile, with a cycle rickshaw service being provided to take the MPs as close as possible to their places.

I’m not sure quite how many MPs made it, but I think it was something like a third of the 650 MPs, but they were spread out not only in distance, but also across a two hour period. I’d started early, when just a few MPs and people come to lobby were around, and after photographing the few groups I could find in Victoria Tower Gardens, went off to cover a couple of other protests – the regular weekly vigil for Guantanamo prisoner Shaker Aamer in Parliament Square, and, a short walk away, a protest opposite Downing St for free speech activist and liberal blogger Raif Badawi, sentenced to 1000 lashes (essentially a slow death sentence) in Saudi Arabia.

Badawi was given the first 50 lashes in January, but the following Friday the second flogging was postponed as he had not recovered sufficiently, and so far it seems the scheduled weekly floggings have not been resumed. The sentence has however been confirmed and now UK government ministers seem to be excusing the Saudi authorities rather than joining in the world-wide condemnation, valuing UK arms sales above human rights.

Today comes the news that Badawi has won the annual Pen Pinter prize established in 2009 in memory of established in 2009 in memory of Nobel winning playwright Harold Pinter for championing free speech.

By the time I’d finished photographing this and returning to the Climate Lobby many of the MPs had been and gone, but I was able to run along and find those still talking and take a few pictures. It was hard on Lambeth Bridge because the pavement is so narrow and the groups were very crowded close to the MPs.

MPs are a pretty mixed bunch, and listening to them interacting with their voters I was surprised by a few of them, who seemed to have little understanding of the urgency of climate change, and were lecturing their constituents rather than listening to their views. But most seemed to share their concerns. I’m not sure that lobbies like this have any real effect.

After the lobby there was a rally, with speakers on the top deck of an open-top bus, which made them a little hard to photograph, especially with the sun behind them. A few were too short to be easily seen over the side of the bus, and it would have been good to have had some kind of platform for them to stand on.

As usual, the audience were more interesting than the speakers, as you can see in the pictures at Climate Coalition Rally. Images from the lobby are at Climate Coalition Mass Lobby.

But at least at the rally the names of the speakers went up on a screen, though I missed one or two. Writing the captions for the pictures of the MPs took some time, working out who the MPs in the pictures were from my notes; fortunately some of the constituency labels were visible in the images. MPs often wear their ID cards with their name, but somehow these nearly always seem to be showing the wrong side. I often wish I made clearer notes, but I think you will find all four of the MPs shown above and most of the others have their correct names in My London Diary.


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My London Diary : Buildings of London : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

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