police | >Re-PHOTO

Living Wage, New Era & John Lewis – 2014

Living Wage, New Era & John Lewis – on Saturday 13th December 29014 a Santa led protests in Brixton for a living wage for shop workers, Class War protested against property developers wanted to evict tenants on a Hackney estate so they can refurbish and let them at high private rents, and a cleaners union protested inside John Lewis on Oxford street for a living wage and better treatment for cleaners working there.

‘Santa’s Naughty List’ Living Wage – Brixton

Lambeth Living Wage campaigners, led by an impressive Santa, protested in and outside shops in the centre of Brixton, handing out fliers calling for all workers to be paid a living wage. They urged shop workers to join a union and gave out forms.

The protest was supported by Unite the Resistance, the Socialist Party and Unison (who provided the Santa costume) and also the Fast Food Rights Hungry for Justice campaign supported by the Bakers, Food & Allied Workers Union, BFWAWU, the National Shop Stewards Network and other groups.

The small group went into a number of shops and used a megaphone to tell shoppers and workers why they were protesting and handed on union membership forms to the workers there. At some stores they were stopped as they tried to enter and instead protested outside, and where they were able to walk in they left when requested.

I met them at the first shop they protested at, Morleys Stores and went along with them to Subway and Poundland before I had to leave for another protest. They continued visiting more shops for a couple of hours.

‘Santa’s Naughty List’ Living Wage

Class War: ‘Evict Westbrook, Not New Era’ – Berkeley Sq

Supporters of Class War protested at the Mayfair offices of US property developers Westbrook Partners in solidarity with the tenants of the Hackney New Era Estate. Westbrook see the estate simply as an opportunity to make large profits and intend to evict the existing tenants of these low rent social properties by Christmas so they can then refurbish them and then re-let them at market rents, around four times as much as the threatened tenants were paying.

This was a smaller protest than either the organisers or police had anticipated. It hadn’t been well publicised and illness and some disputes between supporters of Class War had reduced the numbers attending, though a few of the New Era residents had also come to protest.

Class War arrived with two banners and some placards and a Christmas Card for Westbrook Partners with some far from seasonal greetings. Rather to my surprise, a representative from Westbrook was present to meet the protesters and receive the card.

Protests by the New Era residents had earlier attracted considerable media attention, particularly after a video by Russell Brand went viral. A few days after this protest Westbook who were also under pressure from Hackney Council sold the estate to the Dolphin Square Foundation, a charity which provides secure social accommodation, and the threat of evictions was lifted.

Class War: ‘Evict Westbrook, Not New Era’

Cleaners Xmas Protest in John Lewis – Osford Street

The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) and customers protested inside John Lewis’s Oxford St store, calling for the London Living Wage for cleaners there and an end to their treatment as second-class citizens. Many of the Christmas shoppers inside the store applauded their noisy protest.

I met with the IWGB an hour before the protest and they told me they planned to protest inside the flagship John Lewis store on Oxford Street which would be full of Christmas shoppers and told me when I could meet them at the restaurant on the 5th floor.

I arrived to find them unpacking their banners and placards and a PA system, with John Lewis staff watching them and asking them not to get in the way of people taking their food to the tables, so they cleared the way.

The protest began with a speech by IWGB organiser Alberto Durango to let those in the restaurant know why they were protesting and then the group moved off, stopping at A suitable point to share the message that John Lewis does not employ the cleaners, but uses a cleaning contractor. This means the cleaners get low pay, poorer conditions; they want to be paid a living wage and to be treated like the others who work in the store.

Along with the cleaners were a group of John Lewis Customers who met and marched with them with placards ‘JOHN LEWIS YOUR CUSTOMERS SAY PAY YOUR CLEANERS THE LIVING WAGE’.

It was a noisy protest and attracted the attention of many shoppers at various levels of the store as they protesters slowly made their way down floor by floor, stopping on the balcony at each level.

By the time they reached the third floor, John Lewis managers were asking the protesters to stop and leave the store. The continued on their way down, protesting loudly as they did so. A few police arrived and began to go down with them.

When they reached the ground floor there was confusion with police and John Lewis security staff, some trying to stop the protesters leaving and others pushing them out and the protest continuing. I got pushed in all directions and my pictures here were largely blurred. Eventually together with most of the protesters I got outside and the protest continued there.

We get news that some people have been arrested inside the store. Outside one police officer tries to stop the protest by grabbing the amplifier, but people hold on to it and others shout and film
him. He manages to pull out the leads, but then steps back, and the protest continues. Police rush out carrying one protester who has been arrested but is still shouting for cleaners to get a living wage and put him into the back of a police van.

Police won’t give any details of the arrests. Some of the IWGB went to wait outside the police station where people were arrested, waiting there until they were released in the early morning. I don’t think any were actually charged perhaps because mobile phone footage from inside the store shared on the web showed them being assaulted by police while trying to leave.

Many more pictures at Cleaners Xmas Protest in John Lewis.

A Table, COP21, Refugees and Santas – 2015

A Table, COP21, Refugees and Santas On Saturday 12 December 2015 I started at the ‘Free the Focus E15 Table’ protest in Stratford, came to Westminster where climate activists were protesting on the final day of the COP21 Paris talks, then to a solidarity vigil for refugees at Downing Street. Since Christmas was approaching there were also santas on the streets, including some on BMX bikes taking part in a charity ride as well as others taking part in the annual Santacon.

Free the Focus E15 Table – Stratford

A Table, COP21, Refugees and Santas - 2015

Focus E15 had since they began over two years earlier been a major irritant for Newham Council, drawing attention to the failure of Newham Council to sensibly address the acute housing problem in the borough, which has around 5,000 people living in temporary accommodation.

At the same time 400 council homes in the Carpenters Estate close to the centre of Stratford have remained empty, some for over ten years as the Labour council under Mayor Robin Wales have been trying to sell it off.

Focus E15 have opposed, at first on their own behalf and later for others in their ‘Housing For All’ campaigns the council policy they label ‘social cleansing’, which attempts to force those needing housing out of London and into private rented property in towns and cities across the country- Hastings, Birmingham, Manchester etc – and even in Wales.

As well as organising protests, opposing evictions, demanding the borough meet its statutory obligations to house homeless individuals by going with them to the housing office they had for over two years held a weekly street stall every Saturday on a wide area of pavement on Stratford Broadway, speaking, providing advice and handing out leaflets.

On the previous Saturday in a clearly planned operation, Newham’s Law Enforcement officer John Oddie assisted by several police officers, confronted the campaigners and told them they were not allowed to protest there, and that unless they immediately packed up their stall, sound system, banners and other gear it would be seized. Council and police cited legal powers that were clearly inapplicable to this situation and this was clearly an illegal act.

When Focus E15 stood their ground, police took the table they were using and threw it into the back of their van and drove away with it. It was probably on the advice of their lawyers that a couple of days later the council wrote a letter to the protesters asking them to reclaim the table; Focus E15 asked them to return it to them on Stratford Broadway this Saturday – but it didn’t arrive.

But there were plenty of tables there when I arrived with several groups coming to show solidarity and defend the right to protest including Welwyn Garden City, South Essex Heckler, Basildon and Southend Housing Action, Clapton Ultras, East London Radical Assembly, Anarchist Federation, Carpenters Estate, Aylesbury Estate Southwark, Squatters & Homeless Autonomy and more. Some came with tables and Focus E15 had also brought a replacement.

The protest was lively with speeches, singing and dancing, and although the local paper, too much in the council’s pocket, was ignoring ‘Tablegate’ a BBC local crew did come and film a few interviews. Police and Newham Council seemed to have learnt from the previous week’s farce and kept away.

Free the Focus E15 Table

Climate Activists Red Line protest – Westminster Bridge

Campaign against Climate Change protested by carrying a ‘red line’ across Westminster Bridge against the inadequate response to global temperature rise reached at COP21 which was on its final day.

Many climate activists were still in Paris, so the protest was rather smaller than usual. They met for a sort rally opposite Parliament in Old Palace Yard before marching behind the Campaign against Climate Change banner and a trumpeter on to the pavement across Westminster Bridge.

There they unrolled a 300m red length of cloth, carrying it above their heads across the bridge as a ‘red line’. For many countries, a maximum global temperature rise of more than 1.5°C will mean disaster, and the Paris talks have not committed to this nor have they set up any real mechanism for holding countries to the more limited commitments they have made.

The world needs a far more urgent change to renewable energy, with fossil fuels being left in the ground – or only extracted for use a chemical feedstock. But huge vested interests in the fossil fuel lobby are still dominating the thinking of most governments – and the annual COP meetings.

The protest called for the UK government to reverse the anti-Green measures introduced since the 2015 election, and to get behind green jobs, energy use reduction measures and renewable energy and t abandon its plans for carbon burning technologies and fracking in particular. Vital for the future of the world, these changes would also aid the UK economy.

More at Climate Activists Red Line protest.

Christmas Solidarity Vigil for Refugees – Downing St

As darkness fell refugees, solidarity campaigners and Syrian activists came to a Downing St vigil demanding justice for refugees, opening of EU borders to those fleeing war and terrorism and a much more generous response from the UK government.

A strong and gusty wind made it hard to keep candles alight and they had to be pushed through the bottom of plastic cups to provide windshields to stay alight.

As well as Syrians, there were other refugees from around the world, as well as some of the many British who are disgusted at the miserable response of the Tory government. Despite much lobbying which forced David Cameron to increase the UK response, the UK still only agreeing to take 20,000 refugees in the next five years, while Canada will take more – 25,000 – in a single year.

Christmas Solidarity Vigil for Refugees

Santas in London

While I was photographing the climate ‘red line’ on Westminster Bridge a large group of Santas rode past on BMX bicycles on a charity ride and I rushed across in time to photograph a few of them. These BMXLife ‘Santa Cruises’, in 2023 in their 9th year, have now raised over £135,000 for Children’s Heart charity ECHO. The 2023 ride starts from Leake Street at 11am on 16th December.

After the Refugee Vigil I walked up to Trafalgar Square where santas were beginning to arrive at the end of a long day walking around London in the annual Santacon, an alcohol-fuelled annual fun event which describes itself as “a non-profit, non-corporate, non-commercial and non-sensical parade of festive cheer.” This year’s event was last Saturday, 9th December.

More pictures at Santas in London.

Cops Off Campus National Student Protest – 2013

Cops Off Campus National Student Protest – Ten years ago today on Wednesday 11th December 2013 I was at the University of London for a large national student protest over the use of police against student protests on campus at several universities around the country.

At Sussex University the management had called the police onto the campus or gone to the courts to prevent or oppose student protests or harass students. A number of students had been arrested.

In London police had been called to protests over the closing down by management of the University of London Union and the 3 Cosas campaign supported by students for a living wage and decent conditions of employment – sick pay, holiday pay and pensions – for the low paid workers on campus. The cleaners union, the IWGB, had come to support the students at this protest.

The previous week in London there had been a large police presence harassing and arresting students at an emergency protest over police brutality in their eviction of students from the Senate House that Wednesday, with a total of over 40 arrests on that day and the following day.

When I had arrived for that protest, there were police vans parked in all the side streets around and later the police made several failed attempts to kettle the large group of students at the protest despite it being intended as an entirely peaceful and orderly march around some of the various sites of the university in the area.

The police actions on that occasion seemed totally unnecessary and it was hard not to see them as a deliberate attempt to provoke a violent response, but the students kept their heads, moved rapidly and outwitted them. My account of the protest at ‘Cops Off Campus’ Protest Police Brutality‘ ended with the sentence: “It did seem an incredible and pointless waste of public money, and it resulted in more inconvenience to the public than if the event had not been policed at all.”

I don’t for a moment imagine the police had been influenced by my account, though I do know from occasional comments made to me by officers at various protests that some of them at least followed me. I’m sure that they had come to the same obvious conclusion independently, and for the protest on 11th December there was not an officer in sight in the whole area.

There were speeched outside the University of London Union before the march moved off, at its front a ‘Book Bloc’ carrying large backed polystyrene foam shields with book titles, including George Orwell’s ‘1984’, particularly appropriate as the Senate House is said to have inspired Orwell’s ‘Ministry of Truth’, and alongside it were Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom, Mary Woolstonecraft’s ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Women’, E P Thompson’s ‘The Making of the English Working Class’ and other classics.

When the march came to the gates to Senate House from Russell Square they found that these gates, normally open, had been locked and chained to prevent them entering, despite most of those present being members of the university. They are stout metal gates but the chains could not for long resist the bodies pushing against them and they gave way and the crowd surged into the car park.

After a few minutes the marchers made their way back to Russell Square and continued to march around the area, eventually coming to a halt outside SOAS, where the samba band was playing and they sat down, stood around or danced.

Later some went on to protest outside the law courts where the inquest on Mark Duggan, shot by police in 2011, was ending and then to Whitehall, but I left as I was getting tired and needed to file my pictures.

More at Cops Off Campus National Student Protest.

Students Against Cuts And Fees – 2010

Students Against Cuts And Fees – Thursday 9th December was a day of confusion on the streets of London with confusing and inconsistent policing and thousands of angry students.

Parliament was debating a three-fold increase in university tuition fees and students filled the main streets of Whitehall in a noisy and at times indisciplined protest. Police actions stirred up antagonism, and there were a number of charges in which protesters and press suffered minor injuries as riot police used their batons and police horses also made a short charge into the crowd.

Some of the other press photographers covering the event were clearly targeted by individual ‘rogue’ police officers who deliberately smashed their equipment, apparently fearing their pictures might show them engaging in brutal attacks on some of the protesters. Fortunately I was a few hundred yards away covering the official rally on the Embankment when the worst violence flared up around Parliament.

Although the students were rightly angry at the increase in fees, the removal of the education maintenance allowance and swingeing cuts in some courses, particularly in the arts and humanities which are to lose 80% of their funding, the overall mood of the protest was good-natured if exuberant.

Later in the day when a few fireworks were thrown into the police lines in front of the Houses of Parliament the crowd dancing in front of the police turned towards those who had thrown them and chanted against them, using the sound system to tell them that the police were only doing their job and that police too were suffering from the government cuts.

On My London Diary you can read my fairly lengthy account of the march as I saw it, including my impression that “that both police and some of the protesters were clearly guilty of over-reacting“. I won’t repeat most of that here, but one paragraph of my own experiences close to Parliament stands out:

I spent a few minutes trying to take pictures and getting very squashed before deciding I needed to push my way out for my own safety, both from the police and from being crushed in the crowd. A few minutes earlier I had been in the front line and being crushed by the crowd against the barriers in front of the riot police, and I and the others around me were repeatedly threatened by riot police shaking batons at us and telling us they would attack us if we didn’t move back – which was simply not possible – we were totally unable to move due to the pressure of the crowd.
Students Against Cuts – Day 3

I made my way down to the area of the Embankment were the end of march rally was supposed to take place, but few people had arrived there and it had not started. After much angry shouting at the organisers to stop playing music and start the speeches it did begin with speeches from union leaders – including Brendan Barber and Bob Crow, who got a big welcome – and politicians.

But the rally was then interrupted by someone shouting that police had attacked the demonstrators in Parliament Square, charging with police horses, and I joined a number of others in trying to make my way there. Most were stopped by police at Bridge Street, but some of us with press cards were allowed through, while the others formed another protest on Westminster Bridge.

Things were very confused in Parliament Square, but many protesters were still kettled there, keeping themselves warm by dancing, some around small fires of burning placards. And a plastic security hut was set on fire. Many by now were wanting to go home, but all the exits were blocked by police.

Police told some they could leave by going up Parliament Street and Whitehall, and I went with them, only to find the way blocked by a line of police with riot shields who were not at all interested in my press card (one TV camera crew did manage to push their way past.) Behind them were a line of police horses, and we were all pushed back towards Parliament Square.

I tried to go from Parliament Street back to Parliament Square, but a line of riot police refused to let me through, telling me to go to see their boss when I showed my press card. I did and listened to him arguing with a group of students that they were not being detained although they were not being allowed to leave. It make absolutely no sense, and is something the police often say which undermines the relationship between people and police that is essential for the cooperation that the police need to do their job. This event was clearly a huge own goal for policing.

I didn’t bother to stop and argue as I saw that a few yards to the right, in an area presumably under the control of another officer, people were walking freely through – so I joined them and made my way back to Parliament Square, turning into Bridge Street. Another police line was stopping the protesters exiting but let me through without problems when I showed my press card and told them I was on my way home.

The protesters, most of whom also wanted now only to go home peacefully were less fortunate and were detained for another four or more hours, and there were violent incidents and arrests. “Police at one point apparently pushed a large group into a very confined space on Westminster Bridge with a total disregard for their safety; some had to behave medical treatment for crushing, and there could easily have been more serious or fatal injuries and people pushed into the freezing river below.”

My conclusion to my article on the day was “It was a day of confusion, with protesters and police both failing to understand what was happening, and an official student leadership that fails to understand the mood and anger of the students and others – and although the RMT and Bill Crow had offered support, the TUC has curiously failed to take action, putting off its march against the cuts until March.“

More on My London Diary at Students Against Cuts – Day 3.

UK Uncut At Starbucks – 2012

UK Uncut At Starbucks – On Saturday 8th December 2012 UK Uncut protested at over 45 Starbucks coffee shops across the UK against their failure to pay their proper share of tax.

They were also in protest against the government’s continuing refusal to close loopholes and cut down on tax avoidance and the harsh impact of government cuts on women.

UK Uncut briefly transformed the branches of Starbucks into women’s refuges, crèches and homeless shelters, which elsewhere in many places are having to close because of the cuts which would not be necessary if companies like Starbucks paid tax properly on their UK earnings.

I photographed the protests at three Starbucks branches, beginning in the West End at Conduit Street. Here a quarter of an hour before the protest was due to start there were already police, press and a few demonstrators outside.

A Starbucks employee was standing by the door and refusing entry to those he thought likely to be protesters, but I was not stopped and joined the queue. There were others in front of me who I thought were probabably UK Uncut supporters as well as some already seated and drinking coffee.

The queue moved slowly towards the counter and by noon when the protest was about to start I was in danger of being served, but was saved from bad coffee as one of the protesters got up and started the protest.

She read a lengthy document about Starbucks’ failure to pay tax, and how the amounts that companies including them were avoiding paying were around five times the total of the cuts in services so far made by the coalition government. Then she announced that they were setting up a crèche inside this branch to compensate for all those and other family services that the government had closed.

Starbucks staff locked the door and the protest continued with more speeches and chanting calling for Starbucks to pay up. It was a family-friendly protest with some babies and young children in families taking part and there was only any argument when staff stopped a couple of the protesters from putting their banner up in the window.

Around ten minutes later a police officer arrived and wrongly accused the protesters of behaving in an intimidatory manner towards the staff and customers. They had behaved politely and there was clearly no intimidation, and they had not even been asked to leave by the store manager.

Despite this, the police told them this very well ordered protest was a disorderly protest and that they would be arrested unless they left, though he failed to say under what law.

Customers who were not protesting – though some had been interested by the protest and asking to know more about Starbucks failure to pay taxes, along with some of the protesters and some of the press, myself included, then left the store, walking through a large and noisy protest by those who had not managed to gain entry earlier.

The protest inside continued, and in the next five minutes or so that I was outside there appeared to be no arrests. But I decided then to take the short walk to the Vigo Street Starbucks to see what was happening there.

The Vigo Street protest had also begun at noon and although I was unable to go inside I was able to photograph the ‘Women’s refuge’ that had been set up through the large glass windows, as well as the large crowd protesting outside. A few minutes later, having been inside for over half an hour the protesters inside walk out to take part in the rally outside.

Here we were told some of the tricks that Starbucks uses to avoid tax. One is to use a Starbucks company in a tax haven to lend them money at 4% above the LIBOR rate to fund their UK operations. This excess interest reduces the profit of the UK company but transfers large amounts to them in the tax haven. They also buy their coffee beans at inflated prices from a subsidiary in Switzerland which reduces the tax they pay from 24% to 5%, and pay 6% of their sales as a royalty to their Dutch company which has a secret low rate tax deal with the government there.

Tricks like these used for corporate tax avoidance are caluclated to cost the UK £70 billion in lost tax revenue – far more than the £15 billion of benefit cuts.

Later in the day I went to the Euston Road branch of Starbucks where the Labour Representation Committee together with UK Uncut briefly occupied the store.

The LRC at the 2010 Labour conference had put forward a motion calling on the party to mount a campaign to highlight tax avoidance which had been passed overwhelmingly but so far the party had failed to take action. It now seems unlikely that should we get a Starmer government any real moves will be made in this area.

The LRC had called for the action to take place at 2pm, but when they had failed to show up fifteen minutes later the UK Uncut supporters went in and began to occupy. Some people from the LRC arrived shortly after but by then Starbucks staff had locked the doors and they were unable to enter.

Police arrived and came and talked politely with staff and protesters who agreed they would leave and continue the protest outside when they were requested to do so – which shortly after they did.

More had now turned up for the protest which continued for around half an hour outside the store.

More on My London Diary:
UK Uncut Visits Starbucks
Starbucks Euston Road – LRC

Topshop Tax Dodging & Zero Carbon March – 2010

Topshop Tax Dodging & Zero Carbon March – UK Uncut protested on Oxford Street against tax dodging by Arcadia Group and Campaign Against Climate Change led a march to Parliament calling for urgent action including a Zero Carbon Britain by 2030.

UK Uncut protest Topshop Tax Dodge – Oxford St

Several hundred had come to UK Uncut’s protest against tax dodging by major UK companies which costs the UK £12 billion a year.

Arcadia Group is owned by the man UK Uncut describe as “Britain’s most notorious tax-avoider, Sir Philip Green, and his vast retail empire.”

Green’s brands include Topshop, Topman, Dorothy Perkins, Burton, Miss Selfridge, Wallis and British Home Stores. While Green himself pays tax on his salary, the companies are owned by a holding company in the tax haven of Jersey, which is owned by his wife and immediate family who live in Monaco, and pay no tax.

They say that in 2005 he awarded himself a huge dividend payment of £1.2 billion which went through various offshore accounts and tax dodges to his wife’s Monaco bank account, with a loss in tax to the UK of £285 million.

Green had recently been appointed by Prime Minister David Cameron to advise the government on how to slash public spending. But if he and others like him paid their UK tax these cuts would not be necessary. UK Uncut in 2010 put the losses from tax not paid by wealthy individuals as £13 billion and by large corporations as £12 billion.

Other companies being targeted by UK Uncut for high levels of tax avoidance include Vodaphone, Boots, HSBC and Barclays.

One of the government cuts has been in the budget of HMRC which will greatly affect its ability to investigate tax fraud, and even where fraud has been found, deals are often made that result in only very partial recovery of losses. In contrast the government spends large amounts on detecting much smaller amounts of benefit fraud.

We need to move to a system which levies tax on actual earnings in the UK and outlaws all the devious methods that can be used to avoid paying tax which currently form a large industry in the UK. Almost all of those who were handed leaflets at the protest were surprised and shocked to find that profits made on Oxford Street were not contributing tax to the UK.

I was late for the protest as my train had been held up by snow and around a hundred protesters had entered the Oxford Street branch of Topshop when I arrived. Police and store security by then had stopped anyone entering and were bringing the protesters out in ones and twos, sometimes rather roughly.

The protest continued noisily on the pavement, handing out leaflets and gaining considerable support from the shoppers passing. Even when it was possible to enter few went into Topshop and the neighbouring Miss Selfridge while the protest was continuing.

After around an hour the protesters went to protest at BHS, another of Green’s Oxford Street stores, before coming back to Topshop. Later they went to Dorothy Perkins and branches of other tax avoiders, Boots and Vodaphone.

I left and hour and a half after the protest had begun, returning briefly a couple of hours later on my way home to find it continuing.

More at UK Uncut protest Topshop Tax Dodge.

March for Zero Carbon Britain 2030 – Hyde Park to Westminster

Several thousand marched from Hyde Park to Parliament calling for urgent action over the climate crisis including a call for a Zero Carbon Britain by 2030. Currently the government has committed to net zero by 2050, but is pursuing policies which will make if difficult if not impossible to meet this target, far too late.

The demand for urgent action and a 2030 target was based on the recently published in-depth report compiled for the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT), ‘Zero Carbon Britain 2030: A new energy strategy’. More recent scientific reports have assessed the need as even more urgent.

The march was the seventh annual march organised by the Campaign Against Climate Change which has led the movement for action over climate change and was timed to coincide with the crucial Cancun climate talks. While the protest a year earlier had been supported by a number of major charities, many of these were absent at this event and appear to have abandoned major campaigning on the issue.

Among the groups which did take part were Friends of the Eath, Greenpeace, the World Development Movement, the Climate Rush, the Green Party and others including many local groups, trade union branches etc.

After posing for a photographer high up in a cherry-picker the march set off towards Parliament for a rally on Millbank – Parliament Square was still roped off and could not be used.

The rally had a very wide range of speakers in support, including Phil Thornhill, founder of the CACC, Caroline Lucas MP, Andy Atkins, Director of Friends of the Earth, Michael Meacher MP, Sophie Allain from the Climate Camp, Tony Kearns of the CWU, Ben Brangwyn, co-founder of the Transition Towns movement, Maryla Hart from Biofuelwatch and John Stewart of HACAN as well a Maria Souviron, the Ambassador of Bolivia, one of the few nations to have grasped the urgency of climate change and a leader in the call for effective world action.

*Maria Souviron, the Ambassador of Bolivia*

You can read more about some of the points that were made in the speeches in a more detailed article on My London Diary. Unfortunately the UK has made little progress to prevent the disastrous trends in global temperature in the 13 years since this march – and has gone backwards in some respects. We are now beginning to feel the effects, particularly in more erratic weather and some temperature records, while some other countries are now in desperate straits.

More at March for Zero Carbon UK 2030.

TUC Pensions March & Corporate Greed – 2011

TUC Pensions March & Corporate Greed – On Wednesday 30th November 2011 public sector workers across the country held a one-day strike against government plans to cut public service pensions with pickets at thousands of workplaces and rallies and marches in towns and cities across the country as well as a South East TUC organised march in Central London which I photographed. Later in the afternoon I went with Occupy London protesters who occupied the offices of the highest paid CEO in the UK to protest against corporate greed.

TUC Nov 30 March – Lincolns Inn Fields to Westminster

It’s always hard to estimate the numbers on very large marches such as this one but it was very large and when I arrived at Lincoln’s Inn Fields the large space already seemed pretty crowded an hour before the march was due to start. Many people gave up trying to get in waited to join the march on Kingsway.

At the front of the march were Frances O’Grady, Deputy General Secretary of the TUC, NASUWT president John Rimmer (below) and other trade unionists. Many other groups had come with banners.

There were many placards suggesting ways to avoid the cuts, including by taxing the mega-rich and cutting the pointless and wasteful expenditure on Trident rather than job’s health and education.

Some of the students on the march felt it was going to slow and began to march in front of the main banner.

Police stopped them and held up the whole of the march at Aldwych but then didn’t seem to know what to do. Eventually they just let things go ahead.

I took a lot of pictures of the Education Activist Network who were the liveliest part of the protest but there were plenty of others to photograph too with many interesting hand-made posters.

I stopped for quite a while to photograph marchers as they went past.

and they were still coming in large numbers an hour after the front of the march had passed me.

I was still on the Embankment with marchers when the rally had begun closer to Parliament and people were still rolling in. I think there were probably between 20 and 30,000 taking part, but it was hard to know and I think many who had been on picket lines early in the morning had left before the rally began. I left too to meet with people from Occupy London.

More pictures on My London Diary at TUC Nov 30 March.

Occupy London Expose Corporate Greed – Piccadilly Circus & Panton House

Occupy London had called people to meet at Piccadilly Circus at 3pm but had not indicated what would be happening next. I arrived to find around a hundred protesters there along with quite a few Greek football supporters and a large number of police standing around watching them.

We stood in the intermittent rain for around half an hour waiting for something to happen. At 3.30pm around 30 people rushed across the road to stand outside a branch of Boots with the ‘Precarious Workers Brigade’ banner, but made no attempt to enter the store which quickly lowered its metal shutters.

Police rushed across the street to surround them, but soon became clear that this had merely been a diversion, as others close to Eros unfolded their long main ‘All Power to the 99%’ banner and rushed down Haymarket with it catching the police by surprise and leaving them behind.

I was running ahead of them, taking pictures over my shoulder and managing to keep ahead, but the police were well behind as we reached Panton St.

Here the protesters set off a bright orange flare, turned down Panton Street and rushed into Panton House. I followed the group with the main banner inside, but stupidly stopped in the foyer to take pictures through the glass frontage of the flares outside.

I was a little behind as the protesters ran up the stairs and rather out of breath after running along the street. By the time I reached the third or fourth landing I had decided to give up and pressed the button for a lift. Police arrived just as the lift came and one officer grabbed me stopping me from getting in.

Police told us all to go downstairs, but around 20 of the protesters and a few press had reached the roof. I made my way down, though it was difficult as more police rushing up pushed those of us going down out of the way.

The police had now surrounded the entrance, preventing any more people entering, but were allowing us to go out. I was pleased to get out because the air inside had been thick with the orange smoke and I had been choking slightly, Smoke flares aren’t intended for indoor use.

A little back on Haymarket by the side of the building protesters outside were taking part in a mike chat group chant to inform passers-by what was going on. From this I learnt that Panton House contains the London offices of the mining company Xstrata, whose CEO Mick Davies they say is the highest paid CEO in the UK, and “is a prime example of the greedy 1% lining their own pockets while denying workers pensions.”

Police began to surround them and I quickly moved away as they kettled the protesters, and also to get a better view of what was happening on the roof. TI had missed seeing the ‘All Power to the 99%’ banner being let down over Haymarket earlier but saw them trying to do so again but being dragged away from the edge. More police vans were now arriving and I decided there would be little else I could see and left.

More at Occupy London Expose Corporate Greed.

Democracy, Mansion Tax & Justice – 2014

Democracy, Mansion Tax & Justice – on Saturday 22nd November 2014 I photographed protests about democracy and justice in the UK, the brutal persecution of Christians in Pakistan and Class War protesting outside the homes of millionaire objectors to a proposed mansion tax. My day’s work ended in Brixton with an annual march remembering young men killed in Brixton Police Station.

Occupy Democracy at Supreme Court – Parliament Square

Activists from Occupy Democracy had spent the night on the wide pavement in front of the Supreme Court on the west side of Parliament Square and were getting ready to hold two days of workshops there.

The Supreme Court is housed in the ornamented former Middlesex Guildhall facing the Houses of Parliament across the square and does not sit at weekends, perhaps why the police had not tried hard to remove the protesters.

Parliament Square itself was still fenced off and guarded, with police fearing that Occupy protesters might come and set up up a tented camp there. One of the banners the protesters had brought read ‘WE ARE THE GHOST OF BRIAN HAW’, the peace protester who had defied legal and illegal attempts to remove him from his camp facing Parliament for many years.

A small group of protesters was sheltering from the rain in the doorway of the Supreme Court and I went to say ‘Hello’ and take a few pictures.

Others were holding posters and banners and waiting for others to come an join them for the workshops. I couldn’t stay but hoped to come back later, but ran out of time to do so.

Occupy Democracy at Supreme Court

Justice for Shahzad & Shama – Downing St

Shahzad Masih and Shama Bibi were Pakistani Christians who had been trapped into bond labour at a brick kiln in a Muslim village 35 miles south-west of Lahore. Shahad was involved in a dispute with the kiln owner and landlord as he wanted to pay off his debts and leave and the landlord’s accountant is alleged to have raped Shama.

Shama had cleared out and burnt some items belonging to her father after his death on 30th October 2014. These included some black magic amulets and written charms. The ashes were seen by a Muslim worker and he accused her of burning the Koran.

A large mob came from surrounding villages and attacked the couple, stripped them and tied them to a tractor, beating them as they were taken to the kiln, where petrol was poured over their bodies; accounts differ as to whether both were still alive when they were then thrown into the furnace while there six year old child watched. Armed police stood by but refused to interfere in their murders.

The police and authorities appear to have tried to cover up the case and buried the remains of the bodies in secret to avoid their families arranging a funeral. But the news leaked out and the federal government had appointed a minister to co-ordinate the case. At Downing Street there were prayers and speeches calling for justice including from an Elim Pentecostal minister and singer Si Genaro.

Justice for Shahzad & Shama

Class War Griff Rhys Jones Mansion Tax – Fitzroy Square

Earlier in the month, Class War had announced they would stand a number of candidates in the forthcoming 2015 General Election and had put together a manifesto largely as they walked the short distance from the pub to a Poor Doors protest.

*Marina Pepper rang the bell at Griff Rhys Jones’ house*

Class War did not expect to win any 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 intended to “make ourselves central to the campaign in a funny, rumbustious combative and imaginative way.”

One of the key pledges in their manifesto was for a 50% mansion tax, and it was also a policy on a rather less punitive scale for the then Labour party (no longer in existence.) And several well-known and filthy rich people had voiced their objections including Griff Rhys Jones who said he would leave the country if Labour levied a mansion tax.

On Saturday 22nd November a small group from Class War, including two of their election candidates Marina Pepper went to protest at the £7 million home of Griff Rhys Jones in Fitzroy Square, telling him to “f**k off now“, offering to pay the fare.

Class War rang on the bell though nobody came to answer it, although there were signs of movement inside. They put hazard tape around the area outside the house before going for a walk around the square, pausing for another brief protest outside the home of Guy Ritchie, another millionaire objector to a mansion tax.

Continuing around the square, next to the house where both George Bernard Shaw and later Virginia Woolf both lived, they came across the Magistrates Association – who got another sticker, as did the locked gates into the private garden in the centre of the square.

Having gone around the square they arrived back outside Griff Rhys Jones’s house where they stopped for a group photograph and a few more minutes of protest before leaving for a nearby pub. I would have liked to join them but had to rush to another event.

Class War Griff Rhys Jones Mansion Tax

Still No Justice for Ricky Bishop – Brixton

Ricky Bishop, a fit young black man, died from unexplained injuries hours after being taken to Brixton Police Station on 22 Nov 2001. Family and supporters call it a modern day lynching and march annually to remember him and call for justice.

Ricky Bishop was a fit young black man when taken into Brixton Police Station on 22 Nov 2001, but hours later he died from unexplained injuries. His family and supporters call his death a modern day lynching and march annually to remember him and call for justice.

People met in Windrush Square and marched slowly to the police station, calling out the names of the officers they accuse of murdering him, to hold a memorial event around the tree outside which has been adopted as a remembrance tree for Ricky Bishop and the others killed there by police.

Among the speakers was Marcia Rigg who spoke forcefully of the long battle to get any proper investigation into the death in he police station of her brother Sean Rigg in August 2008. While she was speaking there were shouts from officers inside the police station accusing her and the family of lying about the police.

I felt shocked and disgusted that police still feel the killing people as they did Sean Rigg is defensible and go to great lengths to prevent proper investigation, giving police almost total immunity from the consequences of their actions.

Although many of the over 3,000 custody deaths between 1969 and 2011 may not have been the result of deliberate actions or failures, there has not been a single officer successfully prosecuted, despite considerable evidence of wrongdoing. Instead we have seen repeated instances of failures to properly investigate and interview officers, collusion to give false statements, unnecessary holding up of cases, disallowing of evidence, misleading of juries and other means, including failures of both the Crown Prosecution Service and the so-called Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Many more pictures of the march and memorial on My London Diary at Still No Justice for Ricky Bishop.

Sparks And Students – 2011

Sparks And Students – On Wednesday 9th November there were protests by electricians in Southwark and police shut down most of central London to harass students as they marched to the Moorgate building of London Metropolitan University.

Sparks At The Shard – London Bridge

Around a thousand electricians – ‘sparks ‘ – marched to a protest rally at the building site for the Shard in a protest led by Unite against plans by 7 major employers to tear up national agreements and impose worse conditions and pay cuts of at least 26 %.

In 1968 major employers and the trade union had come together to set up the Electrotechnical Joint Industry Board (JIB) to set standards for the electrical industry and to provide a means of resolving the frequent disputes which were then taking place by bringing together both sides in committees with equal representation. JIB has also developed to set the standards for employment, welfare, grading and apprentice training in the electrical contracting industry.

In May 2011 seven major companies – Bailey Building Services, Balfour Beatty, Tommy Clarke, Crown House Technologies, Gratte Brothers, SES and SPIE Matthew Hall – announced that they would withdraw from the JIB pay and conditions deal and impose their own agreement known as BESNA (Building and Engineering Services National Agreement) which would enable them to replace skilled workers by those on lower grades.

Unite targeted Balfour Beatty for action as the largest company and ring-leader in the employers group and at the rally Unite General Secretary Len McCluskey announced that the union had given notice today of a strike ballot for its members employed by them. The Shard was one of Balfour Beatty’s major projects at the time, along with Crossrail.

Several hundred of the electricians had earlier held a protest in Bishopsgate and visited the Occupy London site at St Paul’s Cathedral before marching to the rally at the Shard. Police had tried to stop them at various points on their march and they arrived with a large police escort.

Before the official rally started there were speeches by rank and file trade unionist. They were followed by several Unite speakers with a final address by McClusky. Around 600 of the sparks then marched off to support the students who were protesting in London but police closed both London Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge and stopped them.

Following this and further actions by rank and file electricians Balfour Beatty, the largest of the firms in Febraury 2012 announced it was going into further talks with Unite on updating the JIB agreements and this was the end for BESNA.

More pictures on My London Diary at Sparks At The Shard.

Students March Against Cuts & Fees – Bloomsbury to Moorgate

Despite police attempts to provoke them, more than 5000 student protesters marched largely peacefully against fees increases and cuts in services. Most kept to the agreed route, from London University in Bloomsbury to London Metropolitan University in Moorgate, which was lined by thousands of police.

Students are angry about the high fees and the cuts in education – particularly the loss of the Educational Maintenace Allowances and various cuts in service, but in the early stages of the march the protesters were in a relaxed and positive mood, many talking to and joking with the police who were accompanying them.

After the police failure to stop some student fees protesters who had stormed the Tory HQ at Millbank in 2010, the police this year were determined to control events. To do so they closed all major roads in central London for hours before the march began, making it hard for many to get to the protest. There were no buses and I had to walk two miles from London Bridge and so arrived after the march started.

I could hardly see the marchers as they came down towards me on Shaftesbury Avenue, with a line of mounted police in front, followed by several lines of police on foot. Behind them were march stewards and then the main banner, behind which was a vast crowd of students and supporters carrying placards.

The march continued but with sporadic stoppages by the police for no apparent reason. But after it had come up Strand to Aldwych a snatch squad of police ran into the centre of the march, grabbed several of the many black-clad protesters, and dragged them across to the side of the road. Many around them, including me, were roughly pushed aside and I received a painful kick in my leg from one officer.

The crowd were angered and gathered around the police for some time but were persuaded by stewards to move on. People were further angered when they heard that the group of 600 electricians had been prevented from coming to join them, and the crowd took up the chant “Free the sparks!” But most then continued along the agreed route up Fetter Lane.

Police then decided to try and stop the march in what I commented “seemed like an act of complete folly“. Slowly the marchers pushed the police back from the confines of the street to the open area of Holborn Circus. Here “proceedings reached a state of comic chaos, with senior officers shouting orders to small strings of police to stop the protesters; while they were grappling with the few within reach the rest of us simply walked through the huge gaps between these lines.” Holborn Circus was really a circus.

A large group of students then ran past the police horses on Holborn Viaduct where they had withdrawn from Holborn Circus after several riders had lost control of their horses and I ran with them. Police managed to stop the rest of the marchers on Holborn Viaduct and after a short wait people decided to continue along the agreed route to Morgate without them.

I went on to talk with the people at Occupy Finsbury Circus who were worried by the huge police presence and felt they might be evicted. I thought it unlikely as with 5000 student marchers around it would be likely to spark a riot. I left and walked across the City where major roads were still closed to traffic and remained so for some hours. Later I watched videos showing students being kettled at Moorgate and individuals being attacked by snatch squads of plain clothes police who had posed as protesters after I had left.

More at Students March Against Cuts & Fees.

Immigration Deaths and US Truth & Justice – 2012

Immigration Deaths and US Truth & Justice After a protest at Harmondsworth Detention Centre following the death of a detainee I travelled into central London to cover a protest at the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square on the eve of US Elections.

Noisy Demo after 17th Immigration Death – Harmondsworth Detention Centre

Campaigners from the All African Women’s Group and others demonstrated noisily at the Harmondsworth Immigration Detention Centre as the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman paid a visit following the death a week ago of Prince Kwabena Fosu, a Ghanian who died after ‘restraint’ by GEO Group staff.

Statements from other Ghanian detainees at the site alleged that Fusu had sustained massive blows from one officer who has later asked to change his “blood stained clothes so that no one would notice what happened” and that the officer concerned is now on leave “in order to pervert the course of justice“. There appears to have been no proper police investigation of his death.

The protesters walked down the private road leading to a BT facility which runs between the Harmondsworth and Colnbrook Detention Centres just north of Heathrow airport, ignoring a sign stating “No Tresspassers Allowed‘ with a banner ‘We will NOT let this death be Silenced‘ and made their presence obvious to the men imprisoned inside with a megaphone and some loud shouting.

The detention centres are surrounded by 20ft high stout metal fences, the lower half with metal sheeting and the top 10ft of a heavy metal gauze. Through this those on the upper floors of the centre could see the protest and we could see rather shadowy shapes watching us below, and could hear some shouting and people banging on the bars of the window as guards tried to stop them.

I walked with the protesters around the Harmondsworth site, watched by police and G4S security staff. When some protesters began kicking and stamping on the metal fence to make a noise, police and G4S security came to tell them they must stop and leave the site.

The police officer in charge read a notice charging the protesters with aggravated trespass and warning them that unless they left the site now they would be arrested, and that they were banned from returning withing 3 months. The protesters decided to leave rather than be arrested, and very slowly left the site.

As so often in cases involving custody deaths, the inquest was long delayed and only concluded around seven and a half years after Fusu’s death. It concluded that his death had been contributed to by neglect and multiple serious failures by the Home Office, GEO who were running the detention centre when he died, Primecare who were responsible for healthcare services, doctors and everyone else involved.

Deborah Coles, Director of INQUEST, said: “It is unconscionable that someone entrusted to the care of the state can die in this way. The jury have delivered a damning indictment of all of those responsible. Prince was failed at every level, by individuals and agencies who owed him a duty of care. He was treated in dehumanising way and as a discipline problem rather than as a seriously unwell man in need of compassion and medical care.

“His death comes as a direct result of the UK’s hostile immigration policies. This reinforced a toxic culture of indifference and neglect, where professionals who came into contact with Prince were simply unable to see the human being before them.”

No criminal charges have been taken against any of the companies or individuals involved in Fusu’s death. The CPS took years to decline to bring any charges of corporate manslaughter. After deciding to bring lesser charges under the Health & Safety Act 1974, they then reversed that decision.

More pictures at Noisy Demo after Immigration Death.

Truth, Justice and the American way? – US Embassy, Grosvenor Square

On US Election night the London Guantánamo Campaign hosted a protest outside the US Embassy at which various organisations raised human rights concerns about prisoners in the USA.

Among the other organisations with speakers at the event were Stop the War, tne Green Party, Save Shaker Aamer Campaign, Free Talha Campaign, Cageprisoners and more and there were also some performers between the speeches. And thre was a silence with candles being lit to remember the many who have been killed.

The protesters gathered around the statue of former president Eisenhower to one side of the Embassy frontage, which was being lit up for election eve with a laser projections of the stars and stripes.

The speakers highlighted shameful human rights abuses being carried out by the USA, particularly at Guantanamo, and called for whoever was elected President to close the prison camp and end the unlawful practice of extraordinary rendition. There were also those calling for the release of Bradley (later Chelsea) Manning, the whistle-blower jailed for releasing details of US war crimes.

Aisha Maniar, organiser for the London Guantánamo Campaign, said: “Four years ago, a new American president, Barack Obama, promised the world a change it could believe in. One change he put his name to in writing was the closure of Guantánamo Bay and the end of military tribunals there. That has not materialised; the American administration has added drone attacks to its repertoire of extralegal activity, expanded the scope of arbitrary detention without charge or trial, and over 160 prisoners remain at Guantánamo Bay after almost 11 years, including British resident Shaker Aamer.”

More at Truth, Justice and the American way?