Grenfell | >Re-PHOTO

Housing Crimes Exposed

Housing Crimes Exposed: On the 14th June every year now our thoughts turn to Grenfell and the terrible fire there in 201. I wrote about this here a year ago in Remember Grenfell – Demand Justice.

We still haven’t seen justice, and the delays in investigation caused by the inquiry increasingly make it seem that once again our legal and judicial system have successfully kicked justice into the long grass. There are people who should have been in jail and organisations which should have been facing huge fines within a few months of the tragic but predicted event. The fire wasn’t an accident but the result of crimes.

Advance to Mayfair – London Real Estate Forum – Berkeley Square, Mayfair

There are other crimes around housing in the UK, and in particular around social housing, and people were protesting about these before Grenfell. On Thursday 16th June 2016 I photographed one of these protests, and two days later a second also in Mayfair, an appropriate location as these are crimes of the rich against the poor, coming from the Thatcher crusade to enrich the rich at the expense of the poor, rewarding the wealthy and retreating from the welfare state which had supported the poor.

Housing was one of the main areas of policy, along with privatisation which sold off key services and industries to private investors – and for which we are now seeing the results in high energy prices, sewage in rivers, high cost transport and huge subsidies to shareholders, with much of the costs of our NHS now going to supporting healthcare companies and their owners.

In housing Thatcher decided we should be a nation of home owners. Until then many of the working class had either been council tenants or were aspiring to be so while living in often poor and cramped accommodation provided by private landlords. Thatcher changed that, partly be selling off council properties to tenants at knock-down prices, but also by making it difficult or impossible for local authorities to build new council properties or properly maintain existing ones. It was a very popular policy with those who got their properties on the cheap, though many found they couldn’t afford to keep them and before long they were bough up as ‘buy to let’ properties by those rich enough to get mortgages and bank loans.

Under New Labour, the Labour Party took up many of the worst of Thatcher’s policies, and the ‘regeneration’ schemes Labour councils came up increasingly amounted in a huge loss of social housing, replacing huge estates with largely homes for private sale with some as largely unaffordable “affordable housing” and shared ownership. More and more of the housing associations, many of which had taken over social housing estates from hard-pressed local councils began to look more and more like commercial property owners.

In 2021 government funding to housing associations to build affordable housing was reduced by 60% and funding for new social rented housing was stopped altogether. Since then they have built many houses for sale and rent at market levels, partly to provide cash for some social housing.

London’s councils, largely Labour run, have been among the worst offenders. As I wrote in 2016:

Under the guise of New Labour regeneration, Southwark spent large amounts of council money in demonising the Heygate Estate, employing PR consultants to invent surveys, deliberately moving in problem tenants, running the estate down both physically and through the media to justify its demolition. A highly awarded scheme with its trees coming to maturity, and popular with many residents despite the lack of necessary maintenance was emptied over a period of years and finally destroyed. It took years to get some residents to move, as few were offered suitable alternative accommodation and the compensation on offer to leaseholders was derisory.

But this scheme turned into “something of a financial disaster for Southwark council (though doubtless not for some councillors) and certainly for the people of Southwark, as the Heygate, built with around 1700 social housing units has been replaced by Elephant Park, with less than a hundred, along with a large number of high price apartments which very few locals can afford.”

Undeterred, Southwark proceeded to apply similar methods to other estates, notably the neighbouring Aylesbury Estate, “converting public assets into private profit, with yet more Southwark residents being forced to move out to cheaper areas on the outskirts of London or beyond, in what housing activists describe as social cleansing, driving ordinary Londoners out of the capital.“

Similar polices were being applied under Mayor Robin Wales in Newham. They began emptying out the Carpenters Estate, a well-liked and successful estate close to the great transport links of Stratford station, in 2004. Many of the homes on the estate have been empty since then despite huge housing problems in the borough. A scheme to sell the estate for a new campus for UCL was defeated by protests both by local residents, led by Focus E15 and by students and staff at UCL.

Focus E15, a group of young mothers faced with eviction from their Stratford hostel when Newham announced they would no longer pay the housing association which ran it, engaged in a successful campaign against the council’s plans to relocate them separately to private rented accommodation in distant parts of the country, and brought housing problems in Newham and elsewhere onto the national agenda.

Focus E15 were among other groups, including Class War, the Revolutionary Communist Group and protesters from the Aylesbury Estate in Southwark who came to Berkeley Square to protest outside the London Real Estate Forum. Many Labour councils – including Southwark and Newham – were at the event, conspiring with estate agents and property developers to sell public land and transform estates which now house those on low incomes into homes for the wealthy. Councils now “appear to regard the estates they own as liabilities rather than seeing them as providing vital homes meeting the needs of the people who elect them. “

A few of those entering or leaving the event stopped to engage with the protesters, mostly trying to justify their activities. One man photographed the protest and engaged in homophobic abuse, but police who had been trying to move the protesters refused to take action.

You can read about the protest on My London Diary at Advance to Mayfair.

Municipal Journal Awards – Hilton Hotel, Mayfair

Two days later on Thursday 16th June 2016 I joined many of the same protesters and others outside the Hilton Hotel with Architects 4 Social Housing protesting noisily outside the Municipal Journal Local Authority Awards at the Hilton Hotel castigating the nomination of Southwark and Newham for awards.

They complained that Southwark was nominated for ‘Best London Council’ despite having demolished 7,639 units of social housing, sold off public land to developers, and evicted people unlawfully and accused Newham of social cleansing, rehousing people in distant parts of the country while council properties remain empty, and of causing mental health problems through evictions, homelessness and failure to maintain properties.

These were awards not for housing the workers in their areas, many of whom are on pay close or at the minimum legal levels. Not even for key workers such as teachers and nurses, few of whom can now afford properties in the areas close to where they work, but to attract high paid workers and provide profits for overseas investors, many of whom leave the properties empty all or most of the year, watching their profits grow as London’s high property prices increase.

They are awards too for contributing to the huge profits for the developers who are now building a new London, providing poorly built properties, often to lower standards of space than those they replace, and with design lives sometimes expiring much earlier. And because we have not seen the changes in building regulations and safety standards that Grenfell exposed as necessary, some at least may be the Grenfells of the future.

More about the protest and many more pictures at Municipal Journal Awards.

Virgin NHS & Mock The Opera

Virgin NHS & Mock The Opera: My work on Tuesday 2nd June 2015 began outside the London HQ of Virgin Care where campaigners were protesting at the continuing private takeover of the NHS by companies including Virgin. Then I joined a group under Notting Hill’s Westway who were marching to Holland Park. While making deep cuts to social services, homelessness prevention schemes, nurseries and the Westway urban stables the council was giving £5m to Holland Park Opera, underwriting its losses.

Virgin Health hide behind NHS Logo – Tavistock Square

The protest outside Virgin Care was part of a National day of action against private healthcare companies who are hiding behind the NHS logo, using the NHS Logo when delivering private care.

The People’s NHS, a community-led campaign to help defend the NHS from private companies, point out that many MPs including some cabinet ministers and members of the House of Lords are profiting from private medical companies which are taking over our NHS in a bit-by-bit privatisation.

These politicians have backed legislation in which they have a personal private interest forcing the NHS to put services out to tender, with private companies taking on the more straightforward routine services which are relatively cheap to run and make profits from, leaving the trickier aspects of the health service to be run by the public NHS.

The campaign’s petition pointed out the huge corruption involved stating:

We are outraged that politicians with financial interests in the private healthcare sector, totalling millions of pounds, voted on the Health and Social Care Act that has led to a massive expansion in private sector involvement in the NHS and created a profits bonanza for the same companies these MPs and Lords are linked to.

No party stood on a platform of privatising the NHS. It is a scandal that politicians who can personally benefit financially voted for this wave of privatisation, when the general public have had no chance to cast our vote.

We demand that these parliamentarians give the money they have received from their private healthcare interests to NHS charities, and that the Government halts all sell-offs and conducts an urgent review of the Health and Social Care Act.

and it demanded that these parliamentarians give the money they have received from their private healthcare interests to NHS charities, and that the Government halts all sell-offs and conducts an urgent review of the Health and Social Care Act.

Virgin Health hide behind NHS Logo

‘Mock the Opera protest at Kensington cuts – Notting Hill to Holland Park

Two years after this protest the Grenfell Tower fire made clear to the nation the lack of concern of the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea for its less affluent residents in North Kensington, but it was already clear in 2015 to those who lived in this part what was called the “richest borough in the Universe” and which had reserves of over £280m. And among the groups taking part was the Grenfell Action Group, already pressing for action to be taken to make its building safe in case of fire, but labelled by the council as troublemakers.

Years earlier the working class north of the borough had become one of the worst environmental disaster areas in UK history, with the building of a stretch of London’s inner urban motorway ring through it creating devastation. The outcry caused by local groups here eventually led to the abandonment of the disastrous road scheme with this being one of few sections completed, and the setting up of a community land trust, the Westway Trust to manage 23 acres of land under the Westway, supposedly for the benefit of the local North Kensington community.

The protest was organised by Westway23, a direct action umbrella group of concerned local residents, traders, artists and organisations of all ages, ethnicities and backgrounds, united to defend the community rights formed as a result of a growing concern that the local community were being excluded from key decisions that were responsible for shaping the area’s future by the Westway Trust, council and developers.

The film The Westway: four decades of community activism, produced in 2017 gives a good account of how the area, including the Westway has been treated and the fight against this by various community groups.

The protest was supported by local organisations including the Maxilla Nursery and the stables based under the Westway which had for almost 20 years been providing affordable and subsidised riding and equine therapy for inner city residents, including disadvantaged and disabled children which were threatened by the cuts, as well as other local groups and wider groups including Radical Housing Network and Unite Community.

They marched from outside the Westway Trust to Holland Park Opera which the council had recently announced it was giving £5 million to underwrite its losses, and placards and posters stated ‘Take Action. Stop Kensington & Chelsea Council from Squeezing our Services as they splash out on Sopranos.’

At a rally outside the Opera building where people were sitting on the outside gallery enjoying a drink before the performance, one of the speakers made clear that they were not against opera or the people who listen to it, but against the council and its cutting of services. The protest with its loud drumming and shouting ended before the opera was scheduled to start to avoid spoiling the event for those who had paid a part of the cost to hear the highly subsidised performance.

“But“, as I pointed out, “perhaps it isn’t a sensible ordering of priorities to subsidise those who were able to stand on the gallery drinking champagne while cutting essential support to the poorest and most vulnerable in the community.”

More at ‘Mock the Opera’ protest at Kensington cuts.

Grenfell Silent March – 14 Nov 2017

On the 14th of each month my thoughts turn at least for a short while to 14th June 2017 when a fire broke out in the 24 storey block in North Kensington. Instead of being confined to a single flat as the original design intended, flammable cladding wrongly applied on the outside of the building led to a rapid spread which engulfed the tower, killing 72 of those inside.

The public inquiry into the tragedy ended a few days ago, with the lead counsel Richard Millett KC stating that the risks that led to the fire were well known by many of the organisations involved and should have been known by all. He said the inquiry should decide with confidence that all 72 deaths were avoidable, and criticised the many organisations which had been more concerned with trying to evade any legal responsibility for the fire and blame others rather than assist the inquiry.

The BBC report lists some of those responsible, with a diagram of the web of blame, including the companies who manufactured the cladding, those who designed their installation and fitted them, the fire safety consultants, the local council and the government who had set up a broken building safety system.

*Behind the marchers the burnt out shell of Grenfell*

A report from Sky, Grenfell survivors insulted as long-running inquiry comes to close, looks at the effects on some of the residents and their views and including that of barrister for the bereaved and survivors Imran Khan KC, who points out that 85% of those who died were from minority ethnic communities and raises the question of the “institutional or structural or systemic racism” that lay behind the treatment of the tower before the tragedy and of the survivors.

Grenfell United issued a long statement via Twitter in response to the closing statements from the inquiry. In it they point out that none of the recommendations of the first phase of the inquiry has yet been implemented. They say that the government had ignored previous warnings about the dangers caused by deregulation and that Government Ministers were still advocating for deregulation.

They criticise the London Fire Brigade also because the critical recommendations from the Lakanal House fire in 2009 were then incompletely put in place – and they should have lifted the ‘stay put’ advice once it was clear the fire was uncontrollable.

The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea they say “treated us like second class citizens. They refused to invest in Grenfell Tower for 30 years, and when they did they wrapped it in petrol.” The also blame them for colluding with their landlord who bullied them, “ignored our fire safety concerns and treated our lives like a game of monopoly.“

Their statement also describes briefly the failures of Kingspan, Arconic and Celotex and points out that as yet there have been no consequences. They say the justice system protects the powerful and prevents justice. “From Aberfan, to Hillsborough, justice has been denied and Grenfell is no different.“

They hope the final inquiry report will bring real change and that the Metropolitan Police and CPS will bring “the necessary criminal charges … and prove to us that there is not a two tier justice system.”

On Tuesday 14th of November 2017 I joined the large crowd which met at Notting Hill Methodist Church for the monthly slow and silent walk to demand justice and remember those killed in the tragic fire. At the front of the march were large green hearts calling for Truth, Unity and Justice and many others carried placards calling for justice and truth.

Among those marching were a group of firefighters including FBU General Secretary Matt Wrack, and more firefighters stood by the side of the road beside there fire engine close to Ladbroke Grove station. Whatever the criticism of the fire brigade, the firefighters who came to Grenfell showed great bravery and worked to exhaustion to rescue many of the survivors unable to make their way out unaided.

The march went on to the Maxilla Centre, but that was a occasion for the local community and not for the press, and I stayed on Ladbroke Grove taking pictures until the end of the procession had passed me, then made my way home.

More at Silent Walk for Grenfell Tower.

July 19 Pictures

Most mornings when I sit down to write a post for >Re:PHOTO I start by searching on My London Diary for events I photographed on that particular day (or rather the day two or three ahead when I will schedule the post to appear.)

Occasionally there may be something else I feel moved to write about – some new development in photography, discovery about the history of photography, ethical debate or cataclysmic event – but these seem to come up less frequently than they used to, though I’m not entirely sure why this should be.

Perhaps it’s because I spend more time now looking at my own old work, digitising images I made on film in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s and worrying about what will happen to all this work after my death and rather less on going out, taking new work and meeting other photographers. Covid meant that for a long period there were few exhibitions to go to, and I haven’t yet got back into the habit.

My bookshelves have long all been full and overcrowded and I seldom buy new books unless they are by personal friends, and have cancelled my subscription to most of those expensive magazines I could never bring myself to throw away – the shelves once allocated to them are also full. I’m beginning also to wonder about the future of this large library – whether to try and set up an on-line bookshop to sell it, or to try to find some worthy institution to gift it to.

Fortunately almost all of the posts in My London Diary give their date somewhere making it easy to locate the pictures I took on July 19 from around 1999 until 2021 using the Freefind search box on many of the site’s pages. Though in the early years of this period when I was still using film there were many events that didn’t make the site as I hadn’t digitised them, and the search somehow misses the occasional thing.

But searching for ’19 Jul’ and ’19th July turns up events in 2008, 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2019 and I open the pages from those years and look through them to see what I photographed on those days. This gives me a choice of things to write about, either picking one or two of the twelve events, or about all those I did on a particular day.

So how do I choose? Perhaps I eliminate some topics I know I’ve already written about too often or too recently. I don’t want to rant yet another time – at least for a while – on Israel’s attacks on Gaza and seasonal events like the Swan Upping which happen on a particular day of the week perhaps don’t merit more than one post through the 7 dates on which they can occur.

*Ecuadorians support ‘Citizen Revolution’ 2015*

Then there are some events I have very little to say about and others where I think the photographs are rather run-of-the-mill. Very occasionally some where what I would like to say might be legally unwise.

10 years since Iran hanged gay teenagers 2015

Today I can’t make up my mind, so here I’ve decided to post a single picture from each of the twelve, together with a caption that links to the post.

*Festival of Our Lady of Mount Carmel 2015*

*Grenfell survivors tell Council “Resign now!” 2017*

So you can choose if you want to read more about any of them – there are more pictures and text about them which I wrote at the time I took them on My London Diary.

Grenfell, Idlib, Sudan – 15 June 2019

Grenfell, Idlib, Sudan – 15 June 2019 – Another day I photographed several protests in Central London.

Grenfell Solidarity March – Westminster

The previous evening I’d photographed the silent march from close to Grenfell Tower remembering the victims of the disaster on the second anniversary of the disastrous fire which killed 72 and left survivors traumatised, and came up to London the following day, Saturday 15 June, for a rather noisier solidarity march, starting and finishing at Downing St, organised by Justice4Grenfell.

My journey up to London had been much slower than usual as there were engineering works on the railway and no trains from my station, and I decided to take a bus the five miles or so to my nearest Underground station for a train to London. On the way the bus passed a recently closed fire station, a reminder of the cuts made by Boris Johnson to the fire services which had contributed to the severity of the Grenfell disaster – though this fire station had been closed by Surrey County Council.

Banners from several branches of the Fire Brigade Union were prominent on the march, which was also supported by other trade unionists and housing activists, including the Construction Safety Campaign, the Housing For All campaign, Defend Council Housing and the Global Womens Strike, as well as others from the Grenfell community.

*Yvette Williams demands Truth and Justice For Grenfell*

From a rally opposite Downing Street the campaigners marched to the Home Office in Marsham St, now also home to he Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, for more speeches. The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea is one of the richest bouroughs in the country, but it is dominated by Tory councillors representing the wealthy areas of the borough who seem to have little regard for poorer residents.

They signed off through their housing organisation the penny-pinching use of unsuitable highly flammable cladding, failed to properly oversee its installation, made other changes that threatened the safety of the residents and arranged for inadequate fire safety inspections, and dismissed the warnings of residents who they labelled as trouble-makers.

RBKC’s reaction after the fire was also severely lacking, and often showed little understanding or concern for the survivors, and their record over rehousing them was abysmal – and remains so now.

Among the speakers outside the Ministry of Housing were Moyra Samuels of Justice4Grenfell and Eileen Short of Defend Council Housing. After the speeches the protesters marched back to Downing St where there was to be a further rally, but I left to go elsewhere.

Grenfell Solidarity March

‘We are the Love’ for Idlib – Parliament Square, London

The Black Eyed Peas song ‘Where’s the love?’ was the inspriation for a protest which was part of an international non partisan campaign to raise awareness about the massacre currently unfolding in the province of Idlib in Syria. It called for an end to the violence in Idlib, the opening up a the supply of humanitarian aid to the people of the city and for those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity to be brought to justice.

Campaigners stood in a line holding posters which spelt out the message ‘#we are the love’ but this was difficult to photograph, partly because of its length, but also because of the drummer and bagpiper marching in front of it. Bagpipes in my opinion are best heard from the opposite side of the glen and I didn’t stay long.

‘We are the Love’ for Idlib

Hands off Sudan march, Hyde Park Corner

I left Parliament Square to look for a protest march over the massacre of 124 peaceful protesters by Janjaweed militias (Rapid Support Forces) in Khartoum and other cities in Sudan.

They were marching from the United Arab Emirates Embassy in Belgrave Square, and going to protest at the Egyptian and Saudi embassies, as all three countries had been visited by Sudan’s ruling military council and they were thought to be opposing a democratic Sudan and the movement which had led to the removal of corrupt president al-Bashir in April 2019.

From the timings I had for the event I expected them to be at the Egyptian embassy in Mayfair, but when I rushed there from Parliament Square found only a small group of supporters waiting for the protest.

I didn’t know the exact route of the march, but walked back along what seemed to be the its most obvious path, and was very pleased when I got to Hyde Park Corner to see and hear them just emerging from Grosvenor Crescent around a hundred yards away.

They stopped on the pavement just before crossing the road there and there was a lot of loud chanting, mainly led by women at the front of the protests, before crossing the road towards Hyde Park. They stopped again there and there seemed to be some arguments between protests and there was much more loud shouting and chanting, none of which I could understand.

Fortunately many of the posters and placards were in English, and as well the many Sudanese there were also some supporters of English left groups marching with them.

Hands off Sudan march

Remember Grenfell – Demand Justice

Remember Grenfell – Demand Justice -Five years today on from the terrible tragedy at Grenfell Tower, still none of those whose criminal acts led to it has been brought to justice. The inquiry stutters on, filling in some of the details but pushing hopes of any action further and further into the long grass. So far its only result has been to unfairly pillory the London Fire Brigade who faced an unprecedented situation for which they were ill-equipped with heroism.

On the first anniversary of the disaster I went to the Massive Silent Walk for Grenfell Anniversary that began close to the tower and joined the marchers, taking photographs but also expressing my own shock and sympathy for the victims and disgust at the failure of the local and national government and our legal system both in making the fire almost inevitable and in failing to support the victims.

I’m sorry I’m not able to attend today’s march in North Kensington, but some months ago I agreed to give a talk tonight, failing at the time to recognise the significance of the date. So I’ll wear my green scarf on Zoom as I talk about rather happier things. But little has changed over the years and what I wrote back in 2018 still holds true, with little real changes and rather than repeat myself I’ll quote it here.

“The blackened and scarred bulk of Grenfell Tower has now been hidden by white sheeting, at its top a grey panel with a large green Grenfell heart and the message ‘Grenfell – Forever In Our Hearts’. Some felt it should have been left standing uncovered – particularly as the disaster was caused by covering up the building to make it look nicer for the academy at its base. Without that covering the fire would have been a minor incident with no loss of life.”
“The academy in front of the tower was also built without proper regard for access for fire engines to fight the fire when it happened. To make things worse, Boris Johnson had cut the fire service drastically and they no longer had the equipment to fight the fire in the upper stories – it had to come from Surrey – and successive governments had removed regulations and cut safety inspections (they called it ‘red tape) which would have prevented the inferno.”

“The blackened and scarred bulk of Grenfell Tower has now been hidden by white sheeting, at its top a grey panel with a large green Grenfell heart and the message ‘Grenfell – Forever In Our Hearts’. Some felt it should have been left standing uncovered – particularly as the disaster was caused by covering up the building to make it look nicer for the academy at its base. Without that covering the fire would have been a minor incident with no loss of life.”

“The academy in front of the tower was also built without proper regard for access for fire engines to fight the fire when it happened. To make things worse, Boris Johnson (as London Mayor) had cut the fire service drastically and they no longer had the equipment to fight the fire in the upper stories – it had to come from Surrey – and successive governments had removed regulations and cut safety inspections (they called it ‘red tape) which would have prevented the inferno.”

“Firefighters lined both sides of Ladbroke Grove as a guard of honour for the march and were kissed and hugged by many. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott and local Labour MP Emma Dent Coad and some Labour London Assembly members were among those who took part in the silent walk, which ended in a local park. I left the march before it arrived there as it had been made clear the press were not welcome there.”

“People stop to shake hands and thank the fire-fighters. Some embrace them. While some papers and middle-class commentators try to shift blame onto the firefighters, the community has
no doubt that they are heroes who did far more than could be expected, some going back five times into the burning building. They didn’t clad it with highly combustible material, ignore obvious safety issues pointed out by residents, engage ‘experts’ to avoid proper fire inspections.”

You can read my fuller account of the walk on June 14th, 2018 with many more pictures and captions on My London Diary at Massive Silent Walk for Grenfell Anniversary

Land Justice, Hizb Ut-Tahrir & Grenfell

Land Justice, Hizb Ut-Tahrir & Grenfell.
Protests in London on 14th April 2018 calling for Land Justice, against Turkey’s support of Assad in Syria and ten months after the Grenfell fire.

The Landlords’ Game – Mayfair, Belgravia & Brompton

I photographed a tour of London’s wealthiest areas led by the Land Justice Network which reminded us that land ownership in Britain is one of the most unequal in the world, both in rural areas and in cities.

This unequal ownership of land is the basis of our class system and the aggregation of wealth and inequality that have led to our present crisis levels of homelessness and degradation. Largely beginning with the Norman conquest, the battles over land have continued over the centuries, with the enclosure of common land and the current redevelopment of public land, particularly council estates, as private housing for the wealthy.

The tour began in Mayfair, where the land is largely owned by the Duke of Westminster, along with much more of the London borough, although the family’s Grosvenor Group Limited has diversified and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grosvenor_Group according to Wikipedia also owns properties in other parts of Britain and Ireland, Canada, the United States, Australia, the Asia Pacific region and parts of Europe.

From a rally at its meeting point in Brown Hart Gardens where there were songs and speeches by the Land Justice Network, the Landworkers Alliance, the tour including activists from Class War and the Revolutionary Communist Group marched to Grosvenor Square where we listed to a surprisingly lucid account of the anti-Vietnam war protest there on 27th October 1968. I think I was there too, but other than a vague recollection of wildly charging police horses and panic can remember little – and in those days I didn’t even have a camera that worked.

We moved off, stopping briefly at a house known to have been left empty for around 15 years, one of many such empty properties in a city with a huge housing shortage to call for councils to be able to levy truly punitive council tax or requisition long-term empty properties.

A short distance along the road we stopped at ‘Grouse House’ owned by Odey Asset Management whose owner Crispin Odey formed ‘You Forgot the Birds’ to oppose RSPB who want to stop the killing of birds for what is wrongly called sport.

There was a speech by Private Eye journalist Richard Brooks who with his colleague Christian Eriksson set about untangling the great offshore corporate web that covers the country – and you can download his report Tax Havens – Selling England By The Offshore Pound from the Private Eye web site.

Kat from the RCG (Revolutionary Communist Group) also spoke, reminding us that the CIty of London is a huge3 tax haven and the money laundering capital of the world.

The tour continue to Park Lane, where there was a short protest outside estate agent Foxtons which sells and rents some of the most expensive property in London, and Class War were prominent in pointing out that both the Tory government and the Labour local authorities have relied on estate agents to direct their housing strategies.

The tour stopped again on Park Lane outside the Grosvenor House Hotel, the venue for the notorious annual Property Developers Awards before crossing into Hyde Park, open to the public since 1637, but where we were reminded of the battles to make many other parks public, and how now many have only been saved by the growth of groups of volunteer ‘Friends’. We also heard a plea for more free public toilets. Many were closed in the 1980s because of a ‘gay scare’ and others such as those at Hyde Park Corner now charge for use – 50p a visit here.

Across Knightsbridge we walked along one of the most expensive streets in Britain, Grosvenor Crescent to a statue of the first Marquess of Westminster on the corner of Belgrave Square, which has a plaque stating the family came here with William the Conqueror. He divided out the conquered land and many great estates date from then, though the Grosvenor Estate holdings in London came to them when 3rd Baronet Sir Thomas Grosvenor married Mary Davies, the heiress to the 500 acre Manor of Ebury in 1677. He was 21 at the time, but she was only 12. The estate, then largely swamps later became Mayfair, Park Lane and Belgravia.

A left the tour here for a few minutes to photograph the Hizb Ut-Tahrir protest outside the Turkish Embassy, but rejoined it later at the final rally in Cadogan Square, part of the 93 acres of the Cadogan Estate which includes the wealthiest parts of Kensington & Chelsea. Much of the money which enabled Sir Hans Sloane to buy the Manor of Chelsea came from African slave labour on sugar estates in Jamaica. His daughter Elizabeth Sloane married Charles Cadogan in 1712.

Hizb Ut-Tahrir protest against Turkey – Turkish Embassy, Belgrave Square

Hizb Ut-Tahrir Britain, Sunni Muslims who call for the restoration of the Muslim caliphate which whose armies conquered much of the Middle East in 632-661CE, were protesting against Turkish complicity in handing Syria back to Assad in accordance with colonial interests and calling for Muslims to support the brave people of Palestine who “are raising their voices to speak out and protest against the illegal occupation, as they are mercilessly killed by the Zionist regime.”

*Women were strictly segregated from men at the protest and some stewards were unhappy for me to photograph them.*

Their criticism of Turkey goes back to the 1922 abolition of the Ottoman state and the Turkish recognition of the Zionist occupation of Palestine in 1949, and they accuse President Erdogan of strengthening Turkish military and economic ties with Israel. They claim the Turkish state is a secular state “whose role is to protect the colonialist’s interests in our lands, defending and strengthening our enemies who murder us in Syria and Palestine” and call on “Muslims to join us to STAND, STRUGGLE AND SACRIFICE FOR PALESTINE.”

Grenfell – 10 months on – Kensington Town Hall

A large crowd was assembling at Kensington Town Hall for the monthly silent walk marking 10 months since the disaster. They hold Kensington and Chelsea Council responsible for the tragedy and for failing to deal effectively with is aftermath, with many survivors still not properly rehoused.

Five years later a public inquiry is still proceeding at a snail’s pace, and there have been no prosecutions of those responsible for approving and installing the highly dangerous cladding on the tower block, for cutting costs, for failing to install the cladding properly, for governments cutting out essential safety regulations which their friends in the building industry thought were ‘red tape’ hampering profits and it looks unlikely if there will ever be justice. Instead we have seen politicians trying to blame the residents for not leaving the building and almost entirely unjustified criticism of the fire service.

There were some speeches, poetry and music before the silent march began, and then a very noisy protest by bikers from the Ace Cafe including Muslim bikers Deen Riders and others taking part in a United Ride 4 Grenfell, from the Ace Cafe on the North Circular Rd, riding to Parliament and then coming to Kensington Town Hall.

The long silent walk towards Grenfell Tower began immediately after the bikers left, and I followed it for a short distance before turning away and leaving to make my way home.

More at:
Grenfell silent walk – 10 months on
Bikers for Grenfell
Hizb Ut-Tahrir protest against Turkey
The Landlords’ Game

Grenfell Six Months On – 2017

Today it is four and a half years after the terrible fire at Grenfell Tower which began early in the morning of 14th June 2017, killing 72 people and injuring over 70 others. And many or all of those who escaped will suffer from both physical and mental effects of the night for the rest of their lives, as too will many of the firefighters and other emergency workers.

The pictures here come from the monthly slow and silent walk to demand justice and remembering those killed at Grenfell Tower six months after the fire on Thursday 14th December 2017.

The fire was an event waiting to happen, and warnings of the danger by residents and neighbours had been ignored by the building managers. The reasons the fire spread as it did were almost immediately obvious and rapidly published including the report by Architects For Social Housing, The Truth about Grenfell Tower which came out around five weeks later.

Rather than take action against those responsible, a public inquiry was set up, and began three months later. It’s main effect has been to delay justice, and its first sessions and report were largely devoted in trying to shift blame on to London Fire Brigade, whose efforts on the night had showed incredible determination and bravery.

Cuts in the London Fire Service made by Boris Johnson when he was London Mayor had left them both understaffed and under-equipped, while earlier privatisation of some of the fire inspection and certification allowed dangerous conditions of buildings including this to go unchecked. The LFB did not have a suitable fire engine for dealing with the high rise fire, and one had to be brought from Surrey.

Governments of both parties over the years had weakened the regulations and inspections in the name of ‘cutting red tape’, responding to lobbying from the building industry, which allowed both highly flammable cladding to be use, and also for it to be incorrectly installed without essential safety gaps.

With tall blocks that meet proper safety standards a fire like this which began with a faulty refrigerator in a single flat would have been contained within that single flat. Many such fires have taken place and been contained, sometimes with most other residents of the building being completely unaware of them. Had Grenfell not been wrongly fitted with unsuitable cladding this would have been the case here, though there were also other problems particularly with the stairways and dry riser that made escape and fighting the fire much more dangerous.

Had the LFB been aware of the problems they were to face things would have been very different (and they would have called for the building to be shut down and the faults rectified.) But they arrived at the fire ignorant of the many defects, and were met with a situation which was for them unprecedented. With hindsight it is possible to say they could have made a decision to go against all their training on fires in tall blocks and try to evacuate the building earlier, but I think it unfair to blame them for not doing so.

The public inquiry continues, and has shed some more light on the details of the crimes that led to those 72 deaths, but seems mainly to have been taken up by those eager to shift responsibility from their actions to others.

Tonight, 14th December 2021, four and a half years later, another silent walk will take place, gathering at Kensington Town Hall at 6pm to start at 6.30pm. This is the first for 18 months due to Covid. The invitation from Grenfell United states:

“We invite you to join us on our Silent Walk in our campaign for Justice.

To show those responsible we are not going anywhere until we have real Change and Justice. So another Grenfell never happens again.”
Grenfell United

More about the walk in 2017: Grenfell Silent Walk – 6 months on

Fire Risk Tower Blocks

Newham 12 August 2017

In the now over four years since the disastrous Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017 there has been little change and no reckoning, with a tediously slow inquiry taking place that began by shifting blame unfairly onto the firefighters but is at last making clear some of the deliberate failures by local government, manufacturers and installers of the fatal cladding and others with a complete disregard for the safety of those living in the tower.

Cladding was not of course the only issue, and there were many other failings that led to the terrible loss of life. Most basic was the attitude of governments of both parties towards health and safety issues, describing essential safety regulations as “red tape” and dismantling what were essential checks to increase the profitability of builders and developers and reduce the liabilities of building owners. It was a system that needed reforming and strengthening, perhaps learning from practice in other countries to provide effective control and not abandoning to commercial whim.

Most of what has emerged in the inquiry only reinforces what was already made clear from informed reports – such as that by Architects for Social Housing – within weeks of the fire, adding truly shameful detail to the broader outline. It surely should have come out in courts within months of the fire and some of those responsible might well be behind bars and companies charged with massive fines, and the main point of the inquiry seems to be to prevent the course of justice.

Local authorities and building owners have been forced to inspect their high-rise properties, and the government has provided at lest some of the money it promised to replace unsafe cladding in the public sector. But little has been done for those living in private blocks who are still living in fear and now pay increased charges for extra fire safety provisions. A parliamentary briefing paper estimates the total cost of replacement of unsafe cladding at around £15m, and so far government has come up with a third of that. Government policy has changed from the initial promise to fund “remediation of historical safety defects, to a suggestion that leaseholders should be protected from unaffordable costs” and even the provision for a low interest scheme to ensure they would not pay more than £50 a month has failed to materialise despite the promise in the current Building Safety Bill.

In August 2017, a number of tower blocks in the London borough of Newham were found to have unsafe cladding. Housing activists Focus E15 Mothers led a demonstration putting pressure on the council to act urgently to make the blocks safe. The council came to a decision the following month to remove the cladding though work to do so only began in April 2018.

The march began at Ferrier Point in Canning Town, with other groups including East End Sisters Uncut, Movement for Justice, the Socialist Party, the Revolutionary Communist Party, One Housing campaigners and Whitechapel Anarchists joining Focus E15 and some tower block residents.

From there they marched to Tanner Point in Plaistow North for a longer rally outside, including some speeches from tower residents. Then came another long march to Stratford and the Carpenters Estate.

The Carpenters Estate was a popular estate, close to Stratford station and the town centre, and was viewed by the council as a prime opportunity for highly profitable redevelopment schemes, wanting to demolish the estate which is well-planned and in good condition. Focus E15 led opposition that in 2013 ended plans for UCL to set up a new campus here and have constantly urged the council to bring back people to the estate where despite a critical housing shortage in the borough, 400 good homes had been kept empty for over 10 years. The march ended with a ‘hands around the Carpenters Estate’ solidarity event against decanting, demolition and social cleansing.

More pictures at Fire Risk Tower Blocks.

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.

15th June 2019

*Grenfell protest at Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government*

Saturday 15th July was one of those days when my local station has no trains. I don’t think it used to happen, or at least only very rarely, before we privatised the railways, but it seems to be happening on quite a few weekends every year now. At first when these weekends began there was complete chaos, with unmarked rail replacement buses where the only way to find out if they were going the right way for you was to ask the driver, who usually knew, though often didn’t know how to get there and had to send a call out to passengers asking if anyone knew where the station was.

One one memorable occasion a passenger directed a double-decker down a road that, although it was the route I might have walked, narrows halfway down to rather less than bus width. After a very tricky and lengthy reverse we got back to the main road and drove on, past the correct turning. I and other passengers jumped out of our seats to tell the driver. He drove on, looking desperately for somewhere to turn the bus in busy narrow streets, finally doing a 3 or 4 point turn where the main road widened a little almost a mile on. This time as we cam back we made sure he turned left at the correct point.

*Grenfell – 72 Dead and still no arrests How Come?*

After a few such incidents, things did get sorted out more, but still too often the rail replacement bus arrived a couple of minutes late and missed its supposed connection – apparently no one had the authority to hold it for the bus. A journey that usually took 35 minutes often ended up close to two hours (and I’d face similar chaos on the way home.) So unless there was something really important to photograph I often stayed home.

*Yvette Williams demanding the Truth and Justice For Grenfell*

My alternative was to take a bus to Heathrow or Hatton Cross where I could join the Underground, and this became more viable once I could simply swipe a credit card to pay for the ride. It was still a slow journey, but more reliable than the rail replacement lottery. And on Saturday 15 June I took the bus and made a few pictures on the way from the upper deck.

It was the day after the second anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire in which 72 people died, and Justice For Grenfell had organised a solidarity march, starting and finishing at Downing St. After some speeches at Downing St, we marched to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government offices in the Home Office building to protest there, with a few more speeches before leaving to march back to Downing St for a final rally.

The event was supported by housing and building safety campaigners including Defend Council Housing and by branches of the Fire Brigades Union from around the UK.

As I walked through Parliament Square on my way to take the tube to another protest, I stopped briefly to photograph two events there. One was ‘We are the Love’ for Idlib inspired by the Black Eyed Peas song Where’s the love? to raise awareness about the massacre currently unfolding in the province of Idlib in Syria. Just along from this line of people holding large cards each with a letter of their message, and a drummer and a piper, was a small and quieter protest about the wrongful conviction of Brendan Dassey and his uncle, Steven Avery for the murder of Teresa Halbach in Wisconsin in 2005. The long and convoluted case which reflects badly on both the local police and the US legal system was the subject of a lenghty TV series.

By now I thought I would be too late to join the Hands Off Sudan march at its start at the UAE Embassy and guessed they might have got as far as the Egyptian Embassy, but when I arrived found just a few there waiting for the march. So I began to walk back on what I thought might be their route. I heard them before I could see them as I walked across Hyde Park corner, and the large and noisy crowd emerged from Grosvenor Cresecent as I turned down Grosvenor Place.

They were protesting after 124 peaceful protesters were massacred by Janjaweed militias (Rapid Support Forces) in Khartoum. Protests had begun in December and appeared to be causing a peaceful transition to democracy, removing corrupt president al-Bashir, until the heads of the ruling military council visited Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt, all countries opposed to a democratic Sudan – and today’s march was going to each of their embassies.

The marchers seemed to be stopping every few yards around Hyde Park Corner and singing and dancing and shouting slogans. Half an hour after I met them they had only moved on a few hundred yards are were slowly making their way up Park Lane. I felt I had taken enough photographs and went back to Hyde Park Corner for the slow journey home via Hatton Cross.

Hands off Sudan march
‘We are the Love’ for Idlib
Grenfell Solidarity March
Staines, Heathrow, Bedfont

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.