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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.

Occupy & Women’s Equality – 2011

Occupy & Women’s Equality – On Saturday 19 November 2011 Occupy London was in full swing in St Paul’s Churchyard and elsewhere and the Fawcett Society were protesting against government cuts that were reversing the movement to greater equality for women.

Don’t Turn The Clock Back – Temple to Westminster

The Fawcett Society were angered by government’s cuts which they said were putting the clock back on the advances which women have made towards equality since the 1950s, and had organised a march in protest with a 1950s theme.

Many of the marchers, mainly women, had come dressed in 1950s styles “ranging from the most elegant of Paris fashion of the day to aprons, hairnets and curlers. Others carried brushes or brooms, wooden spoons or other kitchen implements as symbols of what they felt was the only role our government can envisage for women, the ‘good little wife’.”

Many women had been particularly angered by the sexist and patronising putdown in parliament made by then Prime Minister David Cameron, a man who a few days ago made a surprising return to a leading role in UK politics. Probably insulated as he has been from normal life by an education at Eton and Oxford and wealth he thought little about his sexist and patronising put-down ‘Calm Down Dear!’ to Labour’s Angela Eagle in the House of Commons, but it enraged at least half the nation.

On the march people chanted ‘Calm Down Dear!’ followed by the deafening response ‘No We Won’t!‘ The marchers also had some caustic comments directed at the press (though not us journalists covering the march) for their “belittlling labelling of some groups of women in public life – such as ‘Blair’s Babes‘ – as well as the general predominance of semi-pornographic imagery and demeaning attitudes to women.”

But it was the cuts that really were the focus of the march, particularly the cuts in public services. A majority of those who will lose their jobs are women, employed in the NHS and elsewhere. And women depend more on the various services that will be cut, and will also have disproportionally to provide unpaid services such as care to make up for those cut. Finally the cuts in pensions will also have a larger effect on women who were already seeing a raise in their pension age.

The Fawcett Society was founded in 1866 to campaign peacefully for votes for women and remains a powerful campaigning organisation for equal rights. It had called on a wide range of speakers for its rally including journalist Tanya Gold, Estelle Hart, NUS Women’s Officer, comedians Kate Smurthwaite and Josie Lond, Heather Wakefield of Unison, Vivienne Hayes from the Women’s Resource Centre, Chitra Nagarajan of Southall Black sisters. Aisha Mirza from UK Uncut and a spokesperson for the Turkish and Kurdish Refugee Women’s group.

More at Don’t Turn The Clock Back.

At Occupy London

I’d visited Occupy in St Paul’s Churchyard briefly before going to photograph the Fawcett Society march and returned later in the day to visit the ‘Bank of Ideas’ in Sun Street and Occupy Finsbury Circus before returning to St Pauls to hear a range of speakers on other campaigns both in London and around the world, including news of the Occupy movement from the USA and Bristol, where the occupation seems not to have attracted the opposition shown by the City authorities and sections of the church in London.

*A meeting in progress in the Bank of Ideas*

The Bank of Ideas was an empty former UBS bank building in Sun Street that was occupied and used for a wide range of meetings and discussions.

*People listen to a wide range of speakers on the steps of St Pauls*

Later a group who had taken part in the non-Stop Picket of South Africa House started by the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group on 19 April 1986 shared some of their songs and their experience.

They had defied defied the attempts of British police, the British government and the South African embassy to remove them for almost 4 years until Mandela was released in 1990. There had been around a thousand arrests, but 96% of the cases brought to court were dismissed. Before this they had organised a number of shorter non-stop protests outside the embassy, the first of which in 1981 lasted 86 days and resulted in South African political prisoners including David Kitson being moved to better conditions.

The official Anti-Apartheid Movement opposed their actions and expelled them from the movement, warned trade union and local anti-apartheid groups not to have anything to do with them and asked Westminster Council to remove them. It wanted to avoid any confrontation with the British Government and opposed the City of London group’s support for other African liberation movements as well as the African National Congress.

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.

People’s Assembly, Class War, Anonymous, ENA & Dykes

People’s Assembly, Class War, Anonymous, ENA & Dykes: Saturday 22nd Jone 2013, ten years ago today, was a rather odd day for me. It began with an event I didn’t go to and instead photographed groups outside, was followed by an meeting to which I had been invited by the extreme right English National Alliance who needed a police escort to lay flowers at the Cenotaph and ended with a Dyke March.

People’s Assembly – Methodist Central Hall, Westminster

I had decided not to attend the People’s Assembly being held in Methodist Central Hall. It was a large event but was being managed so that any criticisms of the Labour Party and trade unions were banned from the main event, with people including Ken Loach being relegated to a hall down the road.

Others had expressed the opinion that this event was intended to “disperse some of the head of steam that had built up among the rank and file” for more direct action against the government. It reminded me of events following the huge ‘Stop the War’ protest in Feb 2003, at which Tony Benn and others had called for decisive action, but Stop the War had failed to do more than call instead for just another protest a while after Blair had declared war. It was hardly surprising that this was much smaller than the previous event and had absolutely no effect.

I commented in 2013:

It was a feeling reinforced by the statement ‘We will work together with leading experts and campaigners both here and abroad, and friendly think tanks, to develop rapidly key policies and an alternative programme for a new anti-austerity government‘, which seemed to make it clear that after the assembly it was the long grass for any ideas, and an end to any action.
My London Diary

And there seems to have been nothing that has happened as a result of this event; for a few years Corbyn gave the Labour Party some hope, but he was stopped from winning a general election by the right in the party. Nothing in Labour policies now suggests they would offer any real alternative should the Tories lose the next election. Or that they can win if the Conservatives don’t defeat themselves.

More at People’s Assembly.

Outside The People’s Assembly – Class War

One of several groups protesting outside was Class War. Ian Bone had called for “a f**king big mob outside” (my asterisks) the People’s Assembly, but as I wrote, only around enough for a football team turned up for their alternative event, though there were several other groups around also opposed to the “pointless jamboree” taking place inside the hall.

So although there were a series of speeches by Bone and others, all amusing and in parts thought-provoking and certainly more interesting than most inside the hall, these were largely made to a mainly empty street.

Action Not Talk?

Outside The People’s Assembly – Anonymous Occupy the Grass

A small group of ‘Anonymous’ and Occupy London supporters handed out leaflets, offered free hugs, and had a picnic outside the People’s Assembly Against Austerity.

Police kept a close eye on them but didn’t interfere with them.

Anonymous Occupy the Grass

ENA Meet Left Opposition – Westminster

The English National Alliance is one of a number of small ‘patriotic’ groups on the extreme right who I’ve photographed over the years, with some members who have also been involved in other similar groups. Their leader is a former BNP member who was expelled from the EDL in 2011 apparently for extremist statements.

Although I’ve made no secret of my disagreements with their views, I’ve always tried to present them clearly and accurately as a journalist, as with other groups I’ve photographed. I’ve felt it was my job, and one that informs the wider public who I think can be trusted to see them for what they are.

Many in these groups complain about the unfair press they receive, and they had a particular gripe that some pictures of people at protests who were just waving being captioned as making Nazi salutes. It certainly has happened, but as they agreed there are also some people at protests by extreme-right groups who will make Nazi salutes.

The ENA had decided to march to the Cenotaph to lay flowers on the way to taking a statement of their views in to Downing Street and I had been invited to join them at the pub where they were meeting for the march. I was surprised how few of them had come, as was the event organiser, and there were a number of phone calls made to try to get more to turn up, but eventually they decided to march.

I was surprised when the small march and its police escort turned down in front of the hall where the People’s Assembly was taking place and small groups of left-wingers were still protesting outside. I’m not sure whether the marchers or police had decided to take this route, but the response was entirely predictable.

Some of the marchers shouted “No Surrender” and they were almost immediately surrounded by people shouting back at them “Fascist scum!”, “Racists!” and there were some minor scuffles. Police managed to push a way through for them and made one arrest before the ENA march, now accompanied by a few counter-protesters was able to continue towards the Cenotaph and Downing St.

By now it was time for me to be at another event, and said goodbye to the ENA and left, with a copy of the long statement they were about to take in addressed to David Cameron from the “Patriots of England who are supporters of every street activist and political party in the United Kingdom.”

Well, no. The last half mile had been clear about that. But you can read my précis of their statement with a number of quotes along with more about the march on My London Diary at ENA Meet Left Opposition.

Dykes March – Berkeley Square to Soho

The Dyke March the previous year in London had been the first such event for many years, and this year’s event was on a rather smaller scale, but there were still around 300 who turned out to march.

The event began with a rally with speakers who included Roz Kaveney, (above), writer, critic, poet and deputy editor of the trans digital magazine META who read one of her poems and long-standing LGBT activist and historian Sue Sanders who tested the crowd on their knowledge of lesbian icons including suffragette composer Dame Ethyl Smyth. I think I recognised more of them than most of the crowd.

The route the march took was based in part on that taken – though in the opposite direction and ending in Hyde park by the 1908 Votes For Women March.

The march was to end with a rally in Soho Square, but I left it to go home from Piccadilly Circus.

Many more pictures at Dykes March.

Occupy, Women’s Equality and Bank of Ideas – 2011

I did some travelling around Central London on Saturday 19th November 2011, from the City to Westminster mainly to cover various aspects of Occupy London, but also to a march about women’s rights organised by the Fawcett Society.

Saturday Morning Occupy London – St Paul’s Cathedral, Saturday 19 November 2011

My work began at St Paul’s Cathedral, where five weeks earlier I had come with Occupy who were intending to Occupy the nearby Stock Exchange. Police had managed to deny them access to the ‘private’ public Paternoster Square in front of the Stock Exchange, and they had instead set up camp at St Paul’s, where they were still in occupation.

For various reasons, not least my age and health, I hadn’t felt able to take part in this occupation though I felt a great deal of sympathy with its aims, and living on the edge of London had not been able to commit myself to photographing it like some other photographers, but I had kept in touch and had called in a number of times at St Paul’s and to the related occupation at Finsbury Square, as well as meeting people from Occupy taking part in other protests.

There was nothing particular scheduled for my visit on this Saturday morning – it was rather more a social call and an opportunity to find out more about what would be happening later in the day. The occupation at St Paul’s continued until the end of February, and I was sorry to be on a hillside in the north of England when I got a phone call from Occupy LSX asking for me to come and take pictures of the anticipated eviction and unable to make it.

Saturday Morning Occupy London.

Don’t Turn The Clock Back – Embankment to Westminster, Saturday 19 Nov 2011

I walked from St Paul’s to Temple, where around a thousand people, mainly women, were preparing to march from Temple past Downing St to a rally next to the Treasury in King Charles St, calling to the government not to turn back time on women’s equality though the cuts they were making.

The Fawcett Society who had organised the march say the cuts will put the clock back on the advances which women have made towards equality since the 1950s, and called on those taking part in the protest to come in 1950s style, variously interpreted by those taking part from Paris fashions to carrying brushes or brooms, wooden spoons or other kitchen implements as symbols of what they felt was the only role our government can envisage for women, the “good little wife.”

When the march neared Downing Street the slogans changed to ‘Calm Down Dear!’ with the deafening response ‘No We Won’t‘, repeating David Cameron’s sexist and patronising put down directed at Labour MP Angela Eagle in the House of Commons.

There were criticisms of the press for their belittling labelling of some groups of women in public life – such as ‘Blair’s Babes’ – as well as the general predominance of semi-pornographic imagery and demeaning attitudes to women. But most of the criticism was aimed at the government for the cuts which will affect women disproportionally as many more women than men in the NHS and other public sector services will lose their jobs and women are more dependent on these services than men.

As well as the Fawcett Society, founded in 1866 to campaign peacefully for votes for women and still a powerful campaigning organisation for equal rights, many other organisations were represented on the march from across society and politics, including journalists, trade unionists, and campaigning organisations including Southall Black Sisters, UK Uncut and the Turkish and Kurdish Refugee Women’s group.

Don’t Turn The C l ock Back

Bank of Ideas & Finsbury Square – Sun Street & Finsbury Square, Saturday 19 Nov 2011

Occupy had set up The Bank of Ideas in a disused bank building, empty for several years, on Sun St and there I was able to listen to one of many talks taking place – an interesting and detailed presentation and question and answer session on the surveillance society.

I walked the short distance to Finsbury Square and made a few pictures of the tents in the Occupy camp there, but there were very few people around and little was happening.

I was told most of the residents had either gone to take part in events at the Bank of Ideas or at St Paul’s, where I then also made my way to.

Bank of Ideas & Finsbury Square

Speakers At Occupy London – St Paul’s Cathedral, Saturday 19 Nov 2011

On the steps of St Paul’s I joined a crowd of a few hundred listening to speakers giving news from other occupations including those in New York and Bristol.

They were followed by a number of others who had come to give their support to Occupy, including among others Jeremy Corbyn, Vivienne Westwood and the now retired Methodist minister David Haslam who has been involved with many campaigns over the years.

Speakers At Occupy London

City of London Anti-Apartheid Group At Occupy London – Saturday 19 November 2011

Also visiting St Paul’s to give support were a group who had taken part in the Non-Stop Picket of South Africa House started by the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group on 19 April 1986 who defied attempts by British police, the British government and the South African embassy to remove them for almost 4 years until Nelson Mandela was finally released in 1990. Over a thousand arrests were made – including of Jeremy Corbyn, but 96% of these were dismissed by the courts.

The picket gained widespread support around the world but were attacked and disowned by the official leadership of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, because of their support for revolutionary movements other than the ANC, and because the official movement wanted to avoid confrontation with the UK government. The group had been expelled from the AAM around a year before their long non-stop protest began, after carrying out a number of shorter protests. The group came and spoke about the protest and also sang – singing played an important part in keeping up their four year non-stop vigil outside South Africa House.

City of London Anti-Apartheid Group

Christmas Is Coming – 2014

Three of the four posts I made on December 6th 2014 had a Christmas theme, with two of them around the then annual Santacon event in London. In 2014, around a thousand Santas were gathering on Clapham Common and more at two other locations in East and North London, along with the odd elf, reindeer to start to a day-long alcohol-fuelled crawl through London, eventually meeting up somehere in the centre of the city in the early evening.

I followed them for a short distance, but I’d actually come to Clapham for an entirely different event, the South London March for Free Education, part of a national day of education activism against tuition fees, where students and supporters including Lambeth Left Unity and South London Defend Education were meeting to march to a rally in Brixton.

It was a rather smaller march than anticipated – perhaps many students were in Santa costumes on another event, or busy with Christmas shopping but I marched around a mile with them taking pictures before getting the tube into Central London.

The Fossil Free Nativity – Churches Divest! in the area between Westminster Abbey and Methodist Central Hall was organised and performed by Christian Climate Action and Occupy London, and was an entertaining if rather amateur performance starring Westley Ingram who wrote the play and performed as the Angel Gabriel, and George Barda of Occupy who played Joseph with his child as the baby Jesus. It was part of a continuing campaign to get churches to disinvest from fossil fuel companies.

From Westminster I set off in a bus towards north London in search of Santas, jumping off when I saw a red cloud of them in the distance. Or rather ringing the bell and fortunately it was not far from a stop where the driver would open a door. I don’t at all mind wearing a mask for Covid, but still feel something of a loss of freedom over the loss of open-door hop-on, hop-off buses.

Thousands in Santa suits and other Xmas deviations, police trying hard to keep smiling, cans of beer, doubtfully soft drinks, just a few Brussel sprouts in the air, crowded bars, sprawling mass of mainly young people having fun on the streets of London. Santacon!

I’d met a couple of photographer friends also out photographing the Santas and they packed up and left as the light fell, while I continued working with flash for another quarter of hour or so, until a phone call alerted me to a pint awaiting me in a local pub. I’d been photographing people drinking for hours but all that had passed my lips to that point was water, and I was ready to break that particular fast with a little Christmas celebration.

Santacon North London
Fossil Free Nativity – Churches Divest!
South London March for Free Education
Santacon Start in Clapham

Ten Years Ago – 3 Dec 2021

City Xmas Celebrations

I thought I’d see how the City of London was celebrating Christmas and took a few pictures of a real life Music Box in front of the Royal Exchange before going inside and being told I couldn’t take photographs. And although I’d been told there were free drinks I think they were only available for the kind of people who looked as if they would spend vast amounts on the luxury items being sold inside. I went out and walked towards St Paul’s Cathedral, pausing briefly to photograph a band and Santa who had come with a couple of reindeer who seemed rather small to me for his lengthy journey.

City Xmas Celebrations

Occupy LSX Climate Justice Workshops

On the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral was a plain coffin with the message ‘25,700 EXCESS WINTER DEATHS’, a rather lower figure than that I photographed at last week’s Fuel Poverty Action protest – last winter the number was 63,000. Of course this can’t all be put down to 10 years of Tory austerity, and Covid will have played a part, though of course flu deaths were down.

Workshops are not generally the most exciting things to photograph, and I only took a few pictures. I left Occupy LSX shortly after they began a ‘Climate Walk of Shame’ around the offices of various climate change villians (‘unsavoury sites of climate criminality’) which began rather later than advertised to make my way to the Climate March (where they were also heading.)

Occupy LSX Climate Justice Workshops

Stand Up For Climate Justice

Ten years ago we had a chance to begin to disastrous climate change, but world leaders failed to lead. The protest was organised by the Campaign Against Climate Change and around a thousand people marched through London calling for Climate Justice, highlighting the fact the 7% of the world’s population cause 50% of the worlds emissions as the Durban climate talks take place. This was COP17 but by the time of COP26 in Glasgow little had changed.

Here’s a few paragraphs from the post I wrote then on My London Dairy:

The 17th UN climate change conference taking place in Durban is widely expected to lead to a breakdown in efforts to combat global climate change, as the US continues to block serious attempts to combat climate change. The continued refusal of the US to accept mandatory limits on carbon emissions seems likely to prevent any progress on global reductions in emissions, and seems certain to lead to catastrophic increases in global temperature. To put it bluntly, our planet is going to fry.
Currently predicted global temperature rises by the end of the century would lead to an environmental crisis that would be expected to lead to huge areas of the world becoming uninhabitable, and billions dying through flood, famine and and other catastrophes. Those who will die will largely be the poor who currently are responsible for only a small proportion of the emissions, while the rich and highly polluting are those who will survive.
There is no longer any serious scientific debate about the reality of climate change, just about the the exact magnitude of the effects and the timescales involved. But all informed opinion agrees that urgent action is needed. We need to make drastic cuts in carbon emissions. The most industrialised countries who have contributed most to the increase in CO2 levels over the past centuries have a particular moral obligation to make drastic cuts.

Deja-vu all over again! Though perhaps now I might have added something about Australia, China and India also heads firmly in the sand, and also about species extinction – including possibly ours.

Stand Up For Climate Justice

Congolese Election Protests Continue

Congolese continued their protests in London against the election fraud, rapes and massacres and called on the British government to withdraw its support from the immoral regime of President Kabila responsible for the atrocities and voted out by the people.

Congolese Protest Against Kabila Vote-Rigging

London Wandering

As often while walking about London between the various events I photographed I took a few pictures, including some in the city centre, and others as I made my way to and from an evening event in North Acton where a photographer friend was appearing. I’ve always meant to take more photographs of London at night, but have never got around to more than the occasional picture like the one above.

And while I’ve taken many thousands of pictures along the River Thames from its source to the estuary, it’s always good to find something just a little different as in this study of bridges.

London Wandering

Ten Years Ago – 30 Nov 2011

*Occupy protesters outrun police down Haymarket*

Ten years ago today on Wednesday 30th November the TUC called a one day general strike over the government plans to cut public service pensions and their failure to enter any meaningful discussion with the trade unions on them.

The Southern & Eastern Region of the TUC, SERTUC, organised a march and rally in London, and at least 20,000 people came for a peaceful march through the capital. At the head of the march was TUC Deputy General Secretary Frances O’Grady, along with leaders of several of the other unions and professional associations taking part in today’s strike by public sector workers.

*Frances O’Grady, Dep Gen Sec of the TUC and NASUWT president John Rimmer* and a French trade unionist

Along with many strikers, including many taking strike action and marching for the first time there were also others who came to join them, including students and groups including UK Uncut and activist groups such as the Education Activist Network and other student groups, and a number of people wearing ‘Anonymous’ Guy Fawkes ‘V for Vendetta’ masks.

Some of these people began walking ahead of the official march and police stretched a line of officers across Aldwych stopping both them and the march behind them, but eventually they let the march continue. Although the march was going to Parliament along the Embankment, police had closed off Whitehall and created more traffic chaos than the large march.

UK Uncut had come to support the march and were handing out cups of tea from a yard in front of some offices on the square in what they called a ‘solidaritea!!’ action to support the strike.

Later around a hundred protesters from Occupy London rushed into the building in which mining company Xstrata has its offices in a protest against Mick Davies, its CEO, who they say “is a prime example of the greedy 1% lining their own pockets while denying workers pensions.”

They met at Picadilly Circus under the eyes of around a hundred police watching and photographing them from the steps around Eros, and after around half and hour in intermittent rain a small group rushed across the road to stand outside a branch of Boots with a banner reading ‘Precarious Workers Brigade’, but made no attempt to enter the store, which then quickly put down its metal shutters.

But this was just a diversion, and the rest of the group rushed down Haymarket behind a long banner reading ‘All Power to the 99%’ and then turned abruptly down Panton St and rushed into Panton House. The police had got rather left behind and were unable to stop them, and I followed in after some of the protesters, but got very out of breath rushing up the stairs.

*A crowd of protesters make it hard to get up the stairs*

I hadn’t picked up completely on what was happening, and failed to get up to the roof where a group of around 20 was continuing the protest against Mick Davies, CEO of mining Company Xstrata and the highest paid CEO in the UK. Police forced me and other protesters still on the stairs to go down and leave the building.

I was disappointed not to get onto the roof with other photographers, but rather pleased that, since it was impossible to take more pictures I could now go home. Those on the roof were kept there by police for rather a long time and those who had hung around on the street outside were also kettled.

See more on My London Diary:

Occupy London Expose Corporate Greed
TUC Nov 30 March

October 13th 2001-2015

Thinking about events I had photographed on October 13th I found rather a lot over the years – so here are links to some of them from 2001-2015.

There are just a few black and white pictures from the October 2001 Stop The War March in London. Back in 2001 I was still working on film, and although I had taken pictures in both black and white and colour I only had a black and white scanner.

By 2003 I was working with a digital camera, a Nikon D100, and on the 13th October I joined another thousand or so people from around the country to say ‘No to GMO’. Most of the work being done on genetic modification was aimed at increasing the profits of companies and at locking farmers into using patented seeds which had to be purchased from them and which required expensive chemical inputs and would penalise or even lead to prosecutions of those who continued with traditional methods, particularly organic farmers, and severely reduce bio-diversity. The protesters were largely concerned about the possible risks of genetic modifications that were not being subjected to thorough long-term testing. The government seemed simply to be preparing to give way to commercial pressures.

The protesters went first to the National Farmers Union, then to Downing Street (or rather outside the gates to Downing Street) then on past the Houses of Parliament to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in Smith Square. The digital pictures I was making then seem rather dark and muted and processing software then was still rather poor.

It was 2007 before I photographed anything at all relevant on 13 October again, and this time I was on a walk about The Romance of Bethnal Green, a book by Cathy Ross, which had included a number of my pictures from the 1980s.

In 2008 came ‘Climate Rush – Deeds Not Words’:

Exactly 100 years ago, more than 40 women were arrested in the ‘Suffragete Rush’ as they attempted to enter The Houses of Parliament. To mark this centenary, women concerned with the lack of political action to tackle climate change organised and led a rally in Parliament Square, calling for “men and women alike” to stand together and support three key demands:

  No airport expansion.
  No new coal-fired power stations.
  The creation of policy in line with the most recent climate science and research.

Those attending were asked to wear white, and many dressed in ways that reflected the styles of a century ago, and wore red sashes with the words ‘Reform Climate Policy’, ‘No New Coal’ ‘Climate Code Red’ and ‘No Airport Expansion’, with campaigners against a second runway at Stansted having their own ‘Suffrajets’ design. We were also offered fairy buns with ‘Deeds Not Words’ and ‘Climate Bill Now’

It was a protest that brought together some fairly diverse groups, including the Women’s Institute and the Green Party as well as Climate Rush, who, led by Tamsin Omond tried to storm their way in to the Houses of Parliament like their Suffragette predecessors, but were stopped by police. She was later arrested, not for this action but for breach of her bail conditions from the ‘Plane Stupid’ roof-top protest at the Houses of Parliament 8 months earlier.

On 13th October 2012, Zombies invaded London in a charity event, to “raise the dead and some dough in aid of St. Mungo’s“, a charity which reaches out to rough sleepers and helps them off the streets.

I went on from there to the steps of St Pauls, where on the first anniversary of their attempt to occupy the Stock Exchange, Occupy London joined a worldwide day of protest, #GlobalNoise, by the Occupy movement, to target the “political and financial elites who are held responsible for destroying our communities and the planet, resonating the ongoing wave of anti-austerity protests in Europe and around the world. At the same time #GlobalNoise is a symbol of hope and unity, building on a wide variety of struggles for global justice and solidarity, assuring that together we will create another world.“

From a rally at St Paul’s they went on to sit down at a few places around the City, before crossing London Bridge heading for an undisclosed location to occupy for the weekend. Some wanted to occupy the ‘Scoop’ next to City Hall, but others felt it wasn’t suitable. A group went on to block Tower Bridge, but then returned to join others at Scoop.

In 2015 the Zionist Federation organised a protest outside the Palestinian Authority UK Mission against the stabbings of Jews in Israel. Jewish and other groups supporting Palestinian resistance to occupation and Israeli terror came along to protest against all violence against both Jews and Palestinians in Israel and for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

I left while the two protests were continuing to shout at each other to join the candlelit vigil at Parliament by Citizens UK calling for 1000 Syrian refugees to be resettled in the UK before Christmas and 10,000 a year for the next 5 years. Six children froze to death in the camps last year and many in the UK have offered homes and support.

Friern Barnet Celebrates – Feb 5th 2013

Friern Barnet Library supporters celebrated victory in overturning Barnet Council’s closure decision in a ceremony in which the Occupy squatters who had prevented its sale handed over the library keys to the local community who will now run it.
The victory by local residents, squatters and activists from the Occupy Movement against Barnet Council is not just a local matter, but one of national (and possibly even international) importance. A great example of democracy in action it shows how a combination of campaiging, lobbying, direct action and making use of the law can win against bureacracy and greed.
Today residents and squatters came together to celebrate their victory after Barnet had agreed to lease the building to a community company set up to run it as a library, Friern Barnet Community Library (FBCL).
Friern Barnet Library Victory Celebration

Eight years on, the library is still run by the community and up until closure for Covid lockdown, a thriving centre of community activities. Local residents had set up the ‘Save Friern Barnet Library Group’ when they heard that Barnet Council were proposing to close the library, and organised petitions, lobbied councillors, organised events and got the media involved, but the council wouldn’t listen to them and went ahead and shut it in April 2012. The council saw the site – including the large green space outside as a valuable site for sale to private developers rather than the community asset it was.

In September 2012 community activist squatters, including some who had been part of Occupy London, entered the library and re-opened it, beginning a long occupation. At first some local residents were wary of associating themselves in this direct action, but soon began to work with the squatters to re-establish library services.

The council went to court to regain possession of the building, but in December the judge ruled that they had to try to negotiate some form of licence to keep the library open to preserve proportionality between the rights of protesters and of the council. Eventually they agreed to allow a community company to run it as a library

At the celebration inside the library, the occupiers (at left above) handed over the library keys to the FBCL (at right), and we all cheered before getting down to the serious business of eating the cakes and dancing around the green outside.

But some of the press photographers covering the event weren’t happy with the pictures they had (or rather hadn’t got) of the handover, and later got the two groups to restage it outside the library. It just goes to show that you should never believe what you see in the newspapers. Of course as you can see I photographed it too, but made sure my captions made clear it was staged for the photograph rather than the actual handover. Some photographers don’t see it as important, but for me it crosses a vital line of journalistic integrity – it’s my job to record not to stage events.

People went out to dance around the paved area and green spaces in front of the library which are used to hold community events.

The local councillor who had supported the residents then cut a tape to let us all back into the library, where there were some more speeches before getting down to continuing the serious business of celebration.

This was the ‘bookworm cake’ and it took a lot of candles and quite a while to light them all,

but was blown out fairly quickly, and later we all ate some.

Many more pictures at Friern Barnet Library Victory Celebration.

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.