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National March for Palestine 30 Nov 2024

National March for Palestine: On 30th November 2024 I photographed yet another large march through London calling for an end to the continuing attacks by Israel in Gaza, Lebanon and the occupied West Bank.

As usual there was a strong Jewish presence on the march – and it was opposed by a much smaller counter-demonstration by largely Jewish protesters, many calling for the release of the hostages still held in Gaza.

Many of those on the main march also want the hostages to be released, but see the only way to acheive this is not to continue the devastation and genocide in Gaza, but a ceasefire with serious negotiations towards a long-term peace in Palestine and Israel.

Last week over 200 Israelis living in the UK signed a letter to Keir Starmer and David Lammy urging them to impose sanctions on Israeli ministers Itamar Ben Gvit and Bezalel Smotrich, asking others living in the UK with Israeli citizenship to add their signatures.

In part this stated their opposition to the hateful and dangerous rhetoric of these two miniters which they say “endangers lives, obstructs the possibility of a hostage deal , and endorses calls for ethnic cleansing.”

Reported here in the Jewish press but I think ignored by the BBC and the rest of the UK press, the letter accuses the two ministers of “doing all they can to prevent a hostage and ceasefire deal and instead focusing their entire energies on their messianic aims: annexing the West Bank and settling the Gaza strip.”

The letter makes clear that the two “do not speak for us” and that opinion “polls in Israel reveal that the majority of the public supports a hostage deal and seeks an end to the war.”

Earlier the Jewish News had reported on a campaign by British Jewish organisation “Yachad, who advocate for peace and equality for Israelis and Palestinans“, also calling for sanctions against the two men, and the media more widely covered both David Cameron stating his government had been planning sanctions against these ministers and on Starmer and Lammy “mulling over” sanctions. By now these seem well overmulled.

As with all the previous marches and events calling for an end to the attacks on Gaza, the protest was entirely peaceful, with a complete absence of any antisemitism – unless you define calling for freedom for Palestine and Palestinians as antisemitic.

I wrote in my captions “As the death toll from Israel’s attacks in Gaza is now over 43,000 and many now face starvation with every hospital having been bombed and with virtually no medical supplies, and the UK is still complicit in the genocide, thousands including many Jews, marched in yet another entirely peaceful mass protest in solidarity. They call for an immediate ceasefire with the release of hostages and prisoners and for negotiations to secure a long-term just peace in the area.“

That figure of 43,000 is sadly out of date and the true figure is now considerably higher, with many bodies still buried under rubble and an increasing number of deaths from the disease and starvation caused by the continuing attacks and the deliberate denial of food, fuel and medicine. Israeli forces have destroyed much of the infrastructure as well as the organisation of society which was of course largely provided by Hamas.

We are witnessing – despite the banning of the international press from any effective access to Gaza – the large scale collective punishment of the entire population of Gaza. And the detailed reported and conclusion “that following 7 October 2023, Israel committed and is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza” by Amnesty International confirms what has been clear to almost everyone for many months

All the pictures here are from the march through London on 30th November 2024. You can see many more here in my album on the event.

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Fathers, Turkey, Routemasters, a Christmas Market and Ethiopia – 2005

Fathers, Turkey, Routemasters, a Christmas Market and Ethiopia: Text and pictures from a busy day in London on Friday 9th December 2005, exhumed, corrected and slightly polished from the depths of ‘My London Diary‘ with links to the many more pictures of each event there.

Fathers4Justice: 24 Days of Christmas Chaos – Westminster

Fathers, Turkey, Routemasters, a Christmas Market and Ethiopia - 2005 — *Santas and Mama Santas protest at Church of England and Dept of Education & Skills, Westminster*

I’ve photographed Fathers4Justice on several previous occasions. Today they were taking advantage of Christmas and the Father Christmas idea to protest against the Church of England. Being on a Friday, there were rather fewer father and mother Christmases (and Santa’s little helpers were mainly at school, though some of their dads behind the whiskers were pulling a sickie.) It was still an arresting sight to see so many figures dressed in red on the street, including some rather inflated figures in inflatable suits.

After rather a slow start events warmed up a bit outside the offices of the Church of England, and, a few yards down the road, the Department for Education and Skills. Of course our ‘serious crimes’ law now forbids the use of amplified sound in demonstrations, so the Fathers simply had to shout rather loud. The next place for a stop was of course opposite Downing Street, where there were more shouted comments. I left the march as it turned down Whitehall Place on its way to the Law Courts on Strand.
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Free Mehmet Tarhan – Turkish Airlines, Pall Mall

Outside Turkish Airlines at the bottom of Haymarket there was a picket protesting against Turkish imprisonment of protestors, in particular Mehmet Tarhan, a gay conscientious objector. Recently, his 4-year sentence for refusing military service was overruled on procedural grounds, and he is to be retried for ‘insistent insubordination with the intent of evading military service.’

London Transport – Last day for the Routemaster

The last proper bus service to use London’s signature Routemaster double-decker buses, route 159, ceased today, with its buses being replaced by more modern designs. I caught one of the last to run to take me down to Westminster, then photographed it. Although the official ‘last bus’ had already run, there were several others following on, with the final pair passing Big Ben 28 minutes after I made my picture.

Transport for London continued to use a few Routemasters running in London on two special short ‘heritage routes’ both running past Trafalgar Square, thus retaining one of our tourist attractions.

[Routemasters were first introduced in 1956 and the two ‘TfL heritage routes’ were ended in 2019 though you still see them operated by private companies in a variety of guises. Routemasters jolt, rattle and jerk on London’s streets but I do very much miss the ability to jump off and board them at the many halts and delays in the increasingly congested streets.]
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Victorian Christmas Market – Chrisp St, Poplar

*Hat Trick – Jim and Bev James Singing Chimney Sweeps*

Chrisp Street Market was part of an early post-war public housing redevelopment, the Lansbury Estate, built for the 1951 Festival Of Britain in a Docklands area that had suffered considerable bomb damage. Fifty or so years later it was beginning to show its age and there has been some tidying up and its pedestrian precincts are now rather tidier than a few years ago.

The market is bustling with life, more so than usual when I visited, as there were two days of a special Victorian Christmas event. There were various special stalls in the market, and also entertainers wandering around and performing on a small stage. Kids from two local schools had also come to perform but unfortunately I had to leave before they had really started.

I’d hoped to return on the following day, Saturday, when things would have been livelier, but in the end i just couldn’t make it.
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The Ethiopian Tragedy – Stop UK Support – Marble Arch

At Marble Arch there was a crowd gathering of Ethiopians from across Europe, come to protest at the British government’s support of an oppressive communist regime in their country. [Others describe Ethiopia as an authoritarian regime with poor civil and human rights.]

More than 70,000 people are detained by the regime, being tortured and dying in concentration camps. Britain is spending £30 million of our money to support the regime that is violating human rights there. The protestors want the British public to urge their MPs to support motions on the situation in Ethiopia and demand an end to these crimes.
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Slavery, Climate, Stolen Goods & Santas – 2018

Slavery, Climate, Stolen Goods & Santas: on Saturday 8th December 2018 I began with a march against African migrants being enslaved in Libya, photographed Buddhists meditating against climate change, went to the British Museum for a call to them to return indigenous Australian cultural objects and finally met hundreds of people in Santa costumes in Covent Garden.

Protest Slavery in Libya

Slavery, Climate, Stolen Goods & Santas - 2018

There had been large protests a year earlier about slave auctions in Libya where many African migrants trying to reach Europe are captured by bandits, terrorists and jihadists – often funded by the EU and other outside countries – and sold as slaves.

The replacement of Gadaffi and his replacement by Western-backed puppets was a part of a continuing neo-colonialist attempt to control Africa’s natural resources which has led to the instability and mass migration from African countries to the south. Libya had begun a process of de-Africanisation and elimination of Black Libyans and the slave auctions are a simple extension of this policy.

Like many other issues, this had simply dropped out of the news despite the UK and other countries failing to take any action, perhaps why this protest was only by a small group. They met for a short rally outside the EU offices Europe House as the deals and actions of the EU to prevent migrants reaching Europe means many more of them are detained in Libya.

They then marched to protest outside the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, saying the UK had failed to do anything to help because the victims were African, then stopped briefly at the gates to Downing Street before marching on to the Libyan Embassy. I left them at Trafalgar Square

Protest Slavery in Libya

Dharma meditation for climate – Trafalgar Square

A small group from the Dharma Action Network meditated in Trafalgar Square as a call for people to take action, suggesting people move their money out of banks which invest in fossil fuels, get informed by reading the IPCC report on global warming and join them and other groups including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and take direct action with Extinction Rebellion.

Dharma meditation for climate

British Museum Stolen Goods Tour

I joined Indigenous Australian campaigner Rodney Kelly and others on the tour organised by BP or not BP? in the Kings Library of the British Museum in front of the glass case displaying the Gweagal shield stolen from his ancestor by Captain Cook at Botany Bay. Kelly is a 6th generation direct descendant of Cooman, whose Gweagal shield was taken when Captain Cook’s men on first landing in Australia opened fire with muskets, and the shield has a small hole caused by a musket round.

BP or not BP? activists came dressed as burglars in striped jumpers and black masks with sacks for swag.

Another, dressed as a ‘BP Executive’ explained how their sponsorship of art including exhibitions at the British Museum helps to clean up their reputation, tarnished by oil spills, the exploitation of oil fields around the globe with its associated environmental damage, the sale of climate change producing fossil fuels and more. It all looks much better with the nice glossy image of exhibitions such as those at the museum.

They then introduce Kelly who began (and ended) his talk by playing his didgeridoo, and then talked about how the British Museum had dismissed his earlier attempts to return the shield and other items, and had refused to take seriously the oral tradition of his people as it could not be confirmed by written records.

After retelling the story of how it was stolen and how the museum came to acquire it, he told the crowd now packing the room how the shield which few people stop to look at in the museum would reinvigorate the traditions of his people back in Australia and would be both the centrepiece of a museum of indigenous Australia and revive a great interest in traditional crafts.

The crowd then moved on to sit on the floor in front of the then current BP-sponsored Assyrian exhibition, where an Iraqi woman spoke, telling us that objects looted from Iraq during the invasion in 2003 and bought by the British Museum were on show which clearly should be returned to Iraq. Looting of cultural artifacts was considered respectable and normal back in the days of the British Empire (or at least by the British) but is no longer acceptable.

We moved on to a room devoted to objects taken from Polynesia where we heard about looted objects from the region and a statement from the Rapa Nui Pioneers on Easter Island calling for the return of their stolen Moai Head.

It was now time to visit the huge room containing the Parthenon Marbles, which Elgin claimed to have taken them with the permission of the Ottoman Empire, then rulers of Greece, but this now seems unlikely – and the marbles in any case surely belonged to the Greeks rather than thier occupiers.

Here one of the BP or Not BP? burglars, Danny Chivers, revealed himself to be part-Greek and talked about a recent visit to the Acropolis Museum, close to the Parthenon, where a room containing the marbles that Elgin left in Athens are displayed, complete with gaps in the appropriate places for those currently on display in the British Museum.

It seems clear that they should be returned to Athens, and it would now be possible – if expensive – to make a set of visually identical replicas to continue to display here. Perhaps in return for sending them back, the BM could receive replicas of those that remained in Athens – and so both cities could have a full set.

More at British Museum Stolen Goods Tour.

London flooded with Santas – Covent Garden

Finally I met Santacon in Covent Garden, with crowds of people dressed in Santa costumes, together with the odd elf and reindeer making their way to Trafalgar Square, spreading glad tidings as darkness fell, some following hand-pulled sound systems and dancing on the streets, though many groups were diverted into pubs and food shops on the way. This year the charity event was supporting ‘Christmas for Kids’ as well as having a great deal of fun.

Many, many more pictures at London flooded with Santas.

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Marine A, Mandela, CPS Failures, Cops off Campus – 2013

Marine A, Mandela, CPS Failures, Cops off Campus: On Friday 6th Decemeber 2013 some very varied events were taking place in Central London. Here they are in the order I photographed them.

EDL Protest Supports Marine A – Downing St

Marine A, Mandela, CPS Failures, Cops off Campus - 2013

The EDL had called for a major protest at Downing Street on the day that ‘Marine A’, Sergeant Alexander Blackman, was to be sentenced, but only around 50 supporters were there when I arrived.

Blackman was being tried for the murder of a wounded Taliban insurgent in Afghanistan in contravention of the Armed Forces Act 2006, and became the “first British soldier to be convicted of a battlefield murder whilst serving abroad since the Second World War.“

I commented “I doubt if there are many serving soldiers who would wish to see the Geneva conventions disregarded, and wonder what support if any this protest would have from serving soldiers, many of whom have condemned strongly the cold-blooded killing of a prisoner by Marine A and called for an appropriate sentence.“

However many did feel when later that day he was sentenced to “life imprisonment with a minimum term of ten years and dismissed with disgrace from the Royal Marines” he had been treated harshly, and in 2014 the sentence was reduced to eight years, then after a public campaign overturned on appeal and reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Given the time he had served he was released in April 2017.

EDL Protest Supports Marine A

Tributes to Mandela – Parliament Square & South Africa House

Nelson Mandela, the “Father of the Nation” who had become the first president of a new post-apartheid South Africa from 1994-1999, having previously spent 27 years in prison before his release in 1990, had died the previous day, 5th December 2013.

People brought flowers to the Nelson Mandela statue in Parliament Square and to South Africa House in Trafalgar Square, where a long queue waited patiently for several hours to sign a book of remembrance in the High Commission.

Tributes to Mandela

Bereaved protest at CPS Failure – Southwark Bridge

*Marcia Rigg holds a picture of Mandela as she addresses the protest against the PCS*

Since 1990 there had been 1433 deaths of people in custody, many under highly suspicious circumstances and not a single conviction of any police, prison officers or security guards who have either failed in their duty of care or more actively caused their deaths.

Relatives and friends of those who dies had come to protest outside Rose Court, the home of the Crown Prosecution Service. The last successful prosecution brought against a police officer was for involvement in a black death in custody was in 1972, after the death of David Oluwale in 1969. Police officers have been prosecuted for several other black deaths in custody – Joy Gardner, Christopher Alder and Mikey Powell – but none was successful.

The standard response from the CPS – led by Keir Starmer from 2008-2013 – is that there is ‘not enough evidence to prosecute’, largely because the cases have not been properly investigated. Often the police involved are simply not questioned, and in some other cases they simply refuse to answer questions.

Bereaved protest at CPS Failures

‘Cops Off Campus’ Protest Police Brutality – Bloomsbury

Following protests by students and others against student fees and cuts, the closure of the student union and calling for acceptable pay and conditions for low paid largely migrant cleaners, catering staff, security staff and others, the University management had tried to ban protests on campus and had brought in numbers of police to enforce that ban.

This protest was called after the previous day police had brutally assaulted a group of students who had briefly occupied a part of Senate House, arresting a number of students including the Editor of the student newspaper and a legal observer.

The organisers had intended this to be an entirely peaceful march around the various s sites of the university in the area to the west and north of Russell Square, but it was clear that the police had other ideas. There seemed to be police vans down every side-street in the area as students assembled on the pavement outside the University of London Union in Malet St.

There were a few short speeches before the march set off to walk around the block but were stopped by a line of police across the street, with those who tried to walk through it thrown roughly backwards.

They turned around only to find police blocking both the other end of the street and a side street leading to Gower Street and their only way open was to go onto the campus, walking past SOAS and out onto Thornhaugh Street. There they turned up into Woburn Square and then turned to make their way into UCL, only to find the gates from Torrington Place were locked and guarded by security.

They then turned into Gower Street where they saw another group of police rushing towards them and they then rushed through the gates into the Main Quad. Here there was a lot of discussion about what to do next and they eventually decided to take a back street route to Torrington Square, and set off at a rapid pace. I took a more direct route to meet them there. But by now it was dark and I was tired of walking around London and decided to go home.

The police operation seemed to me “an incredible and pointless waste of public money, and it resulted in more inconvenience to the public than if the event had not been policed at all.” Perhaps more importantly this kind of policing alienates a large proportion of young people, acting strongly to destroy the ‘policing by consent’ which has always been the the basis of our police system.

More at ‘Cops Off Campus’ Protest Police Brutality.

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Olympic Site & Budget Cuts – 2012

Olympic Site & Budget Cuts: Wednesday 5th December 2012 was a cold day in London, with the temperature just three or four degrees above freezing during the day, but there was plenty of blue sky with a few clouds and it seemed ideal weather to wrap up and go and see what progress had been made in restoring the Olympic site, still largely off-limits some months after the end of the games. And later in the early evening I returned to Westminster for a protest against the cuts which had been announced by Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne in his autumn budget statement.

Olympic Area Slightly Open – Stratford Marsh

Much of the area around the Olympic site had been closed to the public in May, including the Greenway, the elevated footpath on top of the Northern Outfall Sewer which runs close to the Olympic stadium, but this was now re-opened in part.

The section between Stratford High Street and the main railway lines which run from Liverpool Street station to Stratford and on further east was however still closed and would remain closed for years as work was now taking place for Crossrail – opened as the Elizabeth Line in 2022.

I started my walk in the early afternoon around the Bow flyover where the Bow Back rivers were still closed to traffic with a yellow floating barrier, but the footpath along the Lea Navigation had been re-opened. One improvement made presumably for the Olympics was a pathway and footbridge taking walkers under the busy road junction and across the canal.

Finding the new entrance to the Greenway meant walking between fences on the Crossrail site down Pudding Mill Lane, and probably I would have abandoned the route had it not been for signs put up by the View Tube café – though when I finally reached this I found I was the only person to have done so and the cafe was deserted.

There were still fences everywhere as you can see from my photographs but I was able to walk along the Greenway to Hackney Wick and then along the towpath beside the navigation. But the footpath beside the Old River Lea was still blocked off.

By then the light was beginning to fade and the Olympic stadium was gaining a golden glow. I walked a little further along the towpath and photographed the Eton boathouse as the sun was setting setting before crossing the canal and making my way to Hackney Wick station.

Many more pictures, both normal and panoramic views on My London Diary:
Olympic Area Slightly Open.

Osborne’s Budget Cuts – Strand to Whitehall

Several hundred students, trade unionists, socialists and others marched with UCU London Region down the Strand and into Whitehall shouting slogans against public service cuts, the rich, David Cameron and George Osborne in particular.

Opposite Downing Street they joined with others already protesting there including CND and Stop the War who were calling for the government to stop wasting money on the war in Afghanistan and vanity projects supporting the arms industry such as Trident and its planned replacement.

“The Afghanistan war — which everyone knows is futile and lost — is costing around £6 billion a year. The yearly maintenance costs for Trident are £2.2 billion a year. The cost of renewing the Trident system — which this government is committed to do — would cost up to £130 billion. Two aircraft carriers are being built at a cost of £7 billion. Then there’s the £15 billion to be spent buying 150 F-35 jets from the US, each of which will cost £85 million plus an extra £16 million for the engine.”

The rally began shortly after the marchers arrived. By now it was only just above freezing and speakers were asked to keep their contributions short because of the temperature.

Among the speakers were John McDonnell MP, Kate Hudson of CND, author Owen Jones, Andy Greene of DPAC, Green Party leader Natalie Bennett and others including a nurse from Lewisham Hospital threatened with closures, from the NUT, UK Uncut and other trade unionists.

*Kate Hudson CND and Romaine Phoenix Coalition of Resistance/Green Party*

Many of the speakers called on trade unions to take effective action against the cuts. calling for union leaders to stop simply speaking against them and take the lead from their members and start organising strike action. But of course few did and the cuts continued unabated.

More at Osborne’s Budget Cuts.

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Shut Down Yarl’s Wood 10 – 2016

Shut Down Yarl’s Wood 10 – Yarl’s Wood, near Bedford

Shut Down Yarl’s Wood: On Saturday 3rd December almost 2000 protesters came to the isolated site on a former RAF base around 5 miles north of Bedford to take part in the 10th protest there organised by Movement for Justice calling for the closure of Yarl’s Wood and all immigration detention centres.

I’d taken three trains to get to Bedford Station where MfJ had arranged a coach for the journey on to the industrial estate on which the detention centre is hidden away. When we arrived the country back road was lined with coaches which had brought others from London and cities around the country.

But after a short rally there while we waited for others to arrive there was still over a mile along a public footpath to reach the field where the protest took place. This slopes up steeply a few feet from the 20 foot high metal prison fence, enabling protesters at the top of the slope th see the two upper floors of the detention centre – and for women at the windows in this to see them. Fortunately it had been relatively dry in the weeks before the event and for once the ground was not muddy and slippery.

Many other groups had come to join MfJ in the protest, including large numbers of students. MfJ had come mainly with migrants, many of whom had spent time in this and other immigration prisons, where this country locks up asylum seekers while slowly and inefficiently the Home Office deals with their cases.

Yarl’s Wood was mainly used for women, though there were a few families also locked up there. Many had fled violence, often sexual violence in their home countries and were then locked away here after arrival.

And they have no way to know when they might be released and are always under threat of being forcibly deported at short notice. One woman had then been held for over two years and was only released a day under three years. Most serve long indeterminate sentences in this and other immigration jails. They feel they are locked away, forgotten – and protests like this remind them that there are those outside who know and care about them.

The isolation means it is difficult for them to pursue their cases and to get the often ridiculous amounts of evidence the Home Office demands. But as they cannot leave the prisons they are allowed to have mobile phones and these enabled a few of the women inside to communicate with the protesters – and for their voices to be heard over the public address system brought by the campaigners.

All the women “speaking from inside thanked the protesters for coming and showing they had not been forgotten. They told of assaults and abuse by Serco security guards who today had locked many in other wings to stop them seeing the protest and threatened those who greeted the protesters and revealed there were cases of TB in the prison.”

Many of the protesters “who spoke at the protest had previously been held inside this and other immigration prisons, and encouraged those inside to keep fighting for justice.”

“As well as standing on the hill so that those on the upper floors allowed near the windows could see them and the banners and placards they held, others kicked and banged on the fence to make a noise that could be heard all over the jail – and indeed from the main raid half a mile away as I walked back to board my coach.“

Immigration detention continues to be used on an industrial scale in the UK, with 19,335 people entering detention in the year ending September 2024. Numbers decreased during Covid but have gone up to previous levels since. The UK is the only European country with no time limit on how long refugees can be held, and numbers held will be increased by the Illegal Immigration Act passed by the Tories in 2023 and the amendments made by Labour rapidly after they came to power in 2024.

The whole system of UK immigration is immoral and expensive, the result of successive governments shifting further to the right and appeasing the racist elements in the UK press. It has a corrosive effect on the mental health of those detained, in part because they are denied adequate health care.

More about the protest on December 3rd 2016 at Shut Down Yarl’s Wood 10.

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Justice for LSE Cleaners – 2016

Justice for LSE Cleaners: Cleaners at the London School of Economics, one of the UK’s most prestigious universities, had begun their campaign to get decent working conditions at the end of September 2016. On 2nd December there was a protest at the LSE in support of this.

The LSE itself could not possibly have been seen to employ the cleaners under the exploitative terms and bullying management they were working under, but were turning a blind eye to what was happening to workers on their site who were employed under a contract between the LSE and cleaning company, Noonan.

Outsourcing contracts such as these are always a bad deal for workers. At the LSE they were getting only the statutory minimum holidays, sick pay and pension contributions, while workers on similar grades directly employed by the LSE have more generous terms.

The cleaners had also lost rest facilities and were not allowed in the canteen with other workers. They were being exposed to dangerous chemicals without proper protection and were not allowed to use lifts to move heavy equipment between floors were are generally treated like dirt.

At the start of the campaign one of the cleaners, Alba Pasimo, had shocked the meeting by standing up and describing how she had been sacked this week by the cleaning contractor after 12 years of service at the LSE.

Their campaign, led by their union the United Voices of the World, was widely supported by LSE students, some teaching staff and others from the trade union movement.

A series of protests, including this on December 2nd 2016, supported the campaign for the re-instatement of sacked cleaner Alba, better management with achievable workloads and the same conditions of service including sick pay, pensions and paid leave from contractor Noonan as those of equivalent grade staff directly employed by the LSE. They were also calling for union recognition of the UVW.

Considerable building work taking place at the LSE meant that the only direct route between the Old Building in Houghton Street and the rest of the campus was through that building, and after a rally outside, the protesters marched into the building, ignoring attempts by security staff to stop them, to make their way through.

They marched around the rest of the campus and then to the offices used by both the LSE and the cleaner’s employers Noonan on the corner of Aldwych at No 1 Kingsway where they held a rally on the wide area of pavement.

They then went back onto the campus for a final rally outside the LSE Library, warning the LSE management that actions like this will continue until Alba is reinstated and the cleaners get an offer of equal treatment from Noonan and the LSE.

In August 2017 the UVW were “proud to announce that the LSE cleaners will be BROUGHT IN-HOUSE and become employees of the LSE from Spring 2018! This will ensure they get, among other things, 41 days annual leave, 6 months full pay sick pay and 6 months half pay sick pay, plus proper employer pension contributions of up to 13% of their salary.”

*UVW’s Petros Elia photographs a LSE manager who has been photographing the protest*

Alba had been reinstated following an industrial tribunal hearing in July 2017 which declared her “dismissal not only unlawful but profoundly and manifestly unfair.”. The UVW then stated “Alba was the 5th sacked cleaner we have got reinstated at the LSE in the last year.”

The UVW continues to fight for the LSE cleaners. In 2023 it forced the LSE to back down and reinstate a UVW strike leader and migrant cleaner from Colombia who had played an important role in a fight over the underpayment of holiday pay. And they forced the LSE to repay a significant part of the holiday pay which workers are owned, though a legal fight continues to get the rest. At the LSE and in many other workplaces and sectors the UVW continues to struggle for justice for low paid workers.

More on the protest on 2nd December 2016 at Justice for LSE Cleaners.

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Adidas, West Papua, Egypt & Climate Crisis – 2012

Adidas, West Papua, Egypt & Climate Crisis were all subjects of protests in London on December 1st 2012

Adidas ‘Pay Your Workers’ – Oxford St

Adidas, West Papua, Egypt & Climate Crisis - 2012

The PT Kizone factory in Indonesia had made sportswear for Adidas, Nike and Dallas Cowboys for many years, its employlees often working for as little as $0.60 an hour. In January 2011 its owner fled the country and the factory closed in April 2011.

The 2,800 workers were left without jobs and by law were entitled to severance pay – a total of around US$2.8 million. Nike and Dallas Cowboys agreed to pay their share but Adidas were refusing to pay the $1.8 million they owed.

This led to a worldwide campaign to get them to pay up and on 1st December 2012 there were protests outside Adidas stores across the UK including this one on Oxford Street. Around a doozen people turned up, some wearing masks of Justin Bieber, the ‘global style icon’ for their NEO label.

They pointed out that Adidas had paid $157m to sponsor the Olympics but were refusing to pay around one hundredth of that amount to the destitute workers who had created their profits.

Pressure was growing on Adidas and in April 2013 they came to an agreement with those representing the former PT Kisone workers to pay compensation and in return the workers agreed to drop a legal case they were taking in the USA.

Adidas ‘Pay Your Workers’

Free West Papua – Indonesian Embassy, Grosvenor Square

December 1st is West Papua Independence Day, marking the day in 1961 when Netherlands New Guinea was granted its freedom by the Dutch, but that freedom did not last long.

The USA, driven by cold war fears that Indonesia might move towards the Soviet bloc decided in 1962 to set up a process that passed the area over to Indonesian control with a rigged election confirming this in 1969. Only a carefully selected group of 1,025 people out of the population of 800,000 were allowed to vote as representatives in a vote carried out by a show of hands and they were “coerced into voting against independence with threats of violence against their persons and their families.”

Since 1962 a movement for independence has continued, with peaceful protests outside the country and guerilla warfare guerrilla warfare against the Indonesian administration. The Free West Papua organisation is based in the UK and led by Benny Wenda, a tribal chief who escaped from an Indonesian prison and came to the UK. His wife, Maria Wenda and their children were present at today’s protest, along with other supporters of their struggle for freedom.

More on My London Diary at Free West Papua Independence Day.

Morsi’s Dictatorial Decree – Egyptian Embassy, South St, Mayfair

Over 50 protesters shouted noisily outside the Egyptian embassy condemning the decree by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi calling him a dictator. The decree gave him sweeping powers and made him immune from legal challenges until a new parliament was elected, and had led to violent protests in Egypt.

Morsi’s Dicatatorial Decree

Climate March Says ‘NO’ to Fracking

On the Global Day of Action on Climate Change, activists laid a pipeline from the US to Canadian embassies before marching to Parliament to erect a giant mock fracking rig with the message ‘No Fracking in the UK’.

The event began with a rally outside the US Embassy, then still in Grosvenor Square, chosen because the fossil fuel lobby in the USA, including the Koch Brothers has made the USA the main barrier to any effective world action over the climate crisis.

They then laid a pipeline from the US embassy to the Canadian Canadian High Commission at the opposite end of Grosvenor Square in protest against the Canadian exploitation of incredibly damaging high carbon tar sands.

Then the march set off on its way to parliament and a further rally in Old Palace Yard.

I arrived there in time to photograph the protesters raising a mock fracking rig and listen to speeches by Eve Macnamara from Ribble Estuary against Fracking, John McDonnell MP and Green Party leader Natalie Bennett.

More on My London Diary at Climate March Says ‘NO’ to Fracking.

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Class War Protest ‘Fascist Architect’ 2016

Class War Protest ‘Fascist Architect’: At lunchtime on Wednesday 30th November 2016 a small group of anarchists and communists protested outside Zaha Hadid Architects in Clerkenwell against their director Patrik Schumaker.

The protest came after Schumaker had given a lecture in Berlin on the London Housing Crisis in which he had apparently said “We must destroy affordable housing and remove the unproductive from the capital to make way for my people who generate value.”

A Class War poster for the event put this quotation above pictures of Schumacher and Nazi architect Albert Speer with the question “Who said this?”.

Other posters were headed with the slogan “ARBEIT MACH FREI” much used by the Nazi party and best known for its use above the entrance of Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps and included pictures of the architect with minor variations on the quote.

Class war had also brought their banner with and image of US Anarchist Lucy Parsons (1853-1942) who voiced a rather different view on architecture, “We must devastate the avenues where the wealthy live“. Ian Bone condemned Scuumaker’s suggestion that London should become a private enclave for the ultra-rich, with the rest of us forced out.

Other groups taking part in the protest included the Revolutionary Communist Group who labelled Schumaker as an enemy of the working class and called for social housing not social cleansing’ and two people from the London Anarchist Federation had come with their banner ‘Make London the Rebel City’.

There were a number of short speeches which among other things pointed out the “class-based absurdity of his neo-conservative proposals which would produce a London which was simply a playground for the ultra-wealthy, but would socially cleanse it of all the workers essential to its running.”

Schumaker’s Berlin lecture had been greeting with boos from the audience and had been widely disowned by architects and politicians including in an open letter from Zaha Hadid Architects.

Class War had also received a letter from one of the workers at Zaha Hadid Architects, where many are said to hate their boss. The letter suggested that Class War should protest outside his £2m home close to Highbury & Islington and gave the address, but they had decided instead to protest outside the practice.

They surrounded the entrance with “CRIME SCENE – DO NOT ENTER’ tape, and both Ian Bone and Lisa McKenzie tried to get an appointment to see Patrik Schumaker without success. According to his e-mails he was away in the Far East.

After an hour of peacefully making their point the protesters left, and I went with some of them to the nearby Betsey Trotwood before leaving for home.

More pictures on My London Diary at Class War protest ‘Fascist Architect’.

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Cyclists ‘Die in’ at TfL HQ – Blackfriars Rd, London

Cyclists ‘Die in’ at TfL HQ: On Friday evening on 29th November 2013 over a thousand cyclists came to demand safer roads for cyclists and pedestrians across London. 14 cyclists had been killed already that year on London streets, including six in the previous two weeks.

Cyclists generally get a bad press here in the UK, and proposals and schemes that improve safety for cycling often meet with considerable opposition from non-cyclists, especially where these provide joint use of paths by pedestrians and cyclists.

Of course some cyclists are irresponsible – but so too are many not on bikes, whether driving vehicles or on foot. And we all sometimes do stupid things. Some may ride through red lights – but so do some motorists, and the statistics show that around 95% of pedestrians killed or injured in accidents caused by jumping lights are killed by drivers rather than by cyclists.

Motorised vehicles – cars, motorbikes, vans, lorries, buses etc are far more dangerous than cyclists because of their higher mass and often much greater speeds which mean that they bring many times more energy to any collision – typically more than 10 times as much, sometimes very much greater.

It’s hardly surprising the of the around 400 pedestrians killed in road traffic accidents each year in the UK on average only 2.5 involve collisions with bicycles – even on those shared pavements you are many, many times more likely to be killed by a collision with a car or other vehicle.

Cyclists are – like pedestrians – vulnerable road users. Unlike drivers in vehicles they are not surrounded by a protective shell of metal, and they have seat belts and air bags which proved extra safety – and its good that they do. But this does all remove them some way from the dangerous reality that all cyclists – however well-behaved and experienced – when sharing road space with them.

It would not of course be feasible to provide entirely separate street networks for vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians, although it would be good to provide these where possible, and we have made some progress in doing so. But there are many more places where separate ‘dedicated’ cycle paths can and should be provided.

Encouraging cycling has many positives. It reduces the toxic air pollution in our cities – estimated to cause almost 10,000 early deaths in London alone, as well as a great deal of suffering from various lung conditions. And by reducing the number of vehicles on our roads it cuts the congestion on our roads which often brings transport in London to a near standstill (and which is also highly polluting.)

*Donnachadh McCarthy announces it was time for the die-in*

And cycling provides healthy exercise (which would be even healthier if we cut pollution by having more people on bikes) helping to cut the obesity which, particularly among children, is now a major health problem. It has also been shown to improve mental health.

Cycling is also the cheapest form of transport other than walking, and is often the fastest way to travel in London for relatively short journeys, including some that most of us would find too far to walk.

Worries about safety put many off cycling, as does the weather. But there are relatively few days when our weather makes cycling a real problem (and mudguards help.) Making our roads safer is more of a problem, but doing so would increase the quality of life in the city for all of us. Even drivers breathe the same air and have sometimes to get out of their cars and walk.

Things are happening slowly, but too slow. We are getting more dedicated cycle routes. 20mph zones make streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists, despite the outcry about them in some areas. Improvements in design of lorries to provide all-round vision are slowly coming in…

Protests such at outside the London HQ of TfL on 29 Nov 2013 to protest at the lack of safe road provision that leads to many deaths of cyclists and pedestrians, with a vigil, rally and a 15 minute ‘die-in’ on Blackfriars Road help to raise awareness of the need to improve our road system and encourage TfL to make a positive effort to do so. You can read more about it in my post on My London Diary, which includes the eight demands made by those taking part as well as a description of the event and many more pictures.

Cyclists ‘Die in’ at TfL HQ

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