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Southwark Housing, Bermondsey & Rembrandt – 2014

Southwark Housing, Bermondsey & Rembrandt: On Thursday October 16th 2014 I photographed a march from the Elephant to Southwark Council Offices over the borough’s housing scandals, took some time off in Bermondsey to take some panoramic images and then covered a protest at the National Gallery against sponsorship of art exhibitions by companies such as Shell, G4S, BP and Serco.

Compulsory Purchase Orders for Southwark Councillors

Housing campaigners from Southwark marched from the Elephant and Council to Southwark Council Offices to serve ‘People’s Compulsory Purchase Orders‘ on the homes of the Council leader and other councillors who they say have accepted gifts from developers to sell off council estates at knockdown prices.

The shameful demolition of over 1200 homes in and close to the well-designed and largely popular Heygate estate has cost the borough dearly, with the costs to the council of ‘decanting’ the residents exceeding the knock-down price it charged the developers.

Of course the estate residents suffered more, losing their homes and being forced to move further out into the suburbs. Leaseholders were only offered roughly half the true market value of property in the area.

The demolition and redevelopment has meant the loss of over a thousand social homes, and the new properties on the site had already been advertised to overseas buyers in Singapore and elsewhere as second homes, investment properties, homes for wealthy overseas students studying here, buy-to-let etc. There are just a few so-called affordable units at 80% of market rates, still well above what most Londoners can actually afford.

The protesters met at the base of the Strata Tower, an ugly development of largely luxury flats with three wind turbines built into its roof for show – unable to produce electricity as when running they produce excessive vibration in flats at the top of the building. Facing them ‘One The Elephant‘ was going up, a 44 storey block of luxury flats with no social housing, and is being sold abroad, with ‘studio flats’ starting at around £320,000 or 640,000 Singapore dollars.

Southwark campaigners were joined by members of the Focus E15 ‘Housing for All campaign’ and their first stop for a brief protest was the Elephant Park Sales Office on the Walworth Rd. They then walked through several council estates to the north of the New Kent Road which are also attractive targets for developers who can make huge profits by demolishing them and building high price flats at much higher densities.

They continued through other council estates in the area to London Bridge Station and on to the council offices in Tooley Street, where they were stopped by security from entering the Council offices. Police were called and after much argument two of the campaigners who were Southwark residents were allowed in and waited to present letters containing ‘People’s Compulsory Purchase Orders’ for their homes to council leader Peter John and two other councillors.

They asked at reception to see the councillors and were told to take a seat and wait. They waited and waited. Eventually someone from the council came to tell them that all three named councillors were unavailable but took their letters promising to hand them over personally to them.

More at CPOs for Southwark Councillors.

Bermondsey Thames Panoramas – City Hall to Angel Wharf

I had some time before my next protest and took a short walk by the River Thames,

beginning in Potters Fields where ‘One Tower Bridge’ was going up close to City Hall.

Past Tower Bridge I took a short walk on the foreshore in front of Butler’s Wharf before continuing along Shad Thames and across the footbridge over St Saviour’s Creek.

I continued along the Thames Path past the moorings, and got as far as Angel Wharf before I realised I needed to catch a bus to get me back to Trafalgar Sqaure in time for my next event.

More pictures Bermondsey Thames Panoramas

Art Not Oil Rembrandt Against Shell – National Gallery

The Art Not Oil coalition had gate-crashed the press launch of the National Gallery’s Rembrandt exhibition to give a brief performance protesting against oil sponsorship of the arts and privatisation of gallery staffing.

On the evening of 16th October they met on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields before marching the few yards to give a repeat performance outside the gallery which was then holding a gala evening for special guests and highly ranked staff.

The National Gallery was making plans to privatise up to two thirds of the gallery staff and this exhibition was being guarded by a private security firm rather than the gallery’s own staff.

Art Not Oil held banners and placards and handed out flyers agains the sponsorship by Shell stating:

"The presence of unethical sponsors like Shell and the contracting of external security firms shows the growing influence the private sector is having over our arts and culture. With its meagre contribution to the gallery, Shell is buying social legitimacy for its dodgy deeds worldwide, including:

- its failure to clean up its multiple spills in the Niger Delta
- its reckless plans to drill in the Arctic for yet more oil
- its tar sands projects in Canada that are undermining Indigenous people's rights"

They sang a number of specially written songs and performed the short playlet they had previously given inside the gallery during the press launch.

More at Art Not Oil Rembrandt Against Shell.

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Occupy London Begins – 2011

Occupy London Begins: On Saturday 15 Oct 2011 over 2000 protesters came to St Paul’s Cathedral as a part of a world-wide ‘Occupy’ protest “Inspired by Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring, and answering to the call out made by the Spanish Plataforma ¡Democracia Real YA! in May 2011 for a Global Day Of Action” and Occupy London began.

Similar protests were taking place in “Spain, Rome, New York, Portugal, Chile, Berlin,Brussels, Zageb, and many more … inspired by the example of Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring.”

Although people from various groups were present, including the Education Activists Network, Socialist Workers Party, Anonymous, Right to Work, UK Uncut, South London Solidarity Federation and there were several well known figures present who spoke including Peter Tatchell and Julian Assange, the whole movement deliberately lacked overall organisation with all decisions being taken by General Assemblies with the slogan ‘No Leaders, No Hierarchy’.

The event had actually come about from one such assembly on Sunday 9th October at the end of the ‘Block the Bridge NHS Protest‘ when a ‘General Assembly’ of several hundreds had come together at the north end of Westminster Bridge to discuss and endorse a planned occupation of the London Stock Exchange area.

In response to this the Stock Exchange obtained a High Court injunction to prevent public access to Paternoster Square, one of the increasingly large areas which appear to be public space in the city but are actually now privately owned, although previously Paternoster Row was a public street and police were present in force to enforce this injunction.

Most of the several thousand protesters were intent on an entirely peaceful protest, calling for a democratic revolution to “fight for a new political and economic system that puts people, democracy and the environment before profit.” They saw that “Our political elites have chosen to protect corporations, financial institutions and the rich at the expense of the majority.“

After a few short speeches a few hundred protesters, led by the banner of the Education Activist Network made and attempt to enter the square through Temple Bar, but police on foot and horses were waiting for them, and the relatively narrow entrance of the Bar, moved here a few years ago, was designed to be easily defended.

They then made a tour around the block containing the Stock Exchange but found the narrow passages leading to Paternoster Square heavily defended by police. When finally they found one with only a thin line of a thin line of police, the protesters hesitated for long enough for the police to bring up reinforcements. It was probably for the best as they would have immediately been easily kettled inside the square had they got in.

Eventually a General Meeting began on the steps of St Paul’s. There were a few minor scuffles when police pushed protesters around, which could probably have been avoided had police explained clearly that they only intended to clear a path to clear a path into and out of the cathedral at one end of the steps. Several people were arrested then and later.

I decided to leave, as it really seemed unlikely that anything much more would happen for some time. As I was leaving, police decided to block Ludgate Hill, but along with a group of several hundred protesters I managed to get through their line as it was forming.

*The General Assembly takes a show of hands to remain at St Paul’s*

Police continued to clear protesters from the steps of St Paul’s and urging people to leave the area, but many set up tents on the level area of St Paul’s Churchyard and the occupation had begun – and was to remain in place until finally removed on 28th February 2012. You can read a great deal about the occupation in the Occupy London web site which includes the various statements agreed by consensus at Occupy London General Assemblies. Unfortunately Wikipedia’s article on Occupy London is unusually poor and misleading about the events of 15th October.

More at Occupy London Kept Out Of Stock Exchange

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Israel, Ripper & Zimbabwe 2017

Israel, Ripper & Zimbabwe: On Saturday 14th October 2017 I began work in Mayfair where a protest calling for a restaurant owner and chef not to break the cultural boycott of Israel was opposed by Zionists before going to Cable Street for a protest at the Ripper ‘Museum’ and ending at a celebration of 15 years of the Zimbabwe Embassy vigil.

Little Social don’t break the cultural boycott – Mayfair

The owner of the Little Social Restuarant and his head chef were going to take part in the Brand Israel culinary event ‘Round Tables’ in Tel Aviv in November 2017 and human rights group Inminds had come to plead with them not to break the Palestinian call for a cultural boycott of Israel.

Events such as these are a part of the Israeli government’s Public Relations efforts to distract from its policies of occupation and apartheid. The event was sponsored by Dan Hotels who have a branch built on stolen Palestinian land in occupied East Jerusalem.

Police arrived and talked with the protesters who included several Palestinians and Jews. They assured police they would do nothing illegal, and continued getting out their flags and banners.

A few people arrived to put on a counter-protest. One man assured me that everything the people protesting in support of Palestine said and had on their banners was lies, and tried to justify all of Israel’s actions, including the then recent attacks on Gaza. He tried to talk with the protesters but they told him they were not interested in hearing his lies.

I told him how my friend had been attacked by settlers in Palestine and who came and stole the olives from the farm – and that Israel’s attacks on Gaza were entirely disproportionate to the rocket attacks on Israel which he said provoked and claimed justified them, and that Israel should respect the United Nations resolutions. He continued to blame the Palestinians for everything and later I was defamed as “a noted anti-Semitic photographer” in a report on this event for my coverage of and other protests over Palestine and by the “wrong type of Jews.”

Little Social don’t break the cultural boycott.

Class War return to Ripper “Museum” – Cable Street

Class War returned with London 4th Wave Feminists to protest peacefuly outside the so-called “museum’ in Cable St displaying exhibits glorifying the brutal series of 19th century murders and exhibiting materials relating to the horrific deaths of working class women.

They came after Tower Hamlets council had failed to enforce the planning decisions against the shop, only given planning permission under the false pretence it would celebrate the history of women in the East End.

They stood with their ‘Womens Death Brigade‘ banner on the pavement in front of the tourist shop and symbolically attacked it and its illegal metal shutters and signage with plastic inflatable hammers.

Police led in a few tourists who had come to visit the shop past the protesters, who refused to move away. Some went away after talking when they heard why people were protesting about the exhibition, and others who went inside came out and told them that they thought the “museum’s” publicity was misleading and they had been very disappointed by the display.

Not much is known about some of the victims, but they were all women struggling to make a living, some with dependents. People from some of their families still live in London and are disgusted at the displays in this tourist attraction.

One of the 4th Wave Feminists read a message from a member of one of those families, complaining about the voyeuristic exploitation of her ancestor in the displays. We were told was known about the unfortunate victims, reminding us that they were real people and should not be exploited in this way by a toruist rip-off.

More pictures at Class War r eturn to Ripper “Museum”

Zimbabwe democracy vigil celebrates 15 years – Zimbabwe Embassy, Strand

The first weekly vigil was held on 12th October 2002 and there have been around 780 every Saturday since then.

They intend to continue to protest until there are free and fair elections and an end the human rights abuses of the Mugabe regime. Their vigils are in solidarity with courageous and inspiring human rights defenders in Zimbabwe who risk life and liberty to demand democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

Among those present were a number who had been at that first vigil, including human rights activist Peter Tatchell who was badly beaten when he attempted a citizen’s arrest on Mugabe in Brussels in 2001. He cut the celebratory cake with others from the vigil.

Since then Mugabe has gone but the human rights situation in Zimbabwe is still dire and vigils continue, now both virtually and twice monthly in person. It “will continue until internationally-monitored, free and fair elections are held in Zimbabwe.”

Zimbabwe vigil celebrates 15 years

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Climate Rush – Deeds Not Words 2008

Climate Rush – Deeds Not Words: In 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst and other women who believed that more direct action was needed to get votes for women founded the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) with the motto ‘Deeds not words‘.

In September 1908 together with Christabel Pankhurst and Flora Drummond, Emmeline Pankhurst issued a leaflet with the message:

Men and Women,
Help the Suffragettes to Rush the House of Commons,
on
Tuesday Evening, October 13th, at 7.30.

The three women were charged for this with inciting the public to undertake an illegal act. After speaking at a public meeting on 11th October they were instructed to attend Bow Street police station but defied this and a second request to report to police. They were arrested at 6pm on the 13th and so were unable to attend the Suffragette Rush they had called.

But despite this, 60,000 people came to Parliament Square and some attempts were made to rush through the 5,000 police cordon but failed. “Thirty-seven arrests were made, ten people were taken to hospital and seven police officers were placed on the sick list as a result of their injuries.”

One woman, MP Keir Hardie’s secretary, was working inside the building and ran into the chamber where MPs were debating, shouting ‘leave off discussing the children’s question and give votes to women first’ before being forcibly evicted.

The three leaders were tried and fined for conduct likely to provoke a breach of the peace and sent to Holloway when they refused to pay their fines.

On 13th October 2008, the 100th anniversary of this Suffragette Rush, as I wrote, ‘women concerned with the lack of political action to tackle climate change organised and led a rally in Parliament Square, again calling for “men and women alike” to stand together.’

They were making three key demands – “no airport expansion“, “no new coal-fired power stations” and “The creation of policy in line with the most recent climate science and research.”

So far the repeated demands by Heathrow to expand have been resisted, but only by continued protests and helped by financial problems. But expansion remained Tory policy and having ruled it out set up a biased inquiry to reinstate it. The new Labour government has already shown support for expansion at London City Airport and seems likely to support new proposals at Heathrow.

Although the last coal-fired power station closed a few weeks ago, we now have an even more polluting and environmentally damaging wood-fired power station at Drax, which ridiculously receives green subsidies which in 2020 amounted to £832 million as well as “exemptions for taxes on carbon emissions, estimated at savings of £358 million“.

And although successive governments had paid lip-service to “the most recent climate science and research“, their actions and actual policies continue to show any of the urgency that this requires.

On 13th October 2008, the event began with a rally in Parliament Square with rather fewer attending than in 1908, around a thousand including many wearing white and dressing in the styles of a century earlier.

As the final speech by Green Party MEP and leader Caroline Lucas ended, “most of the crowd, led by Tamsin Omond and friends, walked and ran across the road towards the main door into Parliament, chanting the Suffragette slogan ‘Deeds Not Words’. Police “made only a token attempt to stop them on their way, falling back to protect the door itself with several lines of police, and preventing any protesters entering the building.“

“There was a long melee outside the door, with police picking up demonstrators and throwing them back. I saw no violence by demonstrators towards the police.” Eventually the whole area in front of the door was crowded with protesters and police held them to a standstill.

By the time I left around half an hour later a few people were also beginning to drift away. “Later I heard that around half a dozen people had been arrested, including Tamsin Omond, who was in breach of her bail conditions following the ‘Plane Stupid’ roof-top protest at the Houses of Parliament in February.”

You can read more about the protest in my account on My London Diary, which also has many more pictures: Climate Rush – Deeds Not Words.

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March on the City 2008

March on the City: On Friday 10 October 2008 several hundred anti-capitalist protesters, mainly students, took to the streets of the City of London to say “We Won’t Bail Out the Bankers’.

The financial crisis had started in 2007, but reached a climax with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on September 15 2008 which precipitated an international banking crisis.

Wikipedia sets out the causes of the crisis in some detail, but essentially US banks had been allowed to make more risky loans by changes in US laws which loosened regulations and allowed banks to take part in high risk operations such as proprietary trading and investment banking.

In the US one result of this was the proliferation of mortgage loans to people on low incomes who could really not afford the repayments and eventually defaulted. The problems with ‘subprime mortgages‘ particularly given to many in minority communities in the USA came to a head as a boom in US house prices in the early 2000s was followed by a sharp drop in the value of properties which were the security for the loans.

As Wikipedia comments, “governments deployed massive bail-outs of financial institutions and other palliative monetary and fiscal policies to prevent a collapse of the global financial system.” This resulted in the widespread feeling that those who had created the crisis were being rewarded for their failures.

In the UK, the New Labour government under George Brown made a massive financial intervention, paying £137 billion to the banks in loans and new capital, some of which was later recouped, but leaving a cost of £33 billion. While some support was necessary to avoid a total breakdown of the financial system, many felt that the government should have taken a firmer line and that those responsible should have had to pay for their mistakes and not to seem to have kept their highly paid jobs.

Both Northern Rock – the first UK bank to fail in July 2007 and Bradford & Bingley were taken into public ownership, and RBS/Nat West into majority public ownership. But RBS still ended up costing us £35.5 billion – and the leading bankers still ended up getting huge salaries and big bonuses. The Royal Bank of Scotland seemed to be getting off scot free.

Part of the problems we still see in financial markets came from changes worldwide in the way that trading now takes place. In the UK Margaret Thatcher had brought in the ‘Big Bang’ which abolished traditional practices and introduced electronic trading, greatly increasing volatility.

On My London Diary I give a fairly full account of the actual protest which started at Bank where some protesters tried to storm into the Royal Exchange – long just a prestige shopping centre – and the Bank of England but were easily stopped by police.

There then followed a slow march around parts of the City, with police attempting to stop them at various points and the marchers pushing their way through police lines.

As my pictures show, there was some rather forceful policing at times and some of the press also suffered with the protesters. As I write, “I got a few bruises and my glasses were damaged when police rushed in as I was taking pictures in Lombard St.” But there was none of the confrontational use of trained riot squads that have led to extreme violence at some protests policed by the Met. Policing here was by the City of London Police – along with a guest appearance by one French cop.

Eventually there was a short rally with a few speeches on the corner of Bishopsgate and London Wall after which the demonstrators dispersed. Police seemed fairly relaxed at the end of the protest and I saw no arrests.

I don’t think the protest got much if any coverage in the mass media and most accounts I read on-line were confused, with many suggesting it went to the Stock Exchange. While that might have been a logical place to protest, the marchers actually went in the opposite direction.

March on the City.

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Sack Parliament 2006 and the End of Freedom

Sack Parliament on Monday 9 October 2006 was more a demonstration by police of their determination to protect the status quo following protests earlier in the year and the continuing saga of the Parliament Square peace protest which had led to their performance being criticised by politicians and our largely right-wing press than any real protest by the few who had come to protest against the increasing restrictions on our freedom to protest.

It was Brian Haw’s permanent peace protest in Parliament Square which led to the Labour Government including in the Serious and Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 severe restrictions on the right to protest in a large area around Parliament and giving police new powers to control protests.

Sack Parliament 2006 and the End of Freedom

Media frenzy about this protest was whipped up in the days before at least in part by police briefings, and the police clearly saw this as an opportunity to demonstrate that they could control events such as this. I wrote and published an unusually long piece on My London Diary about the event – reproduced here with some minor corrections.

Sack Parliament on Monday 9, and event to mark the return of MPs to Westminster, was of course only ever an amusing idea rather than a serious chance of a Ukrainian-style Orange Revolution. As the large press turnout showed, it was one that had caught the attention of the media (Mondays perhaps tend to be slack) but unfortunately not that of the demonstrating classes.

It got off to a bad start with the planned ‘Critical Mass’, which failed to gather more than a handful of cyclists. Heavily outnumbered by the police bike posse, they faded away, a couple cycling down the side of the National Theatre and the other 3 or 4 carrying their bikes up the steps to Waterloo Bridge.

At Parliament Square, things were little better. At the advertised start time, apart from the normal Parliament Square Permanent Protest there were perhaps 25 demonstrators and rather more press, along with what must have been around a thousand police, counting those sitting in vans around the area as well as the impressive number standing around.

Twenty minutes later the numbers had been more than doubled, mainly by the arrival of a group dressed largely in black. And soon after they made a charge at the police line into the road towards the Houses of Parliament.

From the start it seemed a pointless gesture. The line held, and pushed them back, and soon the two sides were standing a few feet apart and glaring at each other. After a few more attempts to push through the police, the demonstrators ran back onto the grassed area of the square where they were surrounded by a cordon of police.

One of the photographers, an NUJ member I’d been talking to a few minutes earlier, was apparently pushed by police as they rushed the demonstrators. He fell and received a neck injury which left him with no feeling from the waist down. Police medics were on hand to give him first aid and to call an ambulance. Later I was pleased to hear he had been allowed home from hospital, and the injuries were apparently less serious than we feared.

I was inside the cordon to start with, but the police made no attempt to stop me as I decided to walk out, not even asking to see my press card (they had checked it earlier.) Around the square, small teams of police were rounding up anyone looking vaguely like a punk or a hippy and dragging them inside the cordon. Some of those they picked on seemed genuinely to have no connection with the protest. Eventually there were perhaps around 150 in there, including quite a few press, along with a few who clearly had little idea what the whole thing was about.

Apparently others who looked like possible demonstrators were stopped and arrested in Whitehall, or turned back on other roads approaching the square.

Outside the cordon, the normal demonstrations in the square went on, with the occasional interruptions by the police, nit-picking about where the demonstrators are allowed to stand and being largely ignored or abused.

Occasionally there were scuffles inside the cordon as demonstrators made an attempt to breach the police line, or police teams moved in to grab individuals. There were also occasional arrests around the square, including some of those who protested loudly they were simply bystanders.

At 14.13, roughly 40 minutes after the protesters had been imprisoned in the cordon, Police Superintendent Peter Terry (responsible for the taking away and destruction of most of Brian Haw’s property from the square and alleged by demonstrators to have lied in court) read from a handwritten statement telling the protesters that they were being detained in the square because he believed that their continued presence in the area would lead to a serious breach of the peace!

Around 15.00, police began to distribute notices to those outside the cordon warning them “we believe that you may be, or are about to be, involved in a demonstration located within an area subject to the provisions of the Serious and Organised Crime and Police Act 2005” and moving press and spectators well back from the cordon. There seemed to be little chance of getting further photographs, so I went to get on with work elsewhere.

According to a press report later in the evening, there were 38 arrests made. Those caught in the cordon who were not arrested at the event were apparently required to provide evidence of identity and address before being allowed to leave. SOCPA continues to be a blot on human rights in this country, and this protest, despite its apparent pointlessness and lack of support has underlined this point.

I’m one of a generation who grew up believing in British justice and a sense of fair play. We were rightly appalled at those countries where protest was banned, and demonstrators could be arrested. It sickens me to see this happening in front of what used to be a powerful symbol of freedom, the Houses of Parliament.

In 2007 the Labour Government, then led by Gordon Brown began a consultation about managing protest around Parliament which looked at different ways of imposing restrictions and those in SOCPA were repealed in the coalition’s by the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011. But they were replaced by giving police new powers to control a wide range of activities in the area.

Even more draconian powers allowing police to restrict protests across the UK cane into force under the Tory Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 which seriously impact free expression, freedom of speech and the right to protest in the United Kingdom, and further powers and increased sentences for protesters were enacted by the Public Order Act 2023. We now have non-violent protesters serving lengthy jail sentences, with a Labour government which appears to be in no hurry to repeal these repressive police state laws.

More pictures on My London Dairy.

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Extinction Rebellion October Rebellion – 2019

Extinction Rebellion October Rebellion – London 7 Oct 2019

Five years ago today Extinction Rebellion began their day of October Rebellion in London by occupying eleven locations at government ministries, Downing St, The Mall, Westminster and Lambeth bridges, bringing traffic in the centre of London to a halt.

The action was billed as an International Rebellion and there were other actions taking place in New York, Sydney and possibly elsewhere and you can read much more about them on the XR web site.

XR demand the government tell the truth about the climate and ecological emergency, act to halt biodiversity loss, reduce emissions to net zero and create and be led by a Citizens Assembly.

I managed to get to some but not quite all of these 11 locations during the day and take pictures. Police hindered movement around the city to some extent, making me have to walk rather further than I wanted when they completely closed Lambeth Bridge to all pedestrians after XR had closed both ends to traffic.

Police made a few arrests here and there but it was hard to see any logic in their actions. Some people had locked themselves together but generally I think the police were simply overwhelmed by the large number of protesters.

As before XR’s ‘Red Brigade’ made a colourful splash and like most photographers I took too many pictures of them.

As a part of the protest two XR rebels Tamsin and Melissa were married on Westminster Bridge.

Everything was ready, the clergy had arrived, but only one of the two people being married – and she had gone to look for the other who was taking part in a protest at BEIS in Victoria St. So we had to wait – and the jazz band entertained us.

Eventually Tamsin comes and tells the band to stop playing as the couple are ready to start the wedding.

And the ceremony begins.

The couple kiss and make promises.

A young boy comes forward with a ring

Melissa gives Tamsin a ring and then Tamsin places a ring on Melissa’s finger

And they kiss again.

More pictures on My London Diary:
XR Rebels marry on Westminster Bridge
Extinction Rebellion occupy Westminster

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Saffron Revolution & Slave Trade Abolition – 2007

Saffron Revolution & Slave Trade Abolition: On Saturday 6th October 2007 I photographed a protest against the brutal repression of the Saffron Revolution protest in Myanmar (Burma) and a celebration of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade,

Global Day of Action for Burma – Westminster

There was considerable support in the UK and UK media for the Burmese people who were taking part in non-violent protests against the military dictatorship there after it decided to remove subsidies on fuel, exacerbating a cost-of-living crisis in the country.

The protests were led by thousands of along with students and political activists and were often referred to as the Saffron Revolution.

The protests had begun in August 2007 and in late September after protests involving many thousands in various cities the government began a huge crackdown using military force to stop the protests and imposing curfews and prohibiting gatherings of more than five people.

Monasteries were raided, thousands of arrests were made and some protesters were killed. Wikipedia gives a great deal of detail, and on 1st October it was reported that around 4,000 monks were being detained at a disused race course, disrobed and shackled.

The official death toll over the period of the protests was 13, but the independent media organisation Democratic Voice of Burma based outside the country produced a list of 138 names of those killed.

The march began at Tate Britain on Millbank, proceeded over Lambeth Bridge and then returned to Westminster over Westminster Bridge. Many of the roughly 10,000 marchers wore red headbands and a small group of monks were allowed to tie strips of cloth onto the gates of Downing Street before the march continued to a rally in Trafalgar Square, where I left them.

More at London Burma March.

Slave Trade Abolition Bicentenary Walk

In 1787, Thomas Clarkson, Granville Sharp and ten other anti-slavery campaigners founded The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Nine of the twelve founders were Quakers, including the wealthy banker Samuel Hoare Jr which prevented their having much involvement in parliament.

Perhaps because of this the society became the first modern campaigning movement, working to educate the British public about the cruel abuses of the slave trade through publication of books, prints, posters and pamplets, organising lecture tours, including that by former slave and author Olaudah Equiano and by boycotting of goods produced by slaves.

The Quakers had organised petitions against slavery and presented these regularly to Parliament, and in 1787 William Wilberforce, MP for Hull was persuaded to join the movement, presenting the first Bill to abolish the slave trade in 1791 which was heavily defeated.

Further Bills followed on an almost annual basis, and finally in 1807 the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed, with a majority of 283 votes to 16 on its second reading in the House of Commons. A similar act was passed by the USA in the same year taking effect at the start of 1808.

Despite this it took another thirty years for slavery in the British Empire (except those parts ruled by the East India Company) to be abolished in 1838. And when this was done the freed slaves received no compensation but massive amounts were paid to the former slave owners, a total of around £20 million, around 40% of the national budget and allowing for inflation around £2, 800 million today. Fact checking by USA Today confirms that the UK Government only just finished paying its debts to the slave owners in 2015.

The Slave Trade Abolition Walk organised by Yaa Asantewaa & Carnival Village was only one of a number of events commemorating the abolition of the slave trade taking place in 2007, but was I think the most colourful. Yaa Asantewaa was named after the famous Queen Mother of Ejisu in the Ashanti Empire who led the Ashanti Kings in the War of the Golden Stool against British colonial rule in 1900 and was exiled to the Seychelles where she died in 1921.

Among the costumes was one winner from Notting Hill, and a rather fine ‘Empire Windrush’ depicting the ship which brought the first large contingent of migrant workers from the Caribbean to England in 1948. They had been recruited to fill the gap in UK workers needed to restore the British economy after the war and came to a country where they met much racist discrimination, which more recently became government policy under the Windrush scandal, still continuing.

As of course is slavery. ‘Modern slavery’ is no less slavery than the slavery that was at the core of the British Empire and which provided the wealth that once made Britain ‘Great’.

Slave Trade Abolition Bicentenary Walk

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Master Butcher Salman & LouLou’s 2019

Master Butcher Salman & LouLou’s: The protests I photographed on Wednesday 2nd October 2019 were conveniently close to each other in London’s Mayfair. I went to photograph a candlelit vigil for Saudi journalist Jamal Khasnhoggi at the Saudi Embassy (and also found a counter-protest) and then joined the IWGB protesting at exclusive Mayfair club LouLou’s a few yards away.

Justice For Jamal Khashoggi

Representatives of English PEN, Writers at Risk, Reporters Without Borders and PEN International had come to hold a candlelit vigil outside the Saudi Embassy on Curzon Street on the first anniversary of the horrific murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Khashoggi was a Saudi journalist, dissident, author, columnist for Middle East Eye and The Washington Post, and a general manager and editor-in-chief of Al-Arab News Channel.

Khashoggi was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul where he had gone to get papers for his planned marriage. Inside the consulate he was met by a team of possibly eight men sent by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) to assassinate him. He was strangled and then his body was cut into pieces using a bone saw so it could easily be removed from the building and disposed off.

Turkish intelligence bugs in the building recorded both the planning of the murder and its execution. MbS denied any knowledge of the plans prior to the murder, but few if any believe it could have happened without his authorisation.

Opposite the silent vigil was a noisy protest with music and speeches funded by the Saudi Embassy with banners and expensively produced placards as well as large LED illuminated screens in support of the Crown Prince.

They denied MbS had any involvement in the killing and held huge pictures of him as well as others lauding his achievements in giving aid to Yemen, supporting charitable foundations and fighting Islamic radicalism and extremism. The didn’t mention the war in Yemen, his support for Wahhabism, the ridiculous kidnapping of Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri (intended to weaken him, the country united behind him and MbS was forced to release him), and certainly not the barbaric torture, murder and dismemberment of Khashoggi.

One placard stated ‘SAUDI CROWN PRINCE WORKING TO BUILD A MODERN NATION AND MAKE HIS PEOPLE MORE CIVILISED. Barbaric practices like torturing and sawing up your opponents hardly seems a way to make his people more civilised. MbS now to many means Master butcher Salman.

Justice For Jamal Khashoggi
Saudis support killer Prince MBS

IWGB at Mayfair club Loulou’s

I joined the Independent Workers’ union of Great Britain (IWGB) Cleaners and Facilities Branch who had come to protest at exclusive Mayfair private club LouLou’s for kitchen porters to be paid a living wage, be treated with dignity and respect and given decent terms and conditions including proper sick pay, holidays and pension contributions.

Police and security men had closed off the section of street with the entrance to the club and the protesters were harassed by police and pushed roughly by security staff employed by the club during the protest.

Few of the wealthy customers being escorted into the club took the leaflets the protesters were offering or seemed to have any sympathy with the exploited workers at the club.

After protesting for some time on Trebeck Street at one end of the blocked section of Shepherd’s Market they marched noisly around the block to the other end in Hertford Street and continued the noisy protest there.

In December 2019 LouLou’s made an offer to the IWGB including paying its kitchen porters the London Living Wage from January 2020, 5 days sick pay, and regular quarterly consultations with the union on terms and conditions. Although it didn’t meet all of the unions demands further planned strikes were called off.

Many more pictures on My London Diary at IWGB at Mayfair club Loulou’s.

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No More Fur March – 2008

No More Fur March: Harrods has been getting a lot of attention in the media recently for the activities of its former owner, but on Saturday 27th September 2008 it was the destination of a march by the Campaign Against the Fur Trade.

Shamefully you can still buy fur coats at Harrods, A ‘secret shopper’ filming for animal protection charity Humane Society International/UK who raised concerns was lied to in 2021 by sales staff wearing Harrods-branded name badges about the conditions in which the fur is farmed.

Sales staff assured this customer that the foxes were kept in “separate rooms” with “enough space to play and everything“, and that they were “literally put to sleep” by injection when in practice they are confined in some farms in cages barely longer than their body length and anally electrocuted without any anaesthetic. The Harrods staff dismissed the many reports and videos of animals suffering in the fur trade as “only propaganda, madam“.

You can find out more about the actual practices of fur farming with evidence on many pages acriss tge web, including on the Humane Society International web pages which also have information on the other ways animals are mistreated in research, farming and other areas.

Fur farming was banned in the UK as ‘unethical‘ in 2000, but fur is still being imported into the UK from countries where fur farms raise and kill animals in desperately cruel conditions. Humane Society International has a letter you can sign to send Prime Minister Starmer calling on the UK government to end our association with fur cruelty for good and impose a fur import and sales ban.

Of course Harrods is not the only store still selling fur, and the march from Belgrave Square in 2008 also targeted other shops in Knightsbridge including “Gucci, Prada, Escada, Versace, Fendi, Joseph, Armani and Burberry” but in 2008 Harrods was the only department store in the UK still selling real fur.”

Since 2008 and despite many protests – as well as large events such as this there are smaller protests every weekend at Harrods and other shops selling fur – the sales of real fur in UK shops have continued.

Harvey Nicholls which had been fur-free since 2004 decided in 2014 to sell animal fur products again at its branches in London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, Dublin, Leeds and Birmingham and the largest national anti fur campaign for many years was been directed against them. In 2023 they finally announced that they were returning to their no-fur policy.

More at No More Fur March.

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