Goodbye and Good Riddance2023 – The past year has certainly been an “annus horribilis” that puts 1992 into shame in that respect and it ends with an ongoing genocide on a scale that would have been unimaginable before the development of recent weapons as well as unthinkable.
Today’s post is a baker’s dozen of images I took in the first two months of the year, January and February 2023 at some of the twenty-seven events I photographed then. It isn’t a collection of my “best photographs”, though I’ve tried to pick some of the more succesful I’ve taken. All these (and many others) are still online in my Facebook albums and most if not all available for editorial use from Alamy. They are displayed in date order.
London, UK. 18 Jan 2022. Nurses and other medical staff and supporters marched from a rally at University College Hospital on the first day of a two day nurses strike. Shocked by news of 500 avoidable deaths each day due to delays in emergency care they demand the government drop actions aimed at destroying and privatising the NHS and take urgent action to end staff shortages, including increasing pay and ending underfunding. Peter Marshall/Alamy Live NewsLondon, UK. 21 Jan 2023. Iranians and supporters march through London with the slogan ‘Women Life Freedom’ in support of continuing protests in Iran following the death of Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini at the hands of the morality police and demanding regime change. They condemned the continuing repression and arrest and hanging of protesters and called for the release of prisoners. Peter Marshall/Alamy Live NewsLondon, UK. 30 Jan 2023. Enough is Enough UK and the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom protest at Downing Street as the Tories push their anti-strike bill through Parliament. The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill has enraged trade unions and opposition MPs and is being debated by a ‘Committee of the whole house’ to rush it through without proper scrutiny and detailed debate. Peter Marshall/Alamy Live NewsLondon, UK. Feb 4 2023. A crowd protested loudly by the private street leading to the Israeli Embassy as a part of a worldwide fight by Israelis to preserve democracy in Israel and oppose the inclusion in the government of criminals and religious bigots which they say is unacceptable. Many brought their children with them to show their love for Israel. Peter Marshall/Alamy Live NewsLondon, UK. 11 Feb 2023. A police officer grabs a protester as Stand Up to Racism oppose the fascist Patriotic Alternative (PA) who came to try to end Drag Queen Story Hour UK events at Tate Britain with drag queen Aida H Dee. They rejected the PA claims that these story-telling sessions for parents and young children are “child grooming”, “paedophilia”, or in any way sexual. PA at the protest included several well-known former BNP members. Peter Marshall/Alamy Live NewsKashimiris protest at India House calling for an end to the military occupation by India by 800,000 troops. The called for freedom for Kashmir, for the release of political prisoners, and for the return of the body of Maqbool Butt, secretly hanged by India in Tihar Jail in 1984, to enable a dignified burial. Peter Marshall11 Feb 2023. Iranians protest in London in support of continuing protests in Iran following the death of Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini at the hands of the morality police and demanding regime change. They condemned the continuing repression and arrest and hanging of protesters and called for the release of prisoners and for a revolution to free the country from religious dictatorship. Many of those present were calling for the return of the Pahlavi monarchy. Peter MarshallLondon, UK. 11 Feb 2923. The Don’t Extradite Assange Campaign met in Lincoln’s Inn Fields for a Night Carnival procession though London calling for the refusal of extradition for Julian Assange to the USA where he would face life imprisonment in harsh conditions that would threaten his life and for his immediate release. Assange is a journalist who released details of crimes by others, not a criminal. Peter Marshall/Alamy Live NewLondon, UK. 25 Feb 2023. Stop the War Coalition and CND march in Lodon calling for an end to the war in Ukraine. Though opposed to the Russian invasion they call for peace talks to end the huge suffering and deaths of civilians and soldiers which is being fed by the supply of arms to Ukraine and point to the dangers of escalation, possibly nuclear. Peter Marshall/Alamy Live NewsLondon, UK. 11 Feb 2023. Iranians protest in London in support of continuing protests in Iran following the death of Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini at the hands of the morality police demanding regime change. They condemn the continuing repression, arrest and hanging of protesters and call for the release of imprisoned protesters, but also for a revolution to free the country from religious dictatorship. Many of those present were calling for the return of the Pahlavi monarchy, others want neither monarchyLondon, UK. 18 Feb 2023. Somalis rally opposite Downing Street against the violations of human rights against the people of Sool, Sanag and Cayn. People are being slaughtered, hospitals burnt, schools destroyed and water, food and medical supplies cut off. They call on the UK government to end funding and training the Somali government forces carrying out the atrocities and hold President Muse Bihi to account. Peter Marshall/Alamy Live NewsLondon, UK. 25 Feb 2023. Protesters crowded the roadside at Trafalgar Aquare with placards against Mayor Khan’s planned extension of the ultra low emission Zone (ULEZ) which will make drivers of extra polluting vehicles pay a daily charge for driving in the whole of Greater London. The ULEZ will help cut London’s lethal air pollution which kills thousands each year and ruins the health of many others. Peter Marshall/Alamy Live NewsLondon, UK. 25 Feb 2023. We Own It organised a protest in Parliament Square after an Oxford University study linked the treatable deaths of 557 people to NHS privatisation. They filled the square with 557 people each holding a numbered placard and a small bunch of flowers for each of those who has died because of privatisation and demand that this end and our NHS be fully returned to being a public service. Peter Marshall/Alamy Live News
If you want to find out more about any of the events you can find the albums with more of my pictures on Facebook. More from later in 2023 in another post.
Santas Protest For Justice: On Saturday 18th December 2004 I photographed a Christmas-themed protest with most of those taking part wearing Santa outfits.
Fathers4Justice Santas Protest, West End
Fathers4Justice had been in the news in recent months in 2004 with a number of high-profile protests including a couple of men dressed as Batman and Robin who got into the grounds of Buckingham Palace in September 2004. Robin was stopped by police, but Batman managed to shin up a drainpipe and sit on the roof for several hours.
Their protest didn’t get the results they desired, but did lead to a tightening of the law regarding trespass on royal property and other protected sites in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA) 2005 and 16 royal, governmental and parliamentary sites were designated in 2007. Robin was charged for carrying a bladed weapon as he was found to have a bladed weapon – a Stanley Knife – in his pocket.
Family courts have a difficult job, and have to deal with some very bitter disputes after relationships have broken up. They do so behind closed doors to protect the children involved, and often the decisions they come to are hard to understand and impossible for some of those concerned to accept. At times they don’t appear to have the wisdom of Solomon!
Since 2004 there have been some changes in the family court system, with the Family Procedure Rules 2010 allowing accredited media representatives to attend – with some exceptions and subject to strict rules on what they can report. And in 2023 a pilot scheme was begun in court in Cardiff, Leeds and Carlisle allowing journalists and legal bloggers to report from Family Courts subject to rules of anonymity.
Fathers4Justice were campaigning for access rights for parents and grandparents to see children after the breakup of relationships. As I wrote in 2004 “although courts may grant this at the moment, where they feel it is in the best interests of the child, there is seldom any enforcement of such decisions. so currently access depends entirely on the cooperation of whichever parent was granted custody.”
Fathers4Justice (and they also include mothers, though fewer than fathers as courts largely award custody to the mothers) want access rights to be enforced and argue that there should be a permanent relationship between children and both parents.
Many of the Santas carried placards with the message “PUT THE FATHER BACK INTO XMAS” and some carried photographs of the children they were being prevented from seeing. There was also a picture of David Blunkett in a Santa Hat, as the protest came four days after the then Home Secretary was forced to resign following revelations over his affair with Kimberly Quinn, then the publisher of The Spectator. He was forced to resign after having speeded up the visa application by her nanny. Their affair had ended but Blunkett had gone to court to demand access to her two-year-old child, claiming he was the father. He also claimed to be the father of a second child she was then expecting, but later DNA tests showed this was not the case.
Fathers4 Justice met in Green Park close to the Underground station and I was able to talk with them and take photographs before the march set off along Piccadilly. Along with the Santas there were also some elves and a Spiderman. I took some more pictures and left them at Piccadilly Circus.
Scroll down the December 2004 page on My London Diary for pictures and text.
Cops Off Campus National Student Protest – Ten years ago today on Wednesday 11th December 2013 I was at the University of London for a large national student protest over the use of police against student protests on campus at several universities around the country.
At Sussex University the management had called the police onto the campus or gone to the courts to prevent or oppose student protests or harass students. A number of students had been arrested.
In London police had been called to protests over the closing down by management of the University of London Union and the 3 Cosas campaign supported by students for a living wage and decent conditions of employment – sick pay, holiday pay and pensions – for the low paid workers on campus. The cleaners union, the IWGB, had come to support the students at this protest.
The previous week in London there had been a large police presence harassing and arresting students at an emergency protest over police brutality in their eviction of students from the Senate House that Wednesday, with a total of over 40 arrests on that day and the following day.
When I had arrived for that protest, there were police vans parked in all the side streets around and later the police made several failed attempts to kettle the large group of students at the protest despite it being intended as an entirely peaceful and orderly march around some of the various sites of the university in the area.
The police actions on that occasion seemed totally unnecessary and it was hard not to see them as a deliberate attempt to provoke a violent response, but the students kept their heads, moved rapidly and outwitted them. My account of the protest at ‘Cops Off Campus’ Protest Police Brutality‘ ended with the sentence: “It did seem an incredible and pointless waste of public money, and it resulted in more inconvenience to the public than if the event had not been policed at all.”
I don’t for a moment imagine the police had been influenced by my account, though I do know from occasional comments made to me by officers at various protests that some of them at least followed me. I’m sure that they had come to the same obvious conclusion independently, and for the protest on 11th December there was not an officer in sight in the whole area.
There were speeched outside the University of London Union before the march moved off, at its front a ‘Book Bloc’ carrying large backed polystyrene foam shields with book titles, including George Orwell’s ‘1984’, particularly appropriate as the Senate House is said to have inspired Orwell’s ‘Ministry of Truth’, and alongside it were Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom, Mary Woolstonecraft’s ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Women’, E P Thompson’s ‘The Making of the English Working Class’ and other classics.
When the march came to the gates to Senate House from Russell Square they found that these gates, normally open, had been locked and chained to prevent them entering, despite most of those present being members of the university. They are stout metal gates but the chains could not for long resist the bodies pushing against them and they gave way and the crowd surged into the car park.
After a few minutes the marchers made their way back to Russell Square and continued to march around the area, eventually coming to a halt outside SOAS, where the samba band was playing and they sat down, stood around or danced.
Later some went on to protest outside the law courts where the inquest on Mark Duggan, shot by police in 2011, was ending and then to Whitehall, but I left as I was getting tired and needed to file my pictures.
Students Against Cuts And Fees – Thursday 9th December was a day of confusion on the streets of London with confusing and inconsistent policing and thousands of angry students.
Parliament was debating a three-fold increase in university tuition fees and students filled the main streets of Whitehall in a noisy and at times indisciplined protest. Police actions stirred up antagonism, and there were a number of charges in which protesters and press suffered minor injuries as riot police used their batons and police horses also made a short charge into the crowd.
Some of the other press photographers covering the event were clearly targeted by individual ‘rogue’ police officers who deliberately smashed their equipment, apparently fearing their pictures might show them engaging in brutal attacks on some of the protesters. Fortunately I was a few hundred yards away covering the official rally on the Embankment when the worst violence flared up around Parliament.
Although the students were rightly angry at the increase in fees, the removal of the education maintenance allowance and swingeing cuts in some courses, particularly in the arts and humanities which are to lose 80% of their funding, the overall mood of the protest was good-natured if exuberant.
Later in the day when a few fireworks were thrown into the police lines in front of the Houses of Parliament the crowd dancing in front of the police turned towards those who had thrown them and chanted against them, using the sound system to tell them that the police were only doing their job and that police too were suffering from the government cuts.
On My London Diary you can read my fairly lengthy account of the march as I saw it, including my impression that “that both police and some of the protesters were clearly guilty of over-reacting“. I won’t repeat most of that here, but one paragraph of my own experiences close to Parliament stands out:
I spent a few minutes trying to take pictures and getting very squashed before deciding I needed to push my way out for my own safety, both from the police and from being crushed in the crowd. A few minutes earlier I had been in the front line and being crushed by the crowd against the barriers in front of the riot police, and I and the others around me were repeatedly threatened by riot police shaking batons at us and telling us they would attack us if we didn’t move back – which was simply not possible – we were totally unable to move due to the pressure of the crowd.
I made my way down to the area of the Embankment were the end of march rally was supposed to take place, but few people had arrived there and it had not started. After much angry shouting at the organisers to stop playing music and start the speeches it did begin with speeches from union leaders – including Brendan Barber and Bob Crow, who got a big welcome – and politicians.
But the rally was then interrupted by someone shouting that police had attacked the demonstrators in Parliament Square, charging with police horses, and I joined a number of others in trying to make my way there. Most were stopped by police at Bridge Street, but some of us with press cards were allowed through, while the others formed another protest on Westminster Bridge.
Things were very confused in Parliament Square, but many protesters were still kettled there, keeping themselves warm by dancing, some around small fires of burning placards. And a plastic security hut was set on fire. Many by now were wanting to go home, but all the exits were blocked by police.
Police told some they could leave by going up Parliament Street and Whitehall, and I went with them, only to find the way blocked by a line of police with riot shields who were not at all interested in my press card (one TV camera crew did manage to push their way past.) Behind them were a line of police horses, and we were all pushed back towards Parliament Square.
I tried to go from Parliament Street back to Parliament Square, but a line of riot police refused to let me through, telling me to go to see their boss when I showed my press card. I did and listened to him arguing with a group of students that they were not being detained although they were not being allowed to leave. It make absolutely no sense, and is something the police often say which undermines the relationship between people and police that is essential for the cooperation that the police need to do their job. This event was clearly a huge own goal for policing.
I didn’t bother to stop and argue as I saw that a few yards to the right, in an area presumably under the control of another officer, people were walking freely through – so I joined them and made my way back to Parliament Square, turning into Bridge Street. Another police line was stopping the protesters exiting but let me through without problems when I showed my press card and told them I was on my way home.
The protesters, most of whom also wanted now only to go home peacefully were less fortunate and were detained for another four or more hours, and there were violent incidents and arrests. “Police at one point apparently pushed a large group into a very confined space on Westminster Bridge with a total disregard for their safety; some had to behave medical treatment for crushing, and there could easily have been more serious or fatal injuries and people pushed into the freezing river below.”
My conclusion to my article on the day was “It was a day of confusion, with protesters and police both failing to understand what was happening, and an official student leadership that fails to understand the mood and anger of the students and others – and although the RMT and Bill Crow had offered support, the TUC has curiously failed to take action, putting off its march against the cuts until March.“
Santas, Education, Nativity – London was getting into the Christmas spirit on Saturday 6th December 2014, with boozy hordes of Santas on the streets and a Fossil Free Nativity Play in Westminster. But a national day of education activism against tuition fees had also been called and I photographed a march in south London.
South London March for Free Education – Clapham
There was a disappointing turnout for the march against tuition fees which gathered outside Lambeth College facing Clapham Common.
It perhaps wasn’t a good day to have called for a protest, as many students will already have left London to go home for the Christmas break, and others will have been busy with other things including Christmas shopping. And I’m sure there will have been rather more running around the capital in Santa costumes for Santacon.
The marchers included people from the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, Lambeth Left Unity and South London Defend Education. This was one of a number of events taking place that day across the country including others around London.
I walked a short distance with the march taking a few photographs before leaving them to take the tube to Westminster. They were marching to a rally in Brixton where they expected rather more to attend.
Christian Climate Action and Occupy organised an entertaining performance of a Fossil Free Nativity Play between Westminster Abbey and Methodist Central Hall, part of a continuing campaign to get churches to disinvest from fossil fuel companies.
Among the members of the cast were Wesley 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.
Few of the actors had seen the script before the performance and the costumes and props were interesting rather than authentic – perhaps the best being the headgear for the Roman soldiers.
Their was some lively music from violin and trumpet and at the end of the performance everyone posed behind the banners calling for the churches to divest from fossil fuels. But there was no sign of the clergy from either Westminster Abbey and Methodist Central Hall,
Around a thousand young people in Santa suits, along with the odd elf, reindeer and other Christmas-themed costumes were milling around the edge of Clapham Common for the start of day-long alcohol-fuelled crawl through London (with a little help from public transport.)
Similar groups were starting from meeting points in East and North London and they hoped to meet up later in the day at Marble Arch or Hyde Park, though I think for many the festivities would end in Trafalgar Square.
Later in the day I met up with rather more of the Santas coming from North London close to Great Portland Street station, by which time they were rather merrier. I also met a couple of photographer friends who had also come to take pictures. Most of the Santas were keen to be photographed and quite a few also got me to take pictures on their phones, though I found that rather beyond me. I hope a few worked.
I went with them along to Baker Street taking pictures and later in the day wrote:
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.
It was getting dark and although I could still work it meant using flash and I didn’t feel the results were as good. I left them there to make my way to join my two friends who by then were sitting in one of the nicest pubs in the area and was delighted to find a pint waiting for me on the table.
Climate Emergency Rally & Wave – Saturday 5th December 2009 was probably the day of possibly the largest protest then in the UK over the impending disaster of climate change. Over a hundred organisations had come together in the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition representing a combined membership of around 11 million “from the Women’s Institute and RSPB to Christian Aid and Unison.”
This is the group which now calls itself less contentiously The Climate Coalition and organises a ‘Great Big Green Week‘ which slipped by last June without me noticing it (and I belong to several of the organisations it includes.) It’s good that a wider group is concerned about climate change, but the action over the ever increasing crisis has passed on to others such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil.
The next Great Big Green Week is 8th – 16th June 2024 and it would be good to see some real action, stopping down polluters, mass protests, creating news headlines every day. With now a combined supporter base of 20 million and with sister organisations in Wales, Scotland and Ireland they should be able to achieve a major impact.
The Campaign Against Climate Change had organised an annual Climate match at the time of the UN Climate talks every year since 2005 and although it was good to see a wider participation despite that huge potential and massive publicity the march was perhaps only a little more than five times the size of previous years. And the 2009 event, entitled ‘The Wave’ did seem more a stunt for the media than an informed political event. As I commented, “Surely with the backing of 11 million the coalition should be making demands, not just waving, and it’s perhaps hard to see the significance of blue hands and faces in a demonstration about global warming.” Red would perhaps have been a more appropriate colour choice than the coolest of colours.
Campaign Against Climate Change began the event with a rally at Hyde Park with speakers giving a clear political message, which I summarised in my account on My London Diary:
They stress we really need to take emergency action in the UK now, starting with the declaration of a Climate Emergency. Immediate actions should include a 10% cut in carbon dioxide by the end of 2010, a million new green jobs by the end of 2010, a ban on domestic flights, the scrapping of the roads program and a 55 mph speed limit, and an end to the use of agrofuels.
But the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition had absented themselves from this and met instead in Grosvenor Square, joining with those from the rally to march to surround the Houses of Parliament in ‘The Wave.’ And on a Saturday of course there were not even any MPs there to wave at – and only a few had come to take part in the protest.
More interesting things were happening on the fringes of the main event, and in some of the groups on the march, and I covered as much as I could of this, though I did miss the Climate Camp protesters who took over Trafalgar Square, who I visited briefly a couple of days later.
Rather separate from the main march was an ironic protest by around 50 people dressed as city traders representing the World Association of Carbon Traders.
The City gents including a few ‘gentesses’ and rather more bad false moustaches along with some power-dressed business women marched under the banner ‘Carbon Trading: The Final Solution‘ in a rather nasty yellow, perhaps meant to be gold, though it seemed more mustard to me.
The WACT logo – ‘CO2$’ and placards including ‘Trust Me, I’m a Banker, Capitalise On The Climate’, ‘In Markets We Trust’, ‘One Solution. Trade Pollution’, ‘Greed is Green’, ‘Carbon Trader = Eco Crusader.’ and ‘Cash In On Climate Change’, as well as the ‘Permits to Pollute’ they were handing out made their ironic intention clear, though some tourists on the pavements seemed very confused.
I recognised them despite their disguises as the Space Hijackers whose activities over the years had given a new creative face to protest; here they gave a welcome touch of ironic humour and substance to what was perhaps otherwise a rather bland if colourful event that often seemed more like a PR media stunt than a political demonstration.
Their message was of course a serious one. Carbon trading is at best an irrelevance in environmental terms, allowing ‘business as usual’ and with fat profits for some. But worse, as with all markets, it is a mechanism for allowing the wealthy to increase their domination at the expense of the poor.
Other groups also came with a serious political message, if sometimes also expressed rather rudely. For a short distance the main march was led by a black banner with the message ‘POLARIARIAT! UP YER BUM, COP 15!’ and a picture of a Polar Bear, threatened as arctic ice sheets melt and disintegrate. Stewards from the march soon came and argued with them to leave and after police intervention they moved a long way back in the march joining a few other like-minded groups. The quote from the 1987 film ‘Wish You Were Here‘ clearly didn’t fit the smooth PR presentation of the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition.
Finally it was 3pm and time to wave and I was with protesters in front of Big Ben to register the time.
Some people stayed on and continued to protest in Parliament Square for another hour or so. Among them were Climate Rush whose banners were calling for Equity “EMISSION QUOTAS MUST BE PER CAPITA. THE RICH HAVE NO MORE RIGHT TO POLLUTE THAN THE POOR”. As I commented this is something that the rich – and in particular the USA – don’t accept and which was likely to prevent any real progress in the talks at Copenhagen.
Topshop Tax Dodging & Zero Carbon March – UK Uncut protested on Oxford Street against tax dodging by Arcadia Group and Campaign Against Climate Change led a march to Parliament calling for urgent action including a Zero Carbon Britain by 2030.
UK Uncut protest Topshop Tax Dodge – Oxford St
Several hundred had come to UK Uncut’s protest against tax dodging by major UK companies which costs the UK £12 billion a year.
Arcadia Group is owned by the man UK Uncut describe as “Britain’s most notorious tax-avoider, Sir Philip Green, and his vast retail empire.”
Green’s brands include Topshop, Topman, Dorothy Perkins, Burton, Miss Selfridge, Wallis and British Home Stores. While Green himself pays tax on his salary, the companies are owned by a holding company in the tax haven of Jersey, which is owned by his wife and immediate family who live in Monaco, and pay no tax.
They say that in 2005 he awarded himself a huge dividend payment of £1.2 billion which went through various offshore accounts and tax dodges to his wife’s Monaco bank account, with a loss in tax to the UK of £285 million.
Green had recently been appointed by Prime Minister David Cameron to advise the government on how to slash public spending. But if he and others like him paid their UK tax these cuts would not be necessary. UK Uncut in 2010 put the losses from tax not paid by wealthy individuals as £13 billion and by large corporations as £12 billion.
Other companies being targeted by UK Uncut for high levels of tax avoidance include Vodaphone, Boots, HSBC and Barclays.
One of the government cuts has been in the budget of HMRC which will greatly affect its ability to investigate tax fraud, and even where fraud has been found, deals are often made that result in only very partial recovery of losses. In contrast the government spends large amounts on detecting much smaller amounts of benefit fraud.
We need to move to a system which levies tax on actual earnings in the UK and outlaws all the devious methods that can be used to avoid paying tax which currently form a large industry in the UK. Almost all of those who were handed leaflets at the protest were surprised and shocked to find that profits made on Oxford Street were not contributing tax to the UK.
I was late for the protest as my train had been held up by snow and around a hundred protesters had entered the Oxford Street branch of Topshop when I arrived. Police and store security by then had stopped anyone entering and were bringing the protesters out in ones and twos, sometimes rather roughly.
The protest continued noisily on the pavement, handing out leaflets and gaining considerable support from the shoppers passing. Even when it was possible to enter few went into Topshop and the neighbouring Miss Selfridge while the protest was continuing.
After around an hour the protesters went to protest at BHS, another of Green’s Oxford Street stores, before coming back to Topshop. Later they went to Dorothy Perkins and branches of other tax avoiders, Boots and Vodaphone.
I left and hour and a half after the protest had begun, returning briefly a couple of hours later on my way home to find it continuing.
March for Zero Carbon Britain 2030 – Hyde Park to Westminster
Several thousand marched from Hyde Park to Parliament calling for urgent action over the climate crisis including a call for a Zero Carbon Britain by 2030. Currently the government has committed to net zero by 2050, but is pursuing policies which will make if difficult if not impossible to meet this target, far too late.
The demand for urgent action and a 2030 target was based on the recently published in-depth report compiled for the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT), ‘Zero Carbon Britain 2030: A new energy strategy’. More recent scientific reports have assessed the need as even more urgent.
The march was the seventh annual march organised by the Campaign Against Climate Change which has led the movement for action over climate change and was timed to coincide with the crucial Cancun climate talks. While the protest a year earlier had been supported by a number of major charities, many of these were absent at this event and appear to have abandoned major campaigning on the issue.
Among the groups which did take part were Friends of the Eath, Greenpeace, the World Development Movement, the Climate Rush, the Green Party and others including many local groups, trade union branches etc.
After posing for a photographer high up in a cherry-picker the march set off towards Parliament for a rally on Millbank – Parliament Square was still roped off and could not be used.
The rally had a very wide range of speakers in support, including Phil Thornhill, founder of the CACC, Caroline Lucas MP, Andy Atkins, Director of Friends of the Earth, Michael Meacher MP, Sophie Allain from the Climate Camp, Tony Kearns of the CWU, Ben Brangwyn, co-founder of the Transition Towns movement, Maryla Hart from Biofuelwatch and John Stewart of HACAN as well a Maria Souviron, the Ambassador of Bolivia, one of the few nations to have grasped the urgency of climate change and a leader in the call for effective world action.
Maria Souviron, the Ambassador of Bolivia
You can read more about some of the points that were made in the speeches in a more detailed article on My London Diary. Unfortunately the UK has made little progress to prevent the disastrous trends in global temperature in the 13 years since this march – and has gone backwards in some respects. We are now beginning to feel the effects, particularly in more erratic weather and some temperature records, while some other countries are now in desperate straits.
Climate Justice, Congo & London – On Saturday 3rd December 2011 there was an Xmas shopping event in the City, normally pretty dead at weekends and Occupy were holding climate justice workshops before joining Campaign Against Climate Change’s annual march. That took me past a protest at Downing Street against the vote-rigging in the recent election in the DRC. I’d taken some pictures earlier as I was going around London and took a few more in the dark later on my way to an event in Acton.
City Xmas Celebrations – Bank
A live musical box
There was a special Xmas Saturday shopping event in the centre of the City of London which usually closes down for the weekend, but I think it was aimed more at the wealthy 1% than me.
Santa had come with real reindeer
I wouldn’t normally have gone but it was on my fastest route to St Paul’s Cathedral and it was the first time the City had held such an event. Though unless there were rather more visitors later in the day it would probably be the last. I didn’t feel welcome and didn’t stay long.
Occupy LSX Climate Justice Workshops – St Paul’s Cathedral steps
Occupy London was still camping next to St Paul’s Cathedral, having been there since 15th October, and they were holding workshops when I arrived about various aspects of climate justice and campaigning, and preparing banners and posters for the Climate Justice march later in the day.
They planned to make their way to the start of the march in a ‘Climate Walk of Shame’ around the offices of various climate change villians (‘unsavoury sites of climate criminality’) in the City.
As often with Occupy, the plenary session went on longer than anticipated. Many people wanted to contribute and some at rather greater length than necessary and the walk began rather late.
I’d hoped to be able to go with them, but only went as far as their first stop at one of the banks in St Paul’s Churchyard before I had to leave to make my own more direct way to the start of the march in Blackfriars.
Stand Up For Climate Justice – Blackfriars to Old Palace Yard
Around a thousand people gathered at Blackfriars for the march organised by the Campaign Against Climate Change to a rally opposite the Houses of Parliament.
Climate talks were taking place in the 17th UN conference in Durban, but seemed unlikely to make much progreess as the US were continuing to refuse to accept mandatory limits on carbon emissions. It seemed likely this would prevent any progress on global reductions in emissions, and seemed certain to lead to catastrophic increases in global temperature. Or, as I put it “bluntly, our planet is going to fry.”
While Barbara Boxer the head of the Senate environment committee was pointing out that the US is the world’s largest historic emitter and thus has a moral obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the US right, and the ‘Tea Party’ movement in particular, were still denying the existence of climate change and vehemently opposing any restrictions on the emissions of US industry.
By 2011 there had long been no serious scientific debate about the reality of climate change, though still some controversy about the exact magnitude and the timescales involved. But all informed opinion agreed that urgent action is needed, though the heavily funded fossil fuel lobby was still spreading lies and opposing any action.
Since 2011 things have become even more clear and the effects have become worse than even the more pessimistic scientists then predicted. But still politicians are not taking the urgent actions needed, and limiting the temperature rise to 1.5°C now seems impossible.
Among many speakers was John Stewart of HACAN who pointed out that while the richest 7% who cause 50% of the world’s pollution, aircraft use, one of the major sources of emissions, is limited to an even more limited group of the world’s population, with only 5% of the world’s population ever having flown.
Congolese Protest Against Kabila Vote-Rigging – Downing St
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is both blessed and cursed by its immense mineral resouces, probably the richest of any country in the world, including 80% of the world’s cobalt reserves, and between 65-80% of coltan, the mineral from which tantalum capacitors, vital for mobile phones, games consoles, computers and other electronic devices are made.
Despite this wealth of the DRC, the people remain some of the poorest in the world, and because of these minerals the country is one of the most corrupt in the world. The move towards renewable energy and the increasing need for batteries for electrical vehicles has led to increased geopolitical competition over the DRC’s cobalt resources.
The area has been the subject of various wars and there is still conflict as well as widespread violation of humanitarian and human rights law, including the sexual abuse of women and children.
The Kabila regime has been kept in office by western interests who have now turned a blind eye to the widespread vote-rigging violence and fraud in the elections. The opposition later claimed to have outvoted Kabila with 54% of the vote to his 26%, while Kabila claimed to have won by 49% to 32%.
In 2019, the son of the candidate thee protesters say won the 2011 election became President in the first peaceful transition of power since the DRC became independent but the early years of his presidency were still with governments dominated by supporters of Kabila. In 2021 he was able to form a new government which among other measures has promised to reverse deforestation in the DRC by 2030.
I’d taken a few views of London as I walked with the Climate March.
And in the early evening I went to an event in North Acton, walking to the venue from Willesden Junction. There are just a few more on-line at London Wandering.
Cressingham Gardens Calls For A Ballot – On Saturday 2nd December 2017 residents of Cressingham Gardens in Tulse Hill marched with supporters to a rally at Lambeth Town Hall in Brixton to demand Lambeth Council hold a ballot of residents over the plans to demolish their homes. I went early to take a walk around the estate and take some photographs before the rally and march.
Cressingham Gardens – Tulse Hill, Brixton
Council estates generally get a bad press, with media attention concentrating on those which were badly planned and have been allowed to deteriorate, often deliberately populated with more than than share of families with problems of various kinds, used as ‘sink estates’ by local councils. Some councils have even employed PR companies to denigrate and demonise those of their estates they want to demolish and sell off to private developers.
This has always been a popular estate, and has a low crime rate for the area
These developers have also powerfully lobbied our main political parties who have handed over much of their policies over housing to developers and estate agents and other property professionals who stand to make huge profits from turning public property into private estates.
Yet many council estates are pleasant places to live, often much better planned than private developments of the same era, and providing more space for people than the cramped and expensive flats that are replacing them where redevelopment schemes have gone ahead. Lambeth Council have several such estates, including those at Central Hill and Cressingham Gardens where this would clearly be the case, and residents at both sites have campaigned strongly to keep their homes.
We seem always to be in a housing crisis in the UK, and some of the solutions that were taken to meet this have not always worked to well, particularly with some system-built high rises which were shoddily erected by private developers for councils.
After I left home in the early 1960s I lived in private rented flats, then in a New Town in a flat from the development agency and then for many years now as an owner occupier. The private rentals were pretty squalid and the publicly owned flat was rather more spacious than the small Victorian house we have lived in since. It would have been good to have been able to move into socially owned housing when we relocated but it wasn’t available.
Until the Thatcher government came into power public housing had regarded as something desirable with even Conservative Councils such as Lambeth was then having a mission to provide quality housing for working class Lambeth residents. They employed some of the best architects in the country, such as Edward Hollamby, the chief architect for Lambeth Council who was responsible for Cressingham Gardens and designed this low rise ‘garden estate’ development built in 1967 to 1979 at low cost and with a high population density, but with the 306 homes each having their own private outdoor space.
As the Twentieth Century Society state “this is one of the most exceptional and progressive post-war social housing estates in the UK” but the application for listing the estate in 2013 was rejected despite Historic England praising the way the design responds to its setting, with skill and sensitivity, “both in the scale and massing of the built elements, as well as through the integration of these elements with informal open spaces which bring a park-like character into the estate”. It appears to have been a decision made in defiance of both the estate’s architectural and historical merit and solely on political grounds.
The estate is on the Twentieth Century Society Buildings at Risk list. Lambeth Council have completed their preparation and brief for its complete demolition and their web site states they “will shortly be starting RIBA Stage 2 (Concept Design).“
Cressingham Gardens residents say Ballot Us!
People met up next to the Rotunda in the centre of the estate designed by Hollamby as a children’s nursery, many carrying banners and posters. Residents were joined by other campaigners, including those trying to save Lambeth’s libraries and housing campaigners from north London.
Residents love living on Cressingham – a small well-planned estate with a great community feeling and many know that they will be unable to afford the so-called afford ‘affordable’ homes that the council wants to replace their homes with – a 2 bed flat after regeneration will cost £610 (at 2017 values.)
They want the estate to be refurbished rather than demolished, which the council says would cost £10 million. Many dispute the council’s costings and say that some of the problems the council has identified are a matter of poor maintenance rather than needing expensive building works. But residents in any case point to the council having just spent over £165 million on a new Town Hall and say refurbishment is a cheap option.
It isn’t the cost of refurbishment which makes the council turn it down, but the profits that developers can make from the site – and which the council hopes to be able to get a share. Though such schemes haven’t always worked out well. Although the developers have done very nicely out of demolishing the Heygate site in Southwark and building high density blocks on it, the council made a huge loss, though some individuals involved have ended up in lucrative jobs on the back of it.
Lambeth is a Labour Council, and since the previous Labour Party conference party policy had been that no demolition of council estates should take place without consent, but Lambeth Council seem determined to ignore this and go ahead with their plans for a so-called ‘regeneration’ which would see all 300 homes demolished, without any plans to provide immediate council housing for the roughly 1000 residents who would be made homeless. To the council these residents are simply occupying a site worth several hundred thousand pounds – an asset the council wants to realise. It doesn’t care about communities, about people.
Those who have become leaseholders of their homes are likely to get even more shoddy treatment. The amount of compensation they are likely to receive is likely to be less than half they would need to buy a comparable property in the area – on or the rebuilt estate.
Cressingham is in a very desirable location, on the edge of a large park and with good transport links a short distance away. Many are likely to have to move miles away on the edge of London or outside to find property they can afford, far from where they now live and work.
The march set off for Brixton Town Hall on the corner of Acre Lane where a small crowd of supporters was waiting for them. The placed a box containing petition signatures in front of the locked doors on the steps and a rally began with shouts calling for a ballot.
Among those who had come to speak along with residents from the estate were Tanya Murat of Southwark Homes for All and Piers Corbyn, a housing campaigner also from neighbouring Southwark.
One of the strikers from the Ritzy cinema opposite told us that none of them could now afford to live in Lambeth now, and it’s clear that we need more social housing not less in the area. A local Green Party member also told us that they were the only party in the area campaigning for more social housing.
Potent Whisper performed his take on Regeneration, ‘Estate of War’, from this Rhyming Guide to Housing. The video of this was recorded in Cressingham Gardens.
Others who had come along included people from Class War and the e RCG (Revolutionary Communist Group) who have been very active in supporting social housing campaigns as well as Roger Lewis of DPAC who told us how council cuts affect the disabled disproportunately.
Anti-Fur, Karma & Knightsbridge. Saturday 1st December 2007 I came to London mainly to photograph the National Anti-fur march, but arrived rather early and took a walk around Knightsbridge and Hyde Park and after the march went on to see what was happening in Oxford Street and Regent Street where there was a traffic-free day to promote what the Church of Stop Shopping labels the Shopocalypse and stoke global warming. But I was warmed just a little by free hugs from Danny’s Karma Army.
National Anti-fur March – Belgrave Square – Harrods, Knightsbridge
Although farming of animals for fur was banned in this country in 2003, both fur farming and extensive trapping of wild animals for fur still take place in other countries.
Many of the countries where fur farming still takes place allow far more cruel practices than those that led to the ban here on the grounds of animal cruelty. Animals are reared in extremely crowded conditions and killed inhumanely – and on some farms skinned while still alive.
Trapping of animals for their fur also involves cruel practices, with wild animals caught in steel jawed traps, often only found and clubbed or suffocated after several days of agonising pain. Still in use in the USA and Canada, leg-hold traps were banned in the UK in the 1950s.
Yet despite this it remains legal to import most furs into the UK, although imports of seal, cat and dog fur are banned. But the UK still imports £55 million worth of fur a year, and estimated 95% of which comes from fur farms. The government abandoned promises to bring in legislation though they have now stated a willingness to support a private members bill on the matter should one be promoted. It seems unlikely that this will happen before the coming election.
Public opinion is very much against the use of animal fur, with opinion polls showing over 90% would like to see a ban. And most consumers now think that fur on garments is synthetic, but many of the big names in fashion and fashion stores are still designing with and selling animal fur. Their wealthy clients, including many overseas customers perhaps still see expensive animal furs as something to desire rather than as it should be, a badge of shame.
The marchers gathered in Belgrave Square and then marched past many of the shops which in 2007 were still selling garments using animal furs, which then included most of the famous names including Gucci, Versace, Fendi, Amani, Dolce and Gabana. Various stores, including Escada, Joseph and Burberry are also targets for the campaign, but the loudest condemnation was reserved for Harrods, the only department store in the UK still selling fur – and still selling animal fur in 2023.
Protests like this one and the continuing pressure from organisations such as PETA have led to many of thes brands end the use of animal furs. A post on Panaprium lists some who no longer do so: “Versace, Furla, Armani, Calvin Klein, Gucci, Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Shrimps, and Vivienne Westwood” and also high street brands “Topshop, Zara, Gap, French Connection, AllSaints, Hobbs, John Lewis, Marks & Spencer, House of Fraser, Ted Baker, H&M and Whistles“.
But there is still more to do. The Panaprium post by Alex Assoune is headed 28 Shameless Fashion Brands Still Using Fur in 2023 and lists them, as well as stating “There are too many fashion brands that use animal fur to list them all. It’s shockingly disgusting that clothing brands still engage in such barbaric practices for vanity and profits.”
I’d often walked past St Paul’s Church in Wilton Place, a nineteenth century Gothic building (erected in 1840, but much altered 50 years later) but had never before been inside. I’d arrived in Belgrave Square rather a long time before the anti-fur march was ready to start and as the church as open took the opportunity to go inside.
The building is worth a visit, not least for the interesting sepia tile pictures by Daniel Bell dating from 1869-79.
I crossed to Hyde Park, where there was an extensive funfair for the Christmas season and I wandered through it taking a few pictures before hurrying back to the march, stopping to take a couple of pictures of the French Embassy.
Danny’s Karma Army – Taking Kindness Very Seriously – Regent St / Oxford St
Back in 2001, Scottish comedian and presenter Danny Wallace put an advert in a free newspaper call on people to ‘Join Me’ inviting people to join him in carrying out a random act of kindness for a stranger every Friday. To his surprise thousands did and in 2003 he wrote the book ‘Join Me’ about how he he “accidentally started a ‘cult‘” .
Initially known as ‘Join Me’ this movement became known as Danny’s Karma Army, and on December 1st 2007, some of them were out on Regent Street which together with Oxford Street was enjoying a traffic-free day for shoppers.
As I wrote in 2007:
There were a few street performers and musicians, but generally it seemed a recipe for incredible levels of boredom and immoderate spending, with one credit card company offering special prizes to big spenders.
The only relief from this was offered by members of Danny’s Karma Army who were offering free sweets and free hugs – and I took advantage of both as well as some pictures.
They do “random nice things for strangers on Fridays” but were putting in a bit of overtime on a Saturday. As well as rather silly and pointless things, some also apparently do rather more useful things like becoming first-aiders and supporting charities with money or time. So although personally I’d run a mile from a cult leader like Danny, good luck to them. And thanks for the sweets and hugs.
You can hear more about Danny Wallace in a podcast interview with James O’Brien and hear Wallace now every week when “The Great Leader and his I.B.S (Important Broadcast Squad) assemble every Sunday morning from 11am – 1pm!” on an Apple Podcast Radio X, also available live on DAB.
