>Re:PHOTO Peter Marshall - Thoughts on Photography

Budget, Mugabe & Turkish Gays 2017

Budget, Mugabe & Turkish Gays: Wednesday 22 November 2017 was Budget Day and as usual there were protests around Parliament, and I photographed people protesting about Brexit, housing, student fees and the NHS. Outside the Zibabwe Embassy there were people celebrating the resignation of President Mugabe, while people came to the Turkish Embassy in a protest against a ban on LGBTI cultural events in Ankara.

Budget Day Brexit Protests – Old Palace Yard

The usual Remainers had come to protest with some new Budget Day slogans, ‘What’s the Budget for Brexit’ and the punning ‘Brexit spreads Sheet Everywhere’, a reference to Chancellor Philip Hammond’s nickname ‘Spreadsheet Phil’. New independent analysis published in 2024 tells us that Brexit has cost the British economy almost £140 billion.

They had EU flags and also that curiously discreet sign of distress, the upside-down Union Jack (for pedants Union Flag). The opposing Brexiteers accused them of being unaware of which way up to fly the flag.

Political artist Kaya Mar joined them briefly hold his painting of the Chancellor sitting on a floating mine with his computer holding up a sinking Theresa May as the ship of Britain sinks in the background.

Budget Day Brexit Protests

Homes for All Budget and Others – Parliament Square

Housing campaigners from various groups had come to a protest called by ‘Homes For All‘ demanding the government commit to building more homes to be let at social rents. After a long rally in Parliament Square they marched briefly to Downing Street.

The housing crisis is worst for the poorest in society but almost all the schemes brought in by governments this century have been aimed at subsiding those on middle incomes to become home owners. As well as not building social housing there had been a failure to bring in the regulations needed to control the private rental sector to provide greater security of tenure, control rents and ensure properties are kept in habitable condition. Perhaps because many MPs are also landlords.

Only a programme that allows local authorities to borrow money and build home can deliver housing at a cost that those on lower incomes can afford to live in – and that still provide a good return on investments – they point out that by 2010-2011 councils were paying more than £700 million to government in surpluses from council housing.

As well as attacking the government’s record on housing they also blamed the Labour Party for allowing Labour councils to demolish council housing and combining with developers and housing associations to provide new housing at market prices, unaffordable so called “affordable’ properties and and high rents without long-term security of tenure.

They pointed out the need for government funding for necessary fire safety work to avoid another Grenfell disaster including the replacement of dangerous cladding on all tall blocks, the enforcement of fire regulations and a return to proper fire safety inspections which had been abandoned as unnecessary ‘red tape’.

New Labour and London Labour Councils were blamed for demolishing council housing and combining with developers and housing associations to provide new housing with a great reduction in properties at social rents, with homes for sale at market prices, unaffordable so called “affordable‘ properties and at high market rents without long-term security of tenure.

A speaker from Haringey told us the Labour council is giving away £2 billion of council property to a private developer who will build properties the current council tenants and leaseholders will not be able to afford – with a small amount of high-priced ‘affordable properties‘. Like on previous schemes he was confident the developers will get accountants to arrange the books and get them out of most of their obligations to include low-cost social housing. Opposition to the scheme led to some Labour councillors losing their seats and the plans being stopped, though the future remained unclear.

In College Green there were a few people with placards calling for greater funding for the NHS who would also have been disappointed by the budget. Some of them came to join the housing rally, as also did some who had come to protest against the cuts and student fees.

There was also a man with a bell and placards about public debt, though it wasn’t quite clear exactly why he thought ‘The End Is Nigh’.

More on My London Diary at Homes for All Budget protest.

Zimbabweans celebrate Mugabe’s resignation – Strand

Zimbabweans had come to the London embassy where they had been protesting every week for over 15 years to celebrate the resignation of President Mugabe.

But although there was much dancing and singing with joyful delight at his going they had no trust in his likely successor Emmerson Mnangagwa. Regular protests still continue at the Embassy and they have vowed they will continue until there are free and fair elections in Zimbabwe

Zimbabweans celebrate Mugabe’s resignation

Protest at Turkish LGBTI+ ban – Turkish Embassy

Protesters met at the Turkish Embassy in Belgrave Square to read a statement in solidarity with Turkish LGBTI+ people after Turkey last Sunday imposed an indefinite ban on all LGBTI+ cultural events in its capital, Ankara.

They say the ban is illegal, homophobic and transphobic and which they say risks criminalising LGBTI existence and endangering public safety and that it is based on an extremist Islamic morality and violates the Turkish constitution.

Homosexuality has been legal in Turkey since the last half of the century under the Ottoman Empire and under the modern Turkish Republic which came into existence in 1923.

Protest at Turkish LGBTI+ ban

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IWGB Protests to the Princess – 2017

IWGB Protests to the Princess: The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain and supporters protested outside Senate House while University of London Chancellor Princess Anne was visiting on Foundation Day. They called for all workers in the university to be directly employed by the university and IWGB members in the security staff had held one of a series of one-day strikes.

Although many of those who were attending the event with the princess had to walk in past a noisy protest, she was brought in by another entrance, and although they marched around when they heard this was happening they missed seeing her. But she will certainly have heard the protest.

The protest was one in a long series by outsourced low paid staff at the University to gain the same conditions of employment as directly employed staff in what was known as the ‘tres cosas campaign’ – sick pay, pensions, holidays. They wanted to end the University outsourcing their jobs in the University to private companies who employ staff on far worse conditions and pay than those they employ directly.

The protesters say the use of outside contractors to employ staff is discriminatory as outsourced workers including security, cleaning and catering staff are predominantly migrant and BME workers and it results in them being on far worse terms and conditions than other staff and also subjected to harassment and bullying.

A fairly large crowd had come for the protest to support the out-sourced workers. Among them were students from the University of London, including students from the LSE who were campaigning for their cleaners to be properly treated and brought in house. They also included members of other trade unions including the UCU London Region, strikers from the Picturehouse cinemas and McStrike fast food workers demanding a living wage.

There were also speakers from other IWGB sector branches and Sandy Nicholl from SOAS Unison who has led a ten year fight there against out-sourcing. A samba band made sure the protest was heard both outside and inside the building so the princess will have been very aware of what was happening.

In 2020 the IWGB web site recorded that “After almost 10-years of fighting with the IWGB to be brought in-house, cleaners, porters, and security guards at University of London won their ‘tres cosas’ campaign in a historic victory. Workers fought tirelessly to achieve their demands, which were aided by the Senate House Boycott movement and the support of many students and staff across University of London.” I’m pleased to have been able in my small way to have helped the union to achieve this result.

But the IWGB went on to state “Although the University of London still refuses to recognise us, we continue to be the majority union at the university, representing all workers – from cleaners to professional services staff.” Under current unfair employment law employers can continue to recognise the larger and less effective trade unions rather than those who the workers chose as they are more effective in getting results such as the IWGB.

More text and pictures about the evening’s protest at IWGB protest London Uni outsourcing.

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March for Clean Water, London, 3 Nov 2024

March for Clean Water: On Sunday 3rd November 2024 I joined thousands of marchers gathering at Vauxhall overlooking the River Thames for a march demanding urgent action to end the pollution of our rivers and sea.

Much of this pollution is by illegal discharges of sewage by the privatised water companies who have failed to make the investments needed since the regional water authories were sold off to private companies in 1989.

Opinion polls then showed that just under 80% of the UK population were against water privatisation back then, and now over 80% are in favour of bringing them back into public ownership.

Back in 1884, Joseph Chamberlain got it right when he argued “It is difficult, if not impossible to combine the citizens’ rights and interests and the private enterprise’s interests, because the private enterprise aims at its natural and justified objective, the biggest possible profit.”

Private water companies were largely taken over by local authorities by the start of the 20th century and under the 1973 Water Act passed by a Tory government under Edward Heath these were amalgamated into the 10 Water Boards each based on the basin of one of our major rivers, “responsible for water extraction, water supply, sewage treatment and environmental pollution prevention,“

Unfortunately government failed to provide them with the money to properly carry out their functions, and the situation was made much worse after Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979 when she made it very much harder for the water boards to borrow money for capital projects.

This left the water authorites unable to meet the new EU standards for “river, bathing, coastal, and drinking water quality” which would have required according to Wikipedia “from £24 to £30 billion.”

In light of this, the Conservatives went ahead with privatisation despite the huge public opinion against it. It was hardly a sale, more a getting rid of their liabilities at a token price of £7.6 billion, at the same time taking over the existing debts of £5 billion and gifting the companies a present of £1.5 billion. So the sale only raised £1.1 billion.

Privatisation made England & Wales the only countries in the world to have “a fully privatised water and sewage disposal system.” Something we have been both paying for and suffering from, SInce privatisation water prices have risen by 40% above inflation and in 2017 “research by the University of Greenwich suggested that consumers in England were paying £2.3 billion more every year for their water and sewerage bills than they would if the water companies had remained under state ownership.”

And while we have paid more, the shareholders of at least some of those water companies have done very well out of it – as have many of the top managers who have got huge bonuses despite the many failings of the companies they have run.

Since privatisation investment in the water industry has decreased by around 15% and the companies have built up debts of over £60 billion – rather less than their payouts to shareholders of £78 billion. Huge amounts of treated water is now lost through leaks as our water systems have not been properly maintained and expanded to meet new demand.

And sewage. More and more untreated raw sewage has been dumped in our rivers. What was supposed only to happen when unusual rainfall overwhelmed the sewers now appears to have become a normal occurence in some areas. We should have been investing in increasing separation between drainage and sewage, particularly in new developments but nothing has been done.

We are still largely working with a Victorian system of drainage with a hugely increased population, installed when few homes had baths, washing machines and showers were unheard of and far fewer homes had even one flushing toilet. Demand for water has increased greatly per person.

The march in London on 3rd November was organised by River Action, “an environmental charity on a mission to rescue Britain’s rivers from the deluge of pollution that has left the majority of our waterways in a severely degraded ecological condition” and it reflected this, backed by a long list of other organisations.

Although sewage outflows are the major source of this, agricultural wastes particularly from intensive animal farming are a huge source of pollution in our rural areas and there are still some other industries which pollute our rivers.

We need to bring the water companies under public control and also reform or replace Ofwat and the Environment Agency which have clearly failed in their roles.

You can see more pictures from the march in my album March for Clean Water.

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No to Heathrow Expansion – 2016

No to Heathrow Expansion: When Zac Goldsmith was elected as MP for the Richmond Park constituency in 2010 he had promised he would resign if the government support a third runway at Heathrow. And when they did so in October 2016 he kept his word, forcing a by-election in which he stood as an independent candidate. The election took place on December 1st 2016, a couple of weeks after this rally.

As a part of his campaigning against Heathrow Expansion – and his election campaign around this issue, he called a public meeting on Richmond Green on Saturday 19th November 2016.

Many groups campaigning against airport expansion came to support, including Richmond Heathrow Campaign, Teddington Action Group, SHE (Stop Heathrow Expansion), Residents Against Aircraft Noise(RAAN), Chiswick Against the Third Runway and others campaigning against the noise, pollution and catastrophic climate change the third runway and expansion of aviation would cause.

But also at the meeting where Green Party and Lib-Dem supporters. All major candidates in the by-election were strongly opposed to Heathrow so although many admired Goldsmith for keeping his promise Heathrow was not really at issue in the election. The Green Party, strong in the area, did not put up a candidate as the local party instead voted to support the Lib-Dem candidate Sarah Olney, who beat Goldsmith by 1872 votes. Her major campaign issue was opposition to Brexit, which Goldsmith supported.

The Conservative Party had also not put up a candidate, feeling correctly that to do so would result in a large split in the Tory vote, leading both to to a humiliating defeat for any official Tory candidate as well as giving the seat to the Lib-Dems. Although Goldsmith was standing as an independent, many leading Tories backed him.

A few of Goldsmith’s supporters objected to me taking pictures, insisting it was a private meeting, which was of course total nonsense – it had been called as a public meeting and was taking place in a very public place. One man followed me around trying to get me to stop. Perhaps they realised that although the rally showed considerable opposition to Heathrow there was little if any support for their candidate.

I left after most of the campaigners had spoken and before various local government representatives spoke. All but one of the local authorities in the area are against the third runway. You can read more about the rally and the speakers in my account – with many more pictures on My London Diary.

Climate Crisis rally against Airport Expansion – Heathrow

*Harmondsworth resident Neil Keveren of Stop Heathrow Expansion speaks again at Heathrow*

I left before the end of the rally on Richmond Green to get to a protest taking place at Heathrow by public transport.

Activists from Rising Up were blocking the Heathrow spur from the M4 and local campaigners were holding a family-friendly demonstration in support on the Bath Road overlooking the airport.

Campaigners met at the Three Magpies on a part of Bath Road which would disappear under the Third runway and I had time for a quick pint and a few words with the barmaid who I knew from previous Heathrow campaigns before we walked the short distance to the Bath Road bridge over the airport spur from the M4

Police would not allow me through to photograph the road block, which I could just see in the distance with police vehicles surrounding the activists who were blocking the road into the airport – too far away to photograph with any lens I own – and we could hear their sirens.

There was a large police presence at the rally on the pavement of Bath Road which organisers had made clear would be entirely peaceful and legal. This seemed a considerable waste of police resources, and more like an attempt to intimidate the protesters rather than as police usually claim is their role – to facilitate the protest and ensure safety.

Most of the speakers at the rally were those I had already heard on Richmond Green earlier in the day, although there were none of the Conservative Goldsmith supporters who were presumably still busy campaigning in Richmond. But there were also others, including from Grow Heathrow who were still in occupation of a derelict local nursery, from Occupy and environmental campaigner Donnachadh McCarthy.

Speakers argued that expansion at Heathrow would mean the UK breaking its own laws on reducing carbon emissions, and undermine the Paris agreements. The new runway would devastate local communities with many families losing their homes bring chaos to transport already highly stressed in a wide area around. It would increase the dangerous levels of air pollution both from the flights as well as the traffic increase in a wide area, as well as noise pollution across much of London under the flight paths.

They pointed out that as well as the actual runway the development would need a huge spending on infrastructure in the area with important roads having to be re-routed – and that Heathrow was expecting the taxpayer to pick up almost all the bill, which Transport for London predict would be around £18 billion. And the actual cost of all such large projects always turns out much higher than projected.

*Local resident Christine Taylor of Stop Heathrow Expansion*

As I wrote then, “We need to totally rethink the aviation industry and evaluate the contribution it makes to our economy, and to remove its privileged status and subsidies which currently allow it to expand and pollute for the benefit of its shareholders and the convenience of rich frequent flyers. The industry greatly inflates the contribution it makes to the economy while refusing to acknowledge the many problems it creates.“

But even more importantly as I also pointed out, “We don’t just need to stop airport expansion, but to reassess much of they way we live. We need System Change if we are to avoid the disastrous effects of Climate Change.”

Eight years later there has been no start on expanding Heathrow, but there is very little evidence that this reassessment is taking place, and the election of Trump for a second term makes it even less likely that the world can avoid an unthinkable disaster. Perhaps the only question now is when rather than whether it will happen.

More about the two protests with more pictures on My London Diary:
Climate Crisis rally against Airport Expansion
Rally against Heathrow Expansion

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Die-In and March for Palestine, London, 2 Nov 2024

Die-In and March for Palestine: Saturday 2nd November saw another huge march in London in support of the Palestinian people calling for urgent action by the by the international community to end brutal attacks on civilians, hospitals and schools in Gaza and an end the deliberate starvation of Palestinians.

On the 14th November the UN Special Committee to investigate Israeli practices released a new report stating what has been clear to most of the rest of the world for many months.

Examining what had happened from October 2023 to July 2024 in Gaza, the occupied Palestinian territory and the occupied Syrian Golan they state: “Since the beginning of the war, Israeli officials have publicly supported policies that strip Palestinians of the very necessities required to sustain life — food, water, and fuel, These statements along with the systematic and unlawful interference of humanitarian aid make clear Israel’s intent to instrumentalise life-saving supplies for political and military gains.”

“Through its siege over Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian aid, alongside targeted attacks and killing of civilians and aid workers, despite repeated UN appeals, binding orders from the International Court of Justice and resolutions of the Security Council, Israel is intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury, using starvation as a method of war and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population.”

You can read more about the report on the UN web site. It is to be presented to the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly today – 18 November 2024, calling on “all Member States to uphold their legal obligations to prevent and stop Israel’s violations of international law and hold it accountable.”

Doubtless there will be a few countries including the USA and Britain who will uphold the freedom of the state of Israel to continue its genocide and keep on supplying the weapons that enable them to do so.

I was intending to write something more about what is happening in Gaza, Lebanon and elsewhere – and about the urgent need for a ceasefire, the release of hostages and the start of longer term negotiations to bring about a just and permanent solution which would enable both Palestinians and Israelis to live in peace.

But it would largely be repeating things I’ve written many times before and I’ve decided to leave it to the UN committee and a few of the many pictures I took on the march to tell the story.

As usual there was a Jewish block on the protest as well as many Jewish indivuals elsewhere in the march, along with the small group of anti-Zionist Jews who have always supported freedom for Palestine. There was also a small protest against the march at the north end of Vauxhall Bridge which curiously included those calling for he release of hostages – which a ceasefire and negotiations has the strongest chance of acheiving.

*London, UK. 2 Nov 24. Neterei Karta Anti-Zionist Jews*

You can see many more of my pictures of the march and of the die-in at Downing Street before the march at Die-In and March for Palestine, London, 2 Nov 2024.

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Buttes Chaumont and Belleville Traversée 2008

Buttes Chaumont and Belleville Traversée: Monday 17th November 2008 was the last day of our stay in Paris where I had come with my wife for a week for me to go to Paris Photo and for the two of us to enjoy the city and the huge number of photographic shows that were taking place there. On My London Diary you can read PARIS SUPPLEMENT, my diary of our week there.

We had arrived in Paris the previous Monday and the first thing we did on arriving there was to buy our weekly tickets – then Carte Orange – for bus and metro transport across the city – incredible value for those used to UK transport prices.

Buttes Chaumont and Belleville Traversée 2008 — *Parc de Buttes Chaumont*

But that of course had finished on Sunday. And the only real way to see any city is on foot, so we decided to spend the day before our Eurostar train left for London at 17.13 taking a walk around some of our favourite places, booking out but leaving our cases in the hotel foyer to collect later.

Buttes Chaumont and Belleville Traversée 2008 Le Voltigeur on the courner of rue des Couronnes — *Le Voltigeur on the courner of rue des Couronnes*

As you will see from the pictures here we first made our way to Paris’s most fantastic park, Buttes Chaumont, a former gypsum quarry and waste tip converted into gothic fantasy, and then on to Belleville.

Earlier in our stay we had visited the Bar Floreal where I had been given a free copy of a small book produced some years earlier for a show there by Willy Ronis (1910-2009), one of my several favourite photographers of Paris, ‘la traversée de Belleville’ which describes his favourite walk around the area.

Linda was keen to use this and find exactly the scenes in his pictures, while I was more interested in making my own pictures, and had followed a quite similar route some years earlier. But it was interesting to see it through his eyes, although considerable redevelopment had changed the area since he walked it in 1990. And more since 2008.

Rather more atmospheric than my pictures is the video which Ronis appears and speaks about some of his pictures in made at the time of the show in 1990.

Unfortunately the restaurant ‘Aux Monts D’Auvergne’ at which we ate a splendid three course lunch had been replaced by another by the time we next came to Paris. After the large meal we struggled a little but did just about manage to finish the ‘Traversée’, walk back to the hotel to collect our luggage and catch our train and were back home on the outskirts of London by 8pm.

There is more detail about the day in the text on My London Diary as well as in the picture captions – and as usual many more pictures.

Buttes Chaumont / Belleville Traversée

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Stroud Green to Grand Parade, November 1989

Stroud Green to Grand Parade: Continuing my walk on Sunday 5th November 1989 from where the previous post left me on Stroud Green Road close to Finsbury Park Station.

*Boys Entrance, Stroud Green Primary School, Ennis Rd, Stroud Green, Haringey, 1989 89-11d-46*

The Girls Entrance to Stroud Green Primary is still there on the corner of Perth Road and Woodstock Road, but the BOYS was recently removed from above the gate at the other end of the school site in Ennis Road, where extensive building work was taking place – so perhaps it will return. The two entrances were over a 100 metres apart, an unusually safe distance. There is also a similar gate for INFANTS on Woodstock Road.

I think most of the school dates from 1897, although Google’s AI unhelpfully told me “Stroud Green Primary School was established in 1997” when I asked when it was built. The Grade II listing text for Woodcock Road School begins “Late C19 building of shallow U-shape with projecting gabled wings and slightly projecting 5 bay centrepiece under higher hipped roof crowned by cupola.” The area had fairly recently been developed with housing, some of which had to be demolished to build the school.

*Oxford House, Oxford Rd, Stroud Green, Haringey, 1989 89-11d-33*

I turned left into Woodstock Road and then right into Oxford Road, heading for the Oxford Road Gate to Finsbury Park.

On the right just before the gate is Oxford House. In the 1960s this was the cinematographic film processor Kay Laboratories, later absorbed into MGM (possibly via Rank Xerox). For some years it was a studio and office space and housed a private college. For some years this 1930s Art Deco building was in a poor state but has recently been refurbished as offices and co-working space.

Pipe Bridge, New River, Houses, Endymion Rd, Haringay, Haringey, 1989 89-11d-23 — *Pipe Bridge, New River, Houses, Endymion Road, Harringay, Haringey, 1989 89-11d-23*

I walked through Finsbury Park on what is now part of Section 12 of the Capital Ring a circular walking route around London, first put forward as an idea the following year but only completed in 2005, but turning north onto the New River Path to exit onto Endymion Road where the houses on this picture are.

*Houses, Endymion Rd, Stroud Green, Haringey, 1989 89-11d-24*

These south-facing houses on Endymion Road were lit by early afternoon winter sun. The road was the first constructed in the area after Finsbury Park was established and the development was begun by the Metropolitan Board of Works around 1875. The road goes around the northwest and north sides of the park, giving the houses attractive views over it. Development of the area to the north, West Harringay, began shortly after.

Endymion was in one of several Greek myths a handsome shepherd prince who moon goddess Selene fell in love with and persuaded Zeus to make immortal and to put in eternal sleep so she could visit him every night. John Keats wrote a famous extremely long poem in four sections, each around a thousand lines base on the myth and first published in 1818.

But the name more likely came to Harringay from HMS Endymion, “the fastest sailing-ship in the Royal Navy during the Age of Sail“, built in 1797 and in active service during the Napoleonic Wars and until the First Opium War around 1850 and only finally broken up in 1868.

*Building, Green Lanes area, Haringey, 1989 89-11d-25*

I think this building was probably on Warham Road, just a few yards down from Green Lanes, but if so there is no trace of it now. I wonder what it was built for, but there are few clues in the picture – perhaps someone local to the area can tell us in the comments.

*Shop Window, Grand Parade, Green Lanes, Haringey, 1989 89-11d-11*

The Grand Parade on the east side of Green Lanes of shops with middle class flats above them was developed by J C Hill and completed in 1899, with its relatively consistent facades interrupted only by an earlier bank, built five years earlier.

I can’t think who the peculiar bedroom suite in the window of this shop might appeal to, but it seemed like something out a a peculiar nightmare to me, but I guess it was someones’ dream.

*Tory Scum, Grand Parade, Green Lanes, Haringey, 1989 89-11d-13*

Also and rather more prosaically on Grand Parade on an empty shop front, fly-posting and the carefully stencilled graffiti:

TORY SCUM
OFF OUR BACKS
WE CAN’T PAY
WE WON’T PAY
NO POLL TAX

My walk continued, and I’ll post more soon.

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Students march for free education – 2017

Students march for free education: Several thousand students marched from Malet Street to Parliament on Wednesday 15th November 2017 calling for an end to all tuition fees, for living grants for all and an end to all government cuts.

Around 60% of 18 year-olds now continue their education in either universities or FE colleges, with just under 40% at university – though rather more women than men. This figure has increased massively since the 1960s when only around 4% of us went to university.

But back then we paid no fees and there were means-tested maintenance grants which gave those of us whose parents were on low incomes enough to live on during term-time though parents who could afford it were expected to make a contribution.

Many of us needed to find jobs in the long Summer Vacation or over Christmas when many students were needed by the Post Office to deal with the huge volume of Christmas cards, but universities generally prohibited working in term-time – and those students that needed to because their parents didn’t cough up with their contribution had to keep their work a secret.

My full grant was I think £300 a year which had to cover rent, meals, travel, books etc over the 30 weeks at university – equivalent, allowing for inflation to around £5,300 now, though I think it would be impossible to survive on that now. The maximum student loan for living expenses for 2024/5 for those living apart from their parents is now £10,227 – or £13,348 for those in London.

Students now also have to pay tuition fees for which they can also get loans up to the full amount – currently £9,250 but with a recently announced increase to £9,535 for the 2025-26 academic year.

So for a normal 3 year degree course those taking out the full loans possible will end up owing around £60,000. I ended my course with a degree and around £7 in the bank.

Of course student loans are not like other loans, and students only start repayment when there income exceeds a certain threshold – currently around £25,000, though this depends on when students took out their loan. And after 30 or 40 years (again depending on this) any remaining loan is wiped out. But still the amounts are daunting.

Because these are loans, the government is still essentially paying out the cost of tuition and maintenance for current students. But they hope eventually to get some of the money back – again the forecast of how depends on the scheme in place when students took out their loan.

I’ve been unable to find a figure for the amount of repayment the student loans company is currently receiving, but I think it is fairly low compared with the amount they are giving out in new loans. The total debt owed is expected to rise to around £25 billion.

With this background its perhaps not surprising that students now – and in 2017 when I took the pictures here that students are angry about the cost of their education and that several thousands took part in the student march organised by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts despite it not being supported by the National Union of Students.

But this was not their only concern. They also marched to condemn the increasing marketisation of the education system that is resulting in cuts across university campuses and a dramatic reduction in further education provision across the country. They also say that the Teaching Excellence Framework which was supposed to ‘drive up standards in teaching’ has instead intensified the exploitation and casualisation of university staff as a part of the marketisation agenda.

Many more pictures at Students march for free education,

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Paris Photo November 2012

Paris Photo 2012: I’ve missed Paris Photo again – the 2024 ‘edition’ took place from November 6th – 10th and it was deliberate.

By 2012 when these pictures from my Paris Photomonth Diary were made I’d been to around half a dozen of these annual events and had become rather bored by them though Paris was always enticing. Something of which I tried to capture in my book of a similar name, PHOTO PARIS, colour images I made there in 1988.

But the actual Paris Photo had lost its appeal for me, and while I still went dutifully around the many stalls I was finding less and less to attract my interest. Many dealers seemed to have more or less the same work on show each year, and more and more of the space seemed to be taken up by huge prints dedicated to commercial decor rather than having much photographic interest.

Of course I always met a few old acquaintances – and occasionally met some interesting people, but I also found myself more and more being treated with disdain by some of the exhibitors; I was too clearly a poor photographer rather than a rich collector.

I’ve never been convinced that photography becoming part of the art market has been a good thing. It has certainly produced a great deal of pretentious and empty work though it has provided an income for those few photographers who have learnt how to play it – with some becoming millionaire celebrities.

Of course there is no merit to starving in garrets but most of the photographers whose work interests me have made relatively modest livings from their work, some relying on income from other sources such as teaching or writing to supplement their income from photography. They were driven by vision and conviction rather than dollars.

From the start of my visits to Paris Photo it wasn’t the actual trade show that I found of most interest, but the huge explosion of photography across the city around it, in galleries, museums, shops and various public places. For the month around the show Paris was awash with photography.

More recently here we have had Photo London, but this has not attracted the city-wide festival of photography that takes place in Paris. The nearest we have had to that was the East London Photomonth organised by Alternative Arts which I think last took place in 2018. I organised several shows over the years which were included in this.

Photography has never enjoyed the kind of widespread cultural regard that our medium commands in France, nor has it developed the relationships that exist there. My friend John Benton-Harris often bemoaned the lack of any real photographic culture in Britain compared with that in his native city of New York.

On My London Diary in 2012 I wrote at length about the limitations of Paris Photo which is about photography as a commodity. Dealers can only show what they have for sale – and so for example despite his enormous importance in the history of photography and his encylopaedic work in Paris, Atget was almost invisible and that the search for novelty by contemporary galleries “All too often this seems to be a turning against the peculiar link with reality which to me is at the root of interest in our medium.“

And I commented, “After a few minutes walking around the great hall containing the photo fair I never wanted again to see work in which people had painted on their photographs, punched holes in them, cut them up, processed them deliberately badly and so on. I’ve never thought showing contempt for the photograph a likely way to produce worthwhile results, but there were rather too many photographers and galleries at Paris Photo who seem to think so.”

But otherwise there was plenty of work in Paris; “around 80 exhibitions in the Mois de la Photo, another 100 or so in the fringe festival, the Photo Off, over 50 in the Saint-Germain-des-Pres Photo Festival, and what seemed to be countless other shows outside of these events, as well as shows of work for the Prix Pictet, the Prix de Photographie Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière – Académie des beaux-arts, the Prix Arcimboldo for creation of digital images, the Prix Carmignac Gestion for photojournalism.” And that was not all, apart from Paris itself, always fascinating.

Many more pictures on My London Diary from the week we spent in Paris in November 2012 in my PARIS PHOTOMONTH DIARY.

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National Anti-Fur March 2010

National Anti-Fur March: The march on began with a short rally in Belgrave Square before moving off to protest outside many of the luxury shops in the area that still sell fur products, including Harrods.

Protests like this one organised by the Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade (CAFT) had played an important part in making the public aware of the terrible cruelty to animals taking place in fur farms which led to fur farming being made illegal in the UK in 2001.

But it remains legal to sell fur in the UK – so supporting the cruelty in fur farms overseas. And the protesters demonstrated at many of the best known names in exxpensive fashion – including Armani, Gucci, Fendi, Joseph, Prada, Versace, Gianfranco Ferre, Dolce and Gabbana, Christian Dior, Roberto Cavalli and Nicole Farhi in Sloane St, and Burberry and Harrods in Brompton Road still selling fur products.

It seems only logical that when the government passed the law banning fur farming they should also have banned the sale of fur.

But perhaps a significant reason for not doing so was the fact that fur is still used in some military uniforms, notably the bearskins worn by the guards. Worn at ceremonial events including the changing of the guards in London and Windsor, these stupidly large headdresses each requires the killing of a black bear in licensed hunts in Canada and cost over £2,000 each. They could be replaced by false fur at a hugely lower cost.

Many leading figures including the former and current Queen have announced they will not buy fur, but others among the uncaring rich continue to do so.

According to PETA, in a 2020 “YouGov opinion poll commissioned by animal protection charity Humane Society International/UK… Only 3% said they would wear the cruelly obtained material.“

They say “Designers such as Calvin Klein, Stella McCartney, Vivienne Westwood, and Tommy Hilfiger have pledged never to use fur in their collections. The majority of high-street and online stores – including Topshop, AllSaints, and ASOS – are also fur-free.“

Others to have recently made the change to faux fur in their collections “include Saint Laurent, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Versace, Coach, and Prada” and “in 2018, London Fashion Week became the first major fashion week not to show any fur on its catwalk” according to an Independent article.

But among those still selling fur, still part of the truly horrific trade, are “Dior, Louis Vuitton, Fendi, Max Mara, Harrods, Alberta Ferreti, Carolina Herrera, Roberto Cavalli.“

You can read a long account of the protest and see many more pictures from the event on My London Diary at National Anti-fur March.

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