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XR – The Big One

Friday 21st April 2023 is the start of ‘The Big One‘, a four day action ending on Monday 24th April organised by Extinction Rebellion when people from a huge range of groups and movements, not just XR, will gather throughout Westminster and at the Houses of Parliament.

XR say “The climate, nature and humanity face disaster. We know it’s time to act. Do you trust politicians to do the right thing for us? For the planet? Join 100,000 people holding them to account.“

More than 200 organisations are supporting the action, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and PCS, although when I checked with a week to go only around 26,000 people had actually registered to come. I imagine many like me are loath to sign up publicly to protest, or just lazy or haven’t got around to it.

The events are planned by XR to be family friendly, accessible and welcoming, creative and engaging “with People’s Pickets outside government departments and a diverse programme of speakers, performers and workshops, awash with colour and culture. There will be art and music, talks from experts, places to listen and engage, and activities for the kids.”

I hope to be there and recording the events, though these days I’d having to take things a little easier than I used to and may need to rest, perhaps on the Sunday when The Big One’s Running Out of Time! coexists with the London Marathon. But please come if and when you can to join in. More at the Extinction Rebellion web site.

Four Years ago, Extinction Rebellion was coming to the end of a week of protests that shut down much of London, having occupied Waterloo Bridge, Oxford Circus, Mable Arch and other key sites on Monday 25th. I’d photographed a number of their actions and you can read about them and see pictures on My London Diary.

On Friday 19th April 2019 the ‘Sea of Protest’ was still occupying and blocking Oxford Circus with a large pink yacht named for the Honduran environmental activist Berta Cáceres assassinated in 2016. As a part of activities planned to show ‘Love For The Earth’ on the 5th day of the occupation there, actress Dame Emma Thompson arrived from New York to speak.

Parts of the press and media with interests in fossil fuels and giving support to climate deniers criticised here for flying here to speak. But though we need to drastically cut our dependence on aviation, this isn’t about ending journeys like these for which there is no real alternative, but for making huge cuts in the total numbers of flights. We need to end the subsidies to aviation and levy taxes on flying – a system with per person annual carbon allowances and heavy penalties for exceeding these would be more fair.

Police stood and watched the crowd as Thompson spoke, but a few minutes later after I had left the area for a short break, police surrounded the pink yacht and put a ring of officers around Oxford Circus.

Slowly police persuaded protesters to leave by threatening them with arrest and cutting off those who were locked on around the bottom of the yacht. There were a number of arrests of those who had refused to leave. XR organisers persuaded people not to physically oppose the police action as this went against the non-violent principles of Extinction Rebellion.

XR’s policy of non-violence and encouraging as many people as possible to get arrested has led to criticism from many more militant groups, and puts a great stress on those who give legal assistance, including Green and Black Cross, “an independent grassroots project set up in the spirit of mutual aid to support social and environmental struggles within the UK”.

More from April 19th 2019 on My London Diary:
Police clear XR from Oxford Circus
Emma Thompson speaks at XR

Climate March & One In Love Valentine Party

On Saturday 1th February 2005 I went to two events in London, a march calling for action on climate change and a street party to reclaim Valentine’s Day from commercial exploitation and to celebrate the power of love.

Campaign against Climate Change Kyoto Climate March

Climate March & One In Love Valentine Party

It’s depressing to look back at the pictures of this event and see how many of the placards and posters are still relevant 18 years later. Still leaders around the world are failing to commit to the actions needed to avoid global disaster.

Perhaps we are just a little closer to some real movement, but in the UK things have started to go backwards with a government now in thrall to the fossil fuel companies and promoting new oil exploration in the North Sea, a new coal mine and even going back to fracking.

Sometimes it seems the main changes have been that the Prime Minister is now Sunak rather than Blair and that the US Embassy to which the march was heading is now on the other side of the Thames in Nine Elms rather than in Grosvenor Square.

Back in 2005 it was President Bush in the White House who was the major villain, standing up for US oil interests and their mission to fatally pollute the world. Biden has talked a better talk than Trump, but hasn’t committed to the shift in policies that is essential for the planet to have a future that will support human life.

The march was organised by the Campaign Against Climate Change, back then almost a lone voice in actively raising the issues around global warming, though the Green Party was there too. At least since then many other groups have become involved, notably in recent years Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, bringing rather different tactics to bear.

It was a longish march, from Lincoln’s Inn Fields to Trafalgar Square and then on to the US Embassy, and I left the marchers as they went past Piccadilly Circus to join another event taking place there.

More pictures

O-I-L One in Love, Reclaim Love, Eros, Picadilly Circus

I’d missed the first of these Valentine street parties organised by Irish poet Venus CúMara in 2004, as I had only heard of it too late to attend. Appropriately that year I had gone with my wife to Paris for Valentine’s Day and her birthday a few years later.

Since 2005 I’ve been there and taken photographs most years. She believes that “the human race could potentially be a humane race if we were to step away from the value of money to the value of Life” and this event celebrates this.

‘Reclaim Love’ is a global movement Venus began to unite people all over the earth with a common prayer for peace. And during the street party here and at other similar parties in othe places around the world people joined hands at 3.30pm in a “Massive Healing Reclaim Love Meditation Circle beaming Love and Happiness and our Vision for world peace out into the cosmos” to recite that prayer, “MAY ALL THE BEINGS IN ALL THE WORLDS BE HAPPY AND AT PEACE“.

I wrote about the 16th annual party at some length on this site in Valentine for Venus, posted in 2019, so I won’t go into more details again. As well as that post you can also find posts every February on My London Diary from 2005 to 2019 except for 2016, when I was too ill to go, and 2017 when I was in Hull (both celbrating the city of culture and again my wife’s birthday.)

More about both events on the February 2005 page 2 of My London Diary

Extinction Rebellion Hackney Street Party 2019

Extinction Rebellion, XR, was founded in May 2018 by a small group who met in Stroud, including Gail Bradbook, Simon Bramwell and Roger Hallam along with others from the direct action network Rising Up. I’d photographed some of these people before at protests against Heathrow expansion and over air pollution on the streets of London.

Roger Hallam in particular had played a leading role in the ‘Stop Killing Londoners’ protests which perhaps had some influence on getting Sadiq Khan to take some action on this with the setting up of low emission zones, whose planned extension to the whole of Greater London is now exciting considerable controversy. I’d also photographed him at his campaign to get King’s College to divest from fossil fuel companies and supporting the campaign for better pay and conditions for low paid workers at the LSE

Police arrest Roger Hallam at the LSE — *Police arrest Roger Hallam for decorating the LSE, April 2017*

Since helping to form XR, Hallam has gone on to take part in other high profile protests and spent time in prison over breaching bail conditions by holding a toy drone without batteries close to the airport. The whole plan to fly drones in the Heathrow exclusion area had been a publicity stunt, never a serious attempt to disrupt or endanger flights, but gained a huge amount of media publicity, which perhaps helped to increase public awareness of the contribution to climate change and pollution of air transport.

XR continues to attract wide support for its non-violent protests highlighting both the devastating effects of global heating and the continuing failure of governments including our own to take action on the scale needed to combat it. It’s large public protests began with a mass reading of its ‘Declaration of Rebellion‘ in Parliament Square in October 2018 with Greta Thunberg as one of the speakers and continued with mass protests in London and elsewhere, becoming a global movement.

Its announcement at the start of 2023 that it was taking a rest caused some consternation among its supporters, but XR soon made clear that this was for a ‘100 days’ campaign to prepare for ‘The Big One’ on 21 April 2023, https://extinctionrebellion.uk/the-big-one/ when they intend that 100,000 people will gather outside the Houses of Parliament “To demand a fair society and a citizen-led end to the fossil fuel era.”

The street party in Hackney on Saturday 9th February 2019 was rather smaller, with perhaps a thousand taking part. Unlike in some later protests the police decided to facilitate the event rather than try to block or disperse it, closing the road and setting up diversions for traffic as people blocked the usually busy A10 for two hours with speeches, music and spoken word performances, t-shirt printing, face painting and free food, with dancing to a samba band.

At the end of the two hour party after a brief march up and down a short section of the road, the protesters moved off the street to continue their protest party in Gillett Square, and shortly after this I went home.

Police after all do facilitate other large events which block our streets, in particular sporting events such as the London Marathon, some cycling events, the Chinese New Year, Notting Hill Carnival and more. But later XR protests have been more widespread and longer lasting and clearly the police’s political masters have put considerable pressure on the police to take a more draconian approach – and at times to go beyond the law to do so.

The response of the government has been to produce new laws. The Public Order Bill currently going through parliament gives much more extreme powers to police and courts, including Serious Disruption Prevention Orders which will restrict the movement of people, who they can meet and even their use of the internet, an expansion of stop and search powers, enabling them to search without any suspicion, various new protest-related offences, some vaguely defined allowing almost anything to be an offence and even police powers to shut down protests before they begin.

The Public Order Bill re-introduces most of the amendments that were rejected by the House of Lords in January 2022 and so did not form part of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.

*The march ended in Gillett Square, freeing the road for traffic*

Many more pictures at Extinction Rebellion Hackney Street Party on My London Diary.

Climate, Universal Credit and Boycott Israel

Three protests in London four years ago on Saturday 1st December 2018

Stop Universal Credit day of action – Camden Town, Saturday 1st December 2018

Climate, Universal Credit and Boycott Israel

Protests were taking place across the country called by Unite Community in a day of action against the continuing problems of Universal Credit, a reform and simplification of benefits. The main drive behind the move to this was to cut the amount that benefits cost the country and its implementation has been extremely badly thought out and managed, largely under the control of IDS, the widely detested Iain Duncan Smith, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2010 to 2016.

I chose to photograph the protest at Camden largely because it was taking place next to an Underground station which I could conveniently travel to and then back to the main event I was covering. I could have taken similar pictures at other locations across London or elsewhere.

The campaigners want an end to the long wait which leaves claimants penniless for six weeks or more before UC kicks in and for them to be able to make their applications in person at job centres as well as online, which causes difficulties for many, either because they lack the equipment and connection or particularly among older people competence on-line. They point to UC having created incredible hardship, pushing many into extreme poverty and destitution, making them reliant on food banks and street food distributions and greatly increasing the number of homeless and rough sleepers. Thanks to Tory policies, more than 120,000-plus homeless children in Britain will spend Christmas in hostels and B&Bs, many without the means or facilities to provide a Christmas meal.

Academic studies suggest that UC is a part of a “state euthanasia” system for the poor, with academic estimates that it and other benefit cuts and sanctions since the 2010 elections having caused 110,000 early deaths, including many suicides. A cross party committee has called for its rollout to be halted until improvements are made, but the government has dismissed virtually all criticism of the system, making only insignificant changes.

Partly the problem obviously comes from the complete failure of IDS and others planning the system to understand what it is like to be poor. They have savings and resources – families with money and the ability to get loans and overdrafts, well-stocked cupboards, quarterly energy bills rather than having to pay in advance and so on. They are used to being paid their larger salaries on a monthly basis. Most of those claiming benefits have no savings and no one to help them tide over even a few days without money.

Stop Universal Credit day of action

Together for Climate Justice – Saturday 1st December 2018

The Campaign against Climate Change has organised marches, protests and rallies since its formation in 2001 when it protested against Bush’s rejection of the Kyoto treaty, including an annual event around the time of the UN Climate talks since 2005, and I’ve photographed most of these. Particularly in recent years they have been joined by many other groups as concern over the climate disaster has convinced a wider audience of the need for urgent action to save our life on Earth.

In 2018 they were extremely worried that the UN climate talks in Katowice, Poland, taking place the following week, were being sponsored by leading firms in Poland’s fossil fuel industry. Several thousand marchers gathered outside the Polish embassy for a rally before marching through central London to Downing St.

Outside the embassy we listened to a whole raft of speakers including ncluding Labour MP Clive Lewis, Green Party co-leader Sian Berry, Anna Gretton from Extinction Rebellion, UCU Vice President Nita Sanghera, Neil Keveren of the No 3rd Runway Coalition, Paul Allen from Zero Carbon Britain, Beatriz Ratton of Brazilian Women Against Fascism, Asad Rehman of War on Want who all expressed solidarity with protesters in Poland and stressed the urgent need to cut CO2 and methane emissions.

We then learnt and practised a few Polish slogans, some of which were on the placards for the protest including ‘Razem dla klimatu’ (Together for the Climate) which appeared on a number of placards, and the rather less pronounceable Polish for ‘Time to limit to 1.5’, as well as for ‘Climate, jobs, justice!’.

We got more speeches at a rally at the end of the march opposite Downing St, with Labour MP Barry Gardiner, Liz Hutchins of Friends of the Earth, a woman from Frack Free United, In the final speech Claire James of Campaign against Climate Change introduced a speaker on behalf of the Global South, where people are already dying because of climate change.

Together for Climate Justice

BBC Boycott Eurovision Israel 2019 – Broadcasting House, Sat 1 Dec 2018

Finally after the climate rally ended I rushed up to Broadcasting House where the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and others were calling on the BBC to withdraw from the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest hosted by Israel, to avoid being complicit in Israel’s ongoing violations of Palestinian human rights.

Campaigners said that the contest was being used to ‘artwash’ Israel’s human rights record as a state whose laws have created an apartheid system in Israel and Palestine, and whose forces in the last eight months since protests began in Gaza have killed over 200 Palestinians.

As well as the PSC, the protest and the #BoycottEurovision2019 was supported by the Stop The War Coalition, Palestinian Forum UK and Friends of Al-Aqsa (FOA). Also present in a pen a few yards away were around 15 Zionist counter-protesters who waved Israeli flags and shouted insults and lies, with one man loudly insistent that Palestine had never existed.

I’m happy to boycott Eurovision wherever it is taking place, and have been doing so ever since it began.

BBC Boycott Eurovision Israel 2019

Rail Fares, ISIS and Biofuels – 28 Oct 2014

Fair Fares Petition – Westminster. Tue 28 Oct 2014

Eight years later problems with our rail system continue and no significant changes have been made. Rail is a textbook example of something which should be run as in integrated public service and privatisation has been an entirely predictable disaster, at least for taxpayers and particularly those who use the railways.

*Campaigners met at the Dept of Transport in Horseferry Rd*

It has of course been a bonanza for the companies that have run parts of the service, particularly the three large companies that own and hire out most of the rail carriages, engines and waggons. Three ROSCOs (Rolling stock leasing companies) – Porterbrook, Eversholt and Willow – own together 87% of the rolling stock – and have made huge profits for their shareholders while failing to invest a great deal in new rolling stock. They are almost entirely owned by German, Australian, Canadian and other multinationals, mostly registered in Luxembourg to evade tax.

*Stephen Joseph OBE, executive director of the Campaign for Better Transport joins the protest*

Probably most people now know that the companies that actually run the trains – Train Operating Companies or TOCs – are largely foreign owned, mostly by the nationalised railways of Germany, France and Holland, with a couple from Italy and one from China (Hong Kong.) We do now have three nationalised TOCs, ScotRail, Northern and Transport for Wales. So basically the railways proved a mechanism for our government to hand over large amount of our taxes to these foreign countries.

*They stop to pose in Parliament Square*

The Campaign for Better Transport protest on Tuesday 28th October 2014 was more simply about changes in the evening peak time fares introduced by Northern Rail, then I think run by Serco-Abellio, a subsidiary of the Dutch state railway. These changes have particularly hit shift and part-time workers who work irregular hours, resulting in a 167% increase for some. Other TOCs have since made similar changes – with the ‘Off-Peak’ fares no longer available on my line, having been replaced by much more restricted evening fares.

*And then hand the petition to Rail Minister Claire Perry MP*

Our whole incredibly complex fare system is also down to the fragmented privatisation, and often means people pay far more than necessary. Even the highly trained ticket office staff are often unable to find the cheapest fare, and machines and web services are often misleading.

Rail fares are now often ridiculously high, particularly for those unable to book in advance. It’s often cheaper to fly to America than take a train from one English city to another. Even the Advance fares (Introduced by British Rail before privatisation) limited to a specific train can be pretty huge, often several times the European fares for similar journey lengths. We need lower fares to encourage people to stop using cars and move to public transport.

More at Fair Fares Petition.

Kobane – Unite against Isis Drawing – Trafalgar Square, Tue 28 Oct 2014

Kurds chanted slogans against ISIS and in support of the defenders of Kobane around a giant pavement chalk drawing based on an agonised Statue of Liberty in front of London’s National Gallery in Trafalgar Square.

More pictures at Kobane – Unite against Isis Drawing.

Biofuel picket Green Investment Bank Birthday – King Edward Street, Tue 28 Oct 2014

Protesters from Biofuelwatch and London Biomassive, some dressed as wise owls, picketed the second birthday celebrations of the Green Investment Bank at Bank of America Merrill Lynch against their funding of environmentally disastrous biomass and incineration projects.

The say the large-scale projects the bank funds are worse for the environment and for climate change than burning coal and urged the GIB to finance “low carbon sustainable solutions” instead of these “high-carbon destructive delusions.”

More at Biofuel picket Green Investment Bank Birthday.

Rainy London – XR Strength in Grief Procession

Saturday 12th October 2019 was a rainy day in London, but that didn’t stop people coming to take part in Extinction Rebellion’s Strength in Grief procession from Marble Arch to Russell Square, although probably it rather kept the numbers rather lower. I don’t like photographing in the rain, but in London you have to be prepared for it, though I still have problems.

While you can try to keep cameras dry, you can’t take pictures without exposing the front of the lens to the weather. It’s less of a problem if you work with long lenses that have lens hoods that help to keep raindrops off the lens, but if like me you mainly use wide-angles anything that would help much to keep the lens surface dry would be in the picture.

I work clutching a cloth or chamois leather in my hand and try to wipe off any drops immediately before taking each picture, but still a proportion of them are ruined as rain falls before I press the shutter release. But worse still, with humidity high lenses steam up on inner elements and become unusable – zoom lenses more so as zooming draws in or expresses air from the lens. On some occasions I’ve been left only able to use a fixed focal length fisheye, or simply have to go somewhere warm and dry for to restore lenses to use.

Trade Unionists join the Rebellion – Trafalgar Square

My working day began in Trafalgar Square, where trade unionists were holding a rally to show their solidarity with Extinction Rebellion and the school climate strikers. Unlike the government they recognise that the climate and ecological emergency means that the very future of life on this planet is at stake and we need to take radical action without delay to avoid catastrophe.

They joined the huge number of scientists and others in what Liz Truss has now stigmatised as the ‘anti-growth coalition’ of those who haven’t firmly buried their heads in the ground to realise that we need deeds not words urgently. As David Attenborough put it, “Anyone who believes in indefinite growth on a physically finite planate is either mad, or an economist.” Though a shortsighted economist. Many of those present went on to join XR’s procession later.

Trade Unionists join the Rebellion

Brexit unfair for EU citizens – Trafalgar Square

Also in Trafalgar Square were protesters from the 3million organisation who had come to express their love for the UK and to remind the Prime Minister of the broken promise made to them on 1 June 2016 when Vote Leave had stated “There will be no change for EU citizens already lawfully resident in the UK. EU citizens will automatically be granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK and will be treated no less favourably than they are at present.”

Instead they have had to apply for permission to remain, and many who have applied have not been granted settled status. Recently Government minister Brandon Lewis had stated that they are at risk of deportation.

They had come prepared for the weather with ponchos in the blue and yellow colours of the European flag. They held up copies of Vote Leave’s broken promise and tore it up.

Brexit unfair for EU citizens

XR Strength in Grief Procession

October 12th is the Day of Indigenous Resistance on the anniversary of Colombus’s landing in the Americas. The procession began with a rally at Marble Arch where speakers included those from various indigenous communities and women from the Global Women’s Strike who spoke about the climate crisis which is already killing thousands in the Global South as well as others who spoke on the power of grief.

Eventually the funeral procession set off past Marble Arch and along Oxford St, led by XR’s Red Brigade.

Behind them came skeletons, a jazz funeral band and many people carrying coffins, banners and placards and expressing their profound grief at the extinction of species taking place due to global warming and which threatens the future of human life.

I began at the head of the procession, then stopped on Oxford Street to photograph the rest of the marchers as they came along the street.

By now I was wet, my cameras were getting wet, and I was getting cold and I decided to leave rather than continue with the procession to its final rally in Russell Square.

Much more at XR Strength in Grief Procession.

Duck Race, Climate, Zimbabwe & Clean Air

Saturday 21st September 2019 was an even more varied day than usual for me in London. I began by travelling to Bow Creek for a duck race, moved to Trafalgar Square for a climate protest, then visted the weekly Zimbabwe vigil before going to Catford for a march against air pollution.

Bromley-by-Bow to Star Lane & Cody Dock Duck Race

Duck Race, Climate, Zimbabwe & Clean Air

It was a fine day and still warm for the time of year as I walked from Bromley-by-Bow District Line the short distance to Tweletrees Crescent and Bow Creek.

I’d decided to come to see the Duck Race along Bow Creek being organised by the people at Cody Dock, but had arrived early to give myself time to revisit the gas works memorial site nearby.

Bow Creek is the tidal section of London’s second river, the River Lea, and the duck race was a part of the ‘Lighting Up the Lea’ festival for ‘Totally Thames 2019’. It was meant to start at 11.00 but this was delayed as the people in canoes who were to shepherd the ducks were a few minutes late in arriving.

It was close to low tide, and there was little water in the creek when the ducks were dropped from the bridge, and a westerly breeze soon blew the ducks onto the mud on the east side of the creek.

Cody Dock’s Simon Myers had beached his kayak on the gravel bank a hundred yards or so downstream and strode through the shallow stream and mud to rescue the ducks and through them back into the middle of the stream. But the breeze soon returned them to the mud and he had to get them again.

I decided I had to move on to complete my walk and get back to central London for my next event and walked on towards Cody Dock, past several small groups of people waiting to see their ducks. At Cody Dock there were a small line of catchers waiting hopefully in the stream, but they were in for a rather long wait.

I’d hoped to be able to continue my walk by the riverside to Canning Town, but this further section of the Bow Creek path has yet to be opened, and after taking a few pictures at Cody Dock I made my way to Star Lane DLR station.

Cody Dock Duck Race
Bromley-by-Bow to Star Lane

XR Youth International – Trafalgar Square

Members of Extinction Rebellion Youth International came to Trafalgar Square and held a brief protest for the UN Climate conference.

This was a rather more low-key event than I had expected and the group was ignored by heritage wardens as they sat in a circle in the centre of the square with posters while one member at the centre read the letter they are sending to the UN calling for real urgent action to avert the impending climate catastrophe.

XR Youth International

Zimbabwe protests continue – Strand

The weekly Zimbabwe Vigil every Saturday at the side of the embassy at 429 Strand began on 12th October 2002. I’ve joined it and photographed occasionally over the years, but mainly for special occasions. It’s hard to say something new about an event which happens every week.

Mugabe had been forced to resign in 2017 died earlier in the month and had died two weeks before my visit, but the vigils continue and little has changed in Zimbabwe. His successor Emmerson Mnangagwa was Mugabe’s right-hand man for 40 years, and is accused of the genocide of over 20,000 Ndebeles in the 1980s. Although he promised reform he has delivered state terrorism and protesters have been killed, beaten, tortured and raped by the security forces.

Zimbabwe protests continue

Clean Air for Catford Children

The South Circular Road brings large volumes of traffic through Catford, often pumping out fumes at standstill during peak hours. Particles from brakes, tyres and the road add significantly to the pollution – and won’t be reduced as we switch towards electric cars.

Although a major traffic route, the South Circular has always been more an idea than a planned route, going along many fairly narrow roads lined with houses which were never designed for the traffic. Fortunately major schemes which would have laid waste large areas of highly populated parts of South London have never come to fruition – the obvious environmental devastation of roads like the Westway having put paid to urban motorway schemes.

The answer has to be policies at both national and local level which reduce vehicle use and promote greener alternative transport including walking and cycling as well as public transport use. But although Lewisham Council are not responsible for the South Circular Road, remedial actions such as planting screens of trees and hedges can reduce local pollution levels, particularly the levels of harmful particulates.

I met local residents at the Corbett Library on Torridon Road in Catford, built with funding from Andrew Carnegie in 1907. It is now a Community Library run by volunteers and is on the Corbett Estate, 3,000 houses around Hither Green developed by Glasgow-born Archibald Corbett from 1896 to 1911.

They were busy finishing placards and posters for the march, which soon set off, marching up on the pavement to the South Circular at Brownhill Road, on their way to a rally at the council offices in Lewisham. Traffic on the South Circular made it a little difficult for me to take photographs as it was seldom possible to stand on the road. I left them before the rally to travel home.

Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, a nine-year-old girl who lived near the South Circular Road in Lewisham died from asthma in 2013. Following a 2020 inquest ruling she was the first first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as the cause of her death on her death certificate.

Clean Air for Catford Children

Global Climate Strike & Puma Boycott

I spend most of my time on Friday 20th September covering the Earth Day Global Climate Strike inspired by Greta Thunberg which brought huge numbers of schoolchildren along with teachers, parents and other older supporters to a rally filling Millbank. Others were starting later from various parts of London to join in and I made short visits to both the Elephant and Castle and Windrush Square in Brixton to photograph them there, returning to Whitehall to photograph a large crowd who were continuing the protests there. Finally I went to Carnaby Street where the Islamic human rights group Inminds were protest outside the Puma store calling for a boycott of Puma products.

Global Climate Strike Rally – Millbank, London

I began taking pictures of people going to the rally when I entered Parliament Square. Many schools had brought large groups of pupils to take part in the protest, and had obviously spent some time preparing hand-painted placards and banners. Greta Thunberg’s example has led to a great awareness among many young people of the existential threat posed by global warming, as too have the television programmes by the ageing David Attenborough, and they showed themselves to be convinced of the need for urgent action.

Unfortunately politicians and companies – particularly those with interests in fossil fuels – have been rather less convinced, and although we have seen plenty of words and promises, real actions have so far failed to come anywhere close to meeting the desperate need. Our new UK government under Liz Truss has started by going backwards on the issue, issuing licences for fracking, and almost certainly in the first few days following the Queen’s funeral will be bringing forward other measures which will make climate disaster even more inevitable.

Crowds got so packed that I had to give up trying to walk up Millbank to the lorry on which the speakers, bands and others were to perform both live and on large screens, and I had to divert through the side streets to approach it from behind.

I spent some time photographing those at the front of the protest, then decided to move back through the crowd taking pictures. It was slow going both because I stopped to take pictures, but also because I needed to keep asking people to let me squeeze past them, but eventually I got back to Old Palace Yard and Parliament Square where movement was now easy, though there were still groups of protesters.

Global Climate Strike Rally

Elephant & Brixton Global Climate Strike

I took the tube from Westminster Station, changing at Embankment to the Bakerloo Line which took me to the Elephant and Castle. Outside the University of the Arts was a poster display and people were gathering to march to join the protests. I photographed a small march setting off to join with workers at Southwark Council’s offices in Tooley St, but left them after a few hundred yards to go back to the Northern Line, changing at Stockwell to get to Brixton.

Teachers and parents had come with children from Lambeth schools for a rally in Brixton Square which was still in progress as I arrived.

There was an impressive speech from a young protester and support from a local MP before the rally ended and many of those present got ready to take the tube to join in the protest outside Parliament.

Elephant & Brixton Global Climate Strike

Global Climate Strike Protest continues – Whitehall

I hurried to the tube ahead of the children and arrived in Westminster where people were sitting on the road and blocking Whitehall, with police trying to persuade them to move.

I saw one man being arrested and led away towards a waiting police van, and the road was almost cleared when a large crowd of school students came from Parliament Square to march up Whitehall blocking it again.

Police tried to stop them and they turned down Horseguards Ave, then up Whitehall Court and into Whitehall Place where they were finally stopped at the junction with Northumberland Avenue and sat down on the road.

There were a few sort speeches and a lot of chanting slogans as police attempted to get them to move. I couldn’t understand why the police were bothering as they were on a road that has very little traffic and were causing no problem in sitting there.

Eventually they did decide to do as the police said and got up and moved – back to sit down and block Whitehall again. Eventually they stood up and began to march towards Parliament Square, nicely in time for me to cover a different protest in Carnaby Street.

Global Climate Strike Protest continues

Carnaby St Puma Boycott

Whenever tourists come up to me in London and ask me (as sometimes happens) the way to Carnaby Street I’m always tempted to say “You just go back 50 years“, but I’m actually more helpful. But it always surprises me that this rather ordinary street of mainly small shops still attracts tourists so long after it was the touted as the epi-centre of ‘Swinging London’. It still puts on something of an effort, but I find it rather sad. Somehow not the same if you are not wearing flares.

Puma is the third largest sportswear manufacturer in the world, coming from a company founded in Bavaria in 1924 by two brothers. Both brothers were members of the Nazi party during the war and after bitter arguments split up in 1948 to form Adidas and Puma, two companies engaged in bitter rivalry. Adidas is now the second largest sports manufacturer in the world.

The Israel Football Association began life in 1928 as the Palestine Football Association, changing its name following the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948. It only represents Israeli clubs and there is a separate Palestinian Football Association covering the West Bank. But the IFA includes six clubs based in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Adidas sponsored the IFA until 2018, when under pressure from Palestinian sports clubs and the international BDS movement they ended their sponsorship. Rivals Puma then took it up, becoming their only international sponsorship and over 200 Palestinian athletes and sports clubs have called for a Puma boycott.

Inminds Islamic human rights group organises protests in London at companies and events which support the Israeli regime and call for the release of Palestinian prisoners. At a previous protest outside Puma the protesters were violently attacked by some members of a small group of Zionists, but there was no sign of any counter-protest while I was present.

Carnaby St Puma Boycott

Climate Camp Blackheath 2009

Climate Camp Blackheath 2009 – On Wednesday 26 August 2009 I joined a group of climate activists who were gathering in front of Stockwell Underground Station in south London, waiting for directions to move to wherever that year’s climate camp was to be held. They were ‘Blue Group’, at one of six locations around London, waiting to get the secret instructions and move to the site.

*We met by the memorial to Jean Charles de Menezez*

It had been chosen as one of the meeting points because of what happened there on 22 July 2005. As I wrote, coming “up the escalator at Stockwell station it’s hard not to shiver at the memory of those videos showing Jean Charles de Menezes strolling down to catch his last train, and police coming though the gates in pursuit. There is a memorial to him outside the station, including a great deal of information about the event and the misinformation and covering up by police.”

*People wait for instructions in Larkhall Park*

It was a terrible mistake made by the Metropolitan Police and the officer in charge was rewarded for it by being put in charge of London’s police. She only recently lost that job after the London Mayor made clear that he had lost confidence in her, but a huge number of Londoners had lost confidence in her and the police in 2002.

After hanging around for while, we were told to go and sit in a nearby park and wait there, and we sat down and ate our sandwiches while some played games. Eventually at 2pm instructions came and we followed the leaders onto the tube, alighting at Bank and changing to the DLR, most still not knowing where the journey would end.

*And eventually we reached Blackheat Common*

By the time the DLR arrived in Greenwich the destination had become clear, and we left the station for the long walk up the hill to Blackheath Common, an area of common land with a long pedigree as a meeting place for rebels. Police seemed happy both at Stockwell and on the journey to watch the activists from a distance and as we walked past a police station they seemed to be in hiding.

*Some rested after the walk up the hill*

The common was the site where John Ball made his famous speech with his famous “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?” and urged his peasant audience to “cast off the yoke of bondage, and recover liberty.” But the Peasant’s Revolt ended badly in 1381, with teenage King Richard II looking on as the priest was briefly hung and then carefully kept alive to watch his genitals and bowels being removed and burnt before he was beheaded and his body hacked into four pieces.

Jack Cade was a little more fortunate after his rebels camped here in 1450, as he was killed in a battle before he could be executed, but like Ball his severed head was displayed on London Bridge as a warning to others.

*Others were busy working, setting up the fence, toilets etc*

In 2009, the authorities rather stood back and watched, including from a helicopter hovering above as the camp was set up. As I commented, “With stabilised cameras the image quality should have been high enough for them to match the faces against their database (which of course they claim does not exist.)” Later they brought in a cherry picker to take pictures from, a considerably cheaper option.

I’d largely avoided photographing previous climate camps because of their ‘media policy’, which as I wrote “appears to be driven by a few individuals with paranoid ideas about privacy and a totally irrational fear of being photographed. It really does not steal your soul!” This stated that press photographers had to sign the policy and be accompanied while on the site by a minder.

I didn’t have any problems wandering freely and taking pictures while the site was being set up, and met many people who welcomed me, having met me at previous environmental protests. And I was invited to return later to the camp as a member of the documentation team with a sash that allowed me to wander freely. So I came back two days later to take more pictures, and though there were a few people who made clear they didn’t want to be photographed I was generally able to work as normal.

There were no uniformed police on the site on my later visit – and as I noted, it “was almost certainly the most caring and most law-abiding part of South London, with no crime, no drugs and very little alcohol around.” The organisation of the site was truly impressive.

But shortly before I left I noticed that one of the police cameras on their cherry picker was following me as I walked around, and after I left the site I was “followed rather ineptly (perhaps deliberately so) by a young black man in plain clothes as I wandered around for the next 15 minutes, occasionally writing in his notebook. It seemed a waste of public money.”

*Some anarchists left after 2 police came on site*

I’d stopped for some minutes at several of the workshops that were taking place on my second visit, and had been impressed by the expertise of many, both those leading the sessions and some of those contributing to the debates. If people like these rather than the politicians had been in positions of power we would now be in a very much better place to avoid climate catastrophe, but unfortunately what we have seen is 13 more years almost completely wasted.

More pictures from Wednesday August 26th
Climate Camp: Blue Group Swoop
Climate Camp: Setup

And for an account and pictures from my day there on Saturday August 29th
Climate Camp: Saturday

Occupy Gandhi – Stop Fossil Fuel Criminals

Occupy Ghandi - Stop Fossil Fuel Criminals

Occupy Gandhi – Stop Fossil Fuel Criminals – on Monday 4th May 2015 Occupy Democracy were on the fourth day of their ‘Festival of Democracy’ in Parliament Square “building a movement for real democracy: free from corporate control, working for people and planet!”

Occupy had come to Parliament Square in defiance of the law criminalising the use of tarpaulins, tents and other protection in the square, and were making six key demands:

• reform of party funding so that members of parliament act in the interests of those who elect them rather than the 1% who bankroll them
• major democratic reform of the media to break the stranglehold of vested interests
• a fundamental overhaul of lobbying and the way powerful economic interests inhabit the corridors of power within government
• the introduction of proportional representation so that everyone’s vote counts
• that MPs should not have conflicts of interests from either paid employment or corporate shareholdings
• a citizen-led constitutional convention for real democracy.
Occupy Festival of Democracy

On Monday 4th they began a rally and meditation at the foot of the statue of Gandhi, noted for his direct action civil disobedience, calling for fossil fuel exploration and investment to be made a crime. Donnachadh McCarthy laid out a large blue banner with the message ‘Criminalise Fossil Fuel Exploration‘ and a mock tombstone with the inscription ‘RIP – 300,000 Dying from Climate Crisis Every Year Said Kofi Annan UN Gen Soc‘.

People then brought tarpaulins to sit on around these on the paved area in front of Ghandi’s statue and began a series of short speeches, meditation and songs about climate change and fossil fuel use.

They took a small blue tarp to the statue of Gandhi and wrapped it carefully around him. After a short pause two of the GLC’s private security heritage wardens who had been watching the event with a few police officers came up and removed the blue tarpaulin. A replacement was brought up and carefully held by two of the protesters without touching the statue (much) and the meditation continued.

There was another minor intervention by the heritage wardens who objected to burning incense sticks being placed in the flower beds. The protesters removed them and instead held them.

Donnachadh McCarthy then produced a blue folding tent and erected it, announcing that he was going to defy the ban on tents and inviting others who wished to join him.

People climbed in and after posing for a photograph with the tent the protest continues, with Donnachadh joining them inside as police approached. The police warned those inside the tent they were committing an offence and warned them they could be arrested – and then walked away.

Some minutes later, at exactly 2pm a larger group of police returned and surrounded the tent.

They gave those inside a final chance to leave without being arrested. Three people remained inside the tent, holding each other tight.

Finally they were arrested, handcuffed and taken away to waiting police vans. The whole police operation seemed a massive waste of public money enforcing a ridiculous law. The real criminals are not a few protesters with tents and tarpaulins in public squares, but those who sit in boardrooms and continue promote and produce fossil fuels which are driving us towards extinction, plotting actions to derail attempts to make the changes the planet needs in order to increase their profits.

More pictures at Occupy Gandhi – stop fossil fuel criminals.