Tag: climate change

Extinction Rebellion Hackney Street Party 2019

Extinction Rebellion Hackney Street Party
Kingsland High St, Dalston, London. Sat 9 Feb 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.

Extinction Rebellion Hackney Street Party

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.

Extinction Rebellion Hackney Street Party

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.

Free food at the party

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.

Slavery, Meditation, Stolen Goods & Santas

Saturday 8th December 2018 was another busy day for me in London.

Protest Slavery in Libya – Saturday 8th December 2018

Slavery, Meditation, Stolen Goods & Santas

Campaigners held a short rally outside Europe House in Smith Square protesting over the lack of action by the EU over African migrants and refugees being sold or held against their will in Libya by terrorists and jihadists which the EU funds.

Slavery, Meditation, Stolen Goods & Santas

They then marched to protest at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, saying the UK had failed to do anything to help because the victims were African, then stopped briefly at Downing St on their way to the Libyan Embassy.

Slavery, Meditation, Stolen Goods & Santas

I left them as the went past Trafalgar Square for my next event.
Protest Slavery in Libya

Dharma meditation for climate – Trafalgar Square, Saturday 8th December 2018

In Trafalgar Square members of the Dharma Action Network were meditating and handing out flyers calling for people and governments to take effective actions to combat climate change. They urged people to move their money out of banks which invest in fossil fuels, get informed by reading the IPCC report on global warming and join them and other groups including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace or take action with Extinction Rebellion.

Dharma meditation for climate

British Museum Stolen Goods Tour – British Museum, Saturday 8th December 2018

News in the past weeks that the Horniman Museum is returning the Benin Bronzes and other items in its collection to Nigeria is a sign of the changing attitudes to museums holding on to looted objects. The museum handed over total of 72 bronzes and other objects to Nigeria. But the British Museum is full of thousands of questionably acquired objects, including over 900 from Benin.

BP or Not BP, a group opposed to the polluting oil company ‘greenwashing’ its dirty fossil fuel business by sponsoring artistic activities including major exhibitions in the British Museum had organised a tour of some of the more important stolen cultural artifacts in their collection, beginning with the Gweagal shield, stolen by Captain Cook when his men had first landed in Australia.

When they landed they were greeted by the indigenous inhabitants carrying spears and wooden shields; the sailors opened fire with muskets, with one musket ball going through the shield and wounding Cooman. The people dropped their weapons and fled, carrying the wounded man.

This shield is now on display in the British Museum and spears and other items are also in their collection, with some in other museums. This was the second time I had photographed Indigenous Australian campaigner Rodney Kelly, a 6th generation direct descendant of Cooman, standing in front of the glass-fronted cabinet containing the shield and talking about its history. His talks with the museum authorities have so far failed to get the property returned.

There was a packed audience listening to Kelly playing his didgeridoo and then telling the story of the shield and telling of the failure of the British Museum authorities to take seriously the oral tradition of his people as it could not be confirmed by written records. The Museum has gone to desperate lengths, including getting their own experts to cast doubt on the stories which the museum had previously featured about these objects.

From there we moved on, guided by BP or not BP campaigners some dressed as ‘burglars’ in striped black and white tops and carrying a sack for swag.

Another in a smart suit with a BP logo explained why BP gave the museum a relatively small amount in sponsorship which gave them huge rewards in making them seem a responsible company despite their reprehensible activities in countries around the world, despoiling resources, polluting the environment and severely aggravating global warming by encouraging fossil fuel use.

Outside the entrance to the BP-sponsored Assyrian show an Iraqi woman talked about BP’s role in her country and the looting which followed the invasion of Iraq including some of cultural artifacts which formed a part of this show.

By a large stone figure from Easter Island a speaker from Pacific Island arts group the Interisland Collective talked about the treatment by museums of Maori and Pacific Islands cultural items and read a statement from the Rapa Nui Pioneers on Easter Island calling for the return of this stolen Moai Head.

The final location for the tour was in the large room containing the Parthenon (Elgin) Marbles, where BP or not NBP’s Danny Chivers revealed his partly Greek ancestry and talked about his visit to the Parthenon and the museum there which has been built to exhibit its missing sculptures.

It seems inevitable that eventually the British Museum and other museums will have to return these objects, and to replace at least some of them by facsimiles would enable the museum to continue its educational function while restoring vital cultural objects to their proper homes.

More at British Museum Stolen Goods Tour.

London flooded with Santas – Covent Garden, Saturday 8th December 2018

Christmas was coming and so was Santacon, a huge annual charity event and excuse for a highly alcohol-fuelled stagger and dance through the streets of central London dresses as santas, elves and reindeer.

The event had started at various locations and large crowds were now converging on Trafalgar Square spreading glad tidings as darkness fell, some following hand-pulled sound systems and dancing on the streets, though many groups were diverted into pubs and food shops on the way.

I had fun dancing along with some of them and taking photographs close to the British Museum and then going through Covent Garden, but by the time I reached Trafalgar Square decided I’d photographed my fill of santas and took a bus to Waterloo.

More santas at London flooded with Santas.

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.

Climate, Universal Credit and Boycott Israel

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.

Climate, Universal Credit and Boycott Israel

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

NHS, Parental Leave & Fridays For Future

Scrap the ICP Contract, Keep the NHS Public – Westminster, Fri 26 Oct 2018

Later on Friday 26th October 2018 Eleanor Smith’s private members bill calling for the scrapping of plans for Integrated Care Providers which break up the NHS into smaller business units which can be competed for by private sector organisations was due for its second reading.

Eleanor Smith MP

ICPs were planned by NHS England whose CEO Simon Stevens was previously a senior executive of the giant US healthcare and health insurance company United Health Group, to be a way for the backdoor privatisation of our National Health Service.

The rally outside parliament had already begun when I arrived. It’s expensive for me to use the trains in the rush hour and in any case I don’t like getting up early now, but I had run much of the way from Waterloo and only missed the first few minutes. Speakers at a rally by Keep Our NHS public, Health Campaigns Together and We Own It included Eleanor Smith MP and Green Party Health spokesperson Larry Sanders (Bernie’s older brother) as well as other health campaigners.

The petition from ‘We Own It’ with 31,870 signatures to scrap the ICP contract

At the end of the rally campaigners marched to deliver a petition to the Dept of Health, which had recently moved to offices on Victoria Street. It isn’t easy to spot and the march at first went past it before I and others realised, and had to turn around and go back to it. There was only a very small notice outside and it was only by looking through the large glass windows that it was clear that this was the building.

There was then a short protest on the pavement outside before a small group went inside to hand over the box containing the petition which had over 31,000 signatures.

As we walked in a security man told us that we were not allowed to enter the building and could not take photographs. The campaigners told him he could not be serious and ignored him as they handed the petition over at the desk.

There was then a final speech on the pavement outside by Tony O’Sullivan of Keep Our NHS Public and the event ended with a group photograph in front of the Ministry offices. As expected the private members bill failed to get a second reading and the privatisation of the NHS continues.

More pictures on My London Diary at Scrap ICP Contract, Keep NHS Public.

Support self-employed parental leave – Old Palace Yard, Fri 26 Oct 2018

I returned to Old Palace Yard outside Parliament where a photocall was taking place for the second reading of another private member’s bill. Tracy Brabin MP’s #SelfieLeave bill was listed, which would give self-employed parents access to shared parental leave and pay.

Tracy Brabin had appeared in several soap operas including Coronation Street, EastEnders, Casualty and Emmerdale before becoming MP forBatley and Spen from 2016 to 2021. In May 2021 she became the first elected Mayor of West Yorkshire. Her bill was supported by members of Equity, UK Music, the Music Producers Guild and the Musicians Union. Currently women are forced to be the main carer, regardless of circumstances and fathers are denied any paid leave to look after their children, reinforcing outdated stereotypes and causing stress for thousands of families.

Although there would be no additional cost to the exchequer as the existing entitlement to Maternity Allowance for self-employed women would simply be shared with a partner, this bill too failed to get its second reading. I did my best, but I think the pictures are generally rather uninteresting and demonstrate why I don’t usually bother with such photocalls.

Support self-employed parental leave

Fridays for Future – act on climate change – Parliament Square, Fri 26 Oct 2018

Elsie Luna who produces The Politics Podcast for Young People in the UK

In August 2018 Greta Thunberg instead of going back to school at the end of the Summer break protested outside the Swedish Parliament, breaking the law to start the School Strike For Climate.

This was the first protest in London hosted by Extinction Rebellion as a part of a #FridaysForFuture movement taking place in many cities and towns across the world inspired by her example. The group announced weekly protests would take place here in London.

Elise Luna with a message for Angela Merkel – Watch out – I see your dirty coal

They began the protest where I met them in front of the statue of Millicent Fawcett at the back of the square, but were soon told by the GLA heritage wardens they were not allowed to protest there and moved to the pavement at the front of Parliament Square which is not covered by the GLA bylaws.

Among the protesters was Elsie Luna who produces the remarkable ‘The Politics Podcast for Young People in the UK’. Few had come today, but it was the first protest and the organisers hope it will grow week by week.

Fridays for Future – act on climate change

Kwasi Kwarteng, Cuts & Paris, New York, London

Wednesday 20th October 2020 was a rather different day for me. I started photographing speakers at an indoor rally, something I rarely do, went off to meet with my MP in a pub, then photographed a march against cuts in welfare and the loss of public sector jobs, ending the day at the opening of a show featuring myself and two other photographers, one of whom, Paul Baldesare took two of the pictures in that section of today’s post.

Jesse Jackson & Christian Aid Lobby – Westminster, Wednesday 20 October 2010

I was one of the 2,500 or so Christian Aid supporters who came to Westminster to lobby their MPs on 20.10.2010, asking them to press for transparency and fairness in the global tax system and for action on climate change.

The day started with a rally in the Methodist palace of Westminster Central Hall, opposite Westminster Abbey, the hall where the inaugural meeting of the United Nations General Assembly took place in January 1946. The Methodists had then moved out for a few months to allow this to take place, and special seating, translation booths installed, along with extra lighting to allow the event to be photographed and televised. But I think that lighting must have been removed as it was pretty dim inside for me to photograph the speakers. But I and a small group from my constituency were fortunate to be inside as there wasn’t enough room for all who came.

Supporters outside Methodist Central Hall

There were speakers from this country and abroad, but the star of the event was undoubtedly the Rev Jesse Jackson, a noted US civil rights and political activist, president and founder of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988.

After the rally and a hurried lunch a small group of us from his Spelthorne constituency met with our then recently elected MP, Kwasi Kwarteng, who suggested we find a place in the St Stephen’s Tavern to talk rather than have to go through the tedious business of queueing to go through security to meet inside the parlimentary offices. Although he was still relatively unknown it was rather easy to find him, as there are relatively few extremely tall black male MPs. Though rather more share his educational background of prep school and Eton.

Since then his rise to fame has been rapid, though after his recent sacking after only 38 days as Chancellor of the Exchequer, perhaps that should be notoriety. He has only visited his constituency on fairly rare occasions and I’ve yet to meet him again, though have seen him from a distance outside parliament.

He listened – or at least stayed fairly quiet – while my wife and others talked about the campaign for tax justice and the need for reforms to stop the various forms of tax dodging by major companies robs poor countries of more than $160bn a year, while climate change and the natural disasters it is bringing have a vastly greater impact on the poorer countries who are most vulnerable, despite their much lower per capita carbon footprints. They suffer from the results of our high dependence on fossil fuels.

But his response to the lobbying was perhaps best described as ‘mansplaining’; we were not at the time aware of his work as a consultant for the Odey Asset Management hedge fund or the recent allegations by Private Eye that he has continued to receive undeclared contributions from them. Certainly his activities as Chancellor have resulted in them and other hedge funds who bet against the pound making millions.

More at Jesse Jackson & Christian Aid Lobby.

March Against Spending Cuts – Malet St & Lincolns Inn Fields, Wed 20 Oct 2010

This was the day that the government announced the results of their comprenhensive spending review (CSR) which involved considerable cuts in welfare benefits and the loss of many public sector jobs as services are cut. The deficit left by the outgoing New Labour government had given the Tories in the Con-Dem coalition a perfect excuse to slash the public sector and privatise services in a way they would never have dared before.

More than a million public sector jobs were expected to be lost, with some being replaced by private sector workers on lower wages, fewer benefits, lower standards of delivery and safety and higher workloads. There will be more cases of people suffering as private companies expand into healthcare, putting profits before the needs of people, and similar changes in other areas.

The Coalition of Resistance who called the protest say the £83 billion to be cut from public services will plunge the economy into a slump. Rather than cutting jobs, pay, pensions, benefits, and public services that will hit the poor ten times harder than the rich, they urge the government to cut bank profits and bonuses, tax the rich and big business. Rather than contract out the NHS, they should axe Trident and withdraw from Afghanistan.

I had to leave before the rally at the end of the march at Downing Street to prepare for the opening of an exhibition I had organised in Hoxton.

March Against Spending Cuts

Paris • New York • London Opening – Shoreditch Gallery, Hoxton Market. Wed 20 Oct 2010

Paris, 1988

Together with two photographer friends I had put on the show Paris • New York • London at the Shoreditch Gallery which was attached to a cafe in Hoxton Market, a small street just off Great Eastern Street, close to Hoxton Square. Rather confusingly this is not where the actual Hoxton Market is now held which is in Hoxton St.

Me in a red jumper at the opening © Paul Baldesare, 2010

The show was a part of the East London Photomonth annual photography festival, and over the month it was on attracted a decent number of visitors and comments. My section was Paris, and I’d ordered a decent number of copies of my book, Photo Paris, still available at Blurb, most of which sold at the show. Unfortunately I think it now costs around twice as much as I was able to sell it for then.

Jiro Osuga, Townly Cooke, my book and Me © Paul Baldesare, 2010

Paul Baldesare’s pictures of London and pictures taken by John Benton-Harris in New York completed the show and you can still see the work online on a small web site I wrote for the event. Thanks to Paul for some pictures taken at the opening where I was too busy talking to use a camera.

Paris • New York • London Opening

International Rescue, Olympic Park & Daily Mail Transphobia

October 19th seems to be a good day for protests, and looking at My London Diary before I began writing this post I found something in most years I could chose to write about. It could be the last day of a trip to Paris, calling on Lord Browne, the chair of fracking company Cuadrilla to ‘Frack Off’, a protest against atrocities in Congo, Uganda and Rwanda as battles continue for their mineral wealth, a call to make caste discrimination illegal in the UK, AxeDrax protesting against generating electricity from biomass and coal, a student rent strike and so many more.

In the end it was a fairly random decision to pick Friday October 19th 2018, perhaps because it my day then began with someone I photographed a couple of days ago at Westminster, Neil Godwin.

BEIS refuse International Rescue climate help:
Dept Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, Friday 19th October 2018

International Rescue, Olympic Park & Daily Mail Transphobia

‘Commander Neil Godwin Tracy’ of International Rescue came from Tracy Island carrying his ship Thunderbird 2 to the Dept for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) in London to offer his organisation’s assistance to produce policies which which recognise the desperate need to cut carbon emissions to avoid disastrous global warming and climate change by banning all fracking.

London, UK. 12 Oct 2022. Charlie-X who protests in Chaplinesque mime was with Steve Bray’s group of pro-Europe protesters on the refuge facing the Houses of Parliament in a protest against the Tory government and its energy policies which will result in average energy bills of around £3,000 this year. Peter Marshall/Alamy Live News

Last week I photographed Neil as his alter ego, Charlie-X, holding up a picture of the Tory Party as a steak with maggots crawling out of it on a crossing refuge close to the Houses of Parliament.

International Rescue, Olympic Park & Daily Mail Transphobia

Security at the entrance to BEIS prevented Commander Tracy from entering the building in 2018, and making his offer to the minister concerned. Police weren’t happy about his pasting a poster to the wall either, but he managed on his second attempt to paste one up for long enough for me to take a few pictures. We would all be in a better place had his magnanimous offer been taken up, and it seems to me four years later that our government (if we still have one by the time this post appears) is sadly in need of International Rescue to drag it out of the chasm of its own making.

BEIS refuse International Rescue help

Olympic Park walk – Stratford to Hackney Wick, Friday 19th October 2018

International Rescue, Olympic Park & Daily Mail Transphobia

I’d been invited to photograph Commander Tracy at lunchtime and after this had a free afternoon before an early evening protest I wanted to attend. I decided to make another visit to what had before its Olympic destruction been one of my favourite areas of London and see how the new Olympic park was developing, and took the Central Line to Stratford Station.

I walked through Stratford Westfield which my caption described as “21st century version of Hell” and is a place where security take a dim view of photography and emerged into a new landscape from where a bridge took me towards the park.

Parts of the park are beginning to look quite attractive with water and trees, but much is still irredeemably arid, with extensive gravelled walkways with views of dull built boxes in the middle distance. You can see a little of these in my pictures though I tried hard to make the sow’s ear look at least mildly attractive.

But it came as something of a relief to walk across the new footbridge over the Lea Navigation and into Hackney Wick. The buildings here aren’t great architecture but at least they are more varied and most now visually relieved by graffiti – as the strapline across the top of a former pub reads ‘MEANWHILE IN EAST LONDON LUNACTICS DECORATE A BUILDING’ and there had been no shortage of lunatics, some more skilled than others.

The Olympic Nazis had cleaned much of Hackney Wick’s finer decoration and it was good to see and photograph this resurgence. I walked across the footbridge to Fish Island, where there were also new buildings, but much of the older remaining, then on and across the long bridge over the A12 East Cross Route (a part of London’s ruinous motorways built before the overall scheme was abandoned) to Old Ford Road and a bus stop. For once the bus windows were clean and I took a few more pictures as it went along Roman Road.

More pictures at Olympic Park walk.

Mail group end your transphobic hate – Daily Mail, Kensington, London. Fri 19 Oct 2018

International Rescue, Olympic Park & Daily Mail Transphobia

Thousands had complained about articles in the free daily newspaper The Metro which had published articles demonising trans people, particularly trans women and had carried an advertising campaign for a transphbic group who call themselves ‘Fair Play for Women’.

The protest was organised by Sister Not Cister UK. Protesters say that these attacks on the trans community will hurt the most marginalised – trans women, working class trans people and trans people of colour – who are also the most likely to be in need of the services that such hateful campaigners seek to deny them.

Jane Nicholl of Class War

More people were arriving to join the protest as I left, but I felt I had taken enough pictures which gave an clear idea of the event, and was feeling rather tired and hungry. Living as I do on the edge of London meant it would take me an hour or more to get home, with two journeys on the Underground and then then a train.

More at Mail group end your transphobic hate.

Police Ban London Protests – 2019

Police Ban London Protests - 2019
Police arrest protesters in Whitehall

After a week of protests which brought much of central London traffic to a standstill in October 2019, the Metropolitan Police, egged on by Tory politicians, announced a ban on any Extinction Rebellion protests anywhere in Greater London under Section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986. This draconian measure across the whole of London meant that any two or more people coming together anywhere across London to protest over the climate crisis would form an illegal assembly and would be subject to arrest.

Police Ban London Protests - 2019

XR continued to protest and also began legal action challenging the ban which was later ruled illegal; the police probably knew that this was the case, but also knew they could put it into effect and use it until the court came to its decision in a cynical but rather typical misuse of their powers.

Police Ban London Protests - 2019

XR did continue their planned ‘No Food No Future’ protest on Tuesday 15th, immediately after the illegal ban was announced, and there were a few arrests, and the police began clearing the XR camp at Vauxhall. At short notice the Green Party organised a protest in Trafalgar Square against the ban where speakers included Labour MP David Drew, Green Party co-leader Sian Berry, peace activist Angie Zelter and Extinction Rebellion’s Rupert Read as well as three British Green MEPs and an Irish and German MEP.

A couple of hundred XR protesters also came to the square and took part in this protest, clearly in breach of the Section 14 Order, but while police watched and photographed the event they made no arrests. But XR’s big emergency protest against the ban came following day,

XR defies protest ban – Trafalgar Square, Wednesday 16th Oct 2019

Police came and warned some of those sitting in the square before the start of the event that they were committing an offence and might be arrested, but I saw no actual arrests, though police did come and take away a tent from one man as carrying camping equipment is banned in Trafalgar Square and Parliament Square under laws made against Brian Haw’s protest and the Occupy Movement.

There were speeches, speeches and more speeches to a crowded audience in Trafalgar Square, with speakers including XR members, prominent environmentalists, politicians and a former police Chief Superintendent and Green Party MEP Ellie Chowns who had been arrested defending the right to peaceful public protest in Trafalgar Square the previous day.

The XR ‘Red Brigade’ made a spectacular entrance during the speeches, making their way slowly up through the crowd to stand at the top of the steps where they remained for some time responding to the occasion.

In his speech George Monbiot expressed his resolve to get arrested when the protest and XR General Meeting which was to follow it ended. He invited others to join him then and walk into the road in Whitehall and sit down.

Monbiot carried out this intention and was arrested by police along with a number of others including the Green Party Mayor of Woodbridge Eamonn O’Nolan who had worn his Mayoral robes for the event.

More on My London Diary at XR defies protest ban

XR demands Murdoch tell the truth – London Bridge Wednesday 16th Oct 2019

The same evening Extinction Rebellion continued with their planned vigil at Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp HQ at London Bridge demanding that his papers tell the truth about the climate crisis.

Much to their surprise this XR protest turned out to be legal as the blanket ban imposed by the Metropolitan Police on protests by XR across London only applies to public places and not to the private area here in front of the offices.

They came to protest here as the Murdoch press has a particularly bad record of climate denial and the support generally of fossil fuel interests.

Speakers called on the press to end its support of fossil fuel extraction, climate deniers and unnecessary consumerism and instead actively promote lifestyle changes to combat the climate emergency.

More at XR demands Murdoch tell the truth.

Rainy London – XR Strength in Grief Procession

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

Rainy London - XR Strength in Grief Procession
Ian Hodson, National President of the Baker’s Union BFAWU

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.

Rainy London - XR Strength in Grief Procession

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.

Hindu Festival and Heathrow Protest 2007

Back in 2007, My London Diary’s text was still firmly stuck in lower case – an affectation perhaps reflecting my admiration for the work of ee cummings, whose works, though not completely free of capitals used rather less than the normal quota, but I did it more to speed up my use of the keyboard. I’ve corrected at least most of the capitalisation in the following account I wrote back then about the events I photographed on Sunday 19th August 2007. When I set out I hadn’t intended to go to Heathrow – their restrictive media policy had put me off, but a police search changed my mind.

Janam Ashtami Shobha Yaatra – Shri Krishna’s Birthday, Shree Ram Mandir, Southall

On Sunday 19th August 2007 I cycled through the light rain to the Shree Ram Mandir (Temple Of Lord Rama) in King Street, Southall, which was apparently the first Hindu temple established in Britain, although recently rebuilt. They were holding their Janam Ashtami Shobha Yaatra, a procession in honour of the birth anniversary of Krishna which in 2007 was on September 4th.

I have to admit to finding the Hindu religion confusing, but processions such as this are lively and colourful events even if their full appreciation may require a rather different mindset to mine.

it is easy to share the feelings of celebration and of community, and to feel the welcome given by so many. I also met for the first time the newly elected MP for Ealing Southall who held the seat for labour in last month’s by-election, Virendra Sharma, taking part in the procession; many were eager to pose for their picture with him.

Many more pictures on My London Diary

Heathrow Climate Camp Protestors – Bath Road, Sipson Sun 19 Aug 2007

I took a route back from Southall along the north side of Heathrow, close to the climate camp. On my way to Southall, along the Great South West Road which runs along the south-east of the airport, I’d been stopped and searched by police at Hatton Cross. Its a power that police are using more and more – on average around 11,000 a month in London now, and one that makes me feel uneasy. We now seem to be in a kind of police state I’ve certainly never voted for and don’t wish to live in.

I won’t appear in the Met’s figures, despite being searched in London, as the two officers concerned had been drafted in from Surrey for the day. They were polite and we had a pleasant enough conversation, but to me it still seems an unreasonable intrusion – and I think they only did it because they were bored. Under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, the police can search anyone in an area designated as likely to be the subject of a terrorist attack – such as airports. They don’t need to have any grounds to suspect you, being there is enough.

Cycling back along the pavement by the bath road (a shared path) there were rather more police around, but they were too busy with more likely targets to stop me. As I came along the road I found myself riding along with a woman who was obviously hurrying to get somewhere. We both stopped at the same point, opposite where three activists had scaled the side of a small building with a banner reading “MAKE PLANES HISTORY”.

She jumped over the fence between the two carriageways to approach the protesters, while I stayed on the opposite side from where I had a better view. Later she came back to talk to the TV crew beside me and was talking to one of the protesters – obviously she was proud of her daughter’s action.

And she had every right to be proud. we need action over Heathrow, action to prevent the takeover of even more land for the third runway. I’ve long opposed the expansion of Heathrow – and was on the local march against the third runway. Now there shouldn’t even be a possibility of further expansion, but the government must look at ways of running down the activities at Heathrow, or it will be failing not just west London but the world.

Further along the road I found protesters gathering around the British airports authority offices, which were ringed by police. Nothing much seemed to be happening and the media were there in force, so I left the guys to it. I’d previously been upset by the restrictive media policy adopted by the climate camp, which had the effect of preventing sensible photographic coverage of the event. So I was rather less interested than I might otherwise have been in putting myself out to take pictures.

Along the road I met a few groups of demonstrators and did take a few pictures of them, including some on the bridge over the road into the airport, and a couple of the clown army being harassed by a police photo team, but my heart still wasn’t really in it.

The British airways offices had seemed to me a likely place for a confrontation – and obviously the police had thought so too, as teams of black clad figures paced up and down spoiling for a fight, watched over by the guys in uniform and a group of suits. At the top of the mound in front of the offices were a couple of officers on horses.

It was like some painting of the field lining up before a medieval battle, and I wish I’d stopped to take a picture, but they were so obviously looking for trouble I decided I didn’t want the aggravation that this would most likely have caused. For once you will just have to imagine it!

more pictures

XR, Hong Kong, Animal Rights & London – 2019

XR, Hong Kong, Animal Rights & London

XR, Hong Kong, Animal Rights & London – 2019 Three years ago today, on Saturday 17th August I made a few journeys around London to photograph protests in Greenwich by Extinction Rebellion and Animal Rights marchers in central London as well as protests supporting Hong Kong’s Freedom marches and Chinese students opposed to them in Westminster.

Royal College and Thames with sailing barge from Greenwich Park, Greenwich. 1982 31p-44: barge, college, palace, river, Thames

My day taking pictures ended in Greenwich Park, where I made the picture at the top of this post, a view looking down the Queen’s House and the Old Royal Naval College and on towards Canary Wharf. I’d made a photograph from a very similar position in 1992 and the pair make an interesting comparison.

XR Rebel Rising March to the Common – Greenwich

XR, Hong Kong, Animal Rights & London

Supporters of South East London Extinction Rebellion met beside the Cutty Sark in Greenwich to march to a two-day festival on Blackheath Common, calling for urgent action on Global climate change.

XR, Hong Kong, Animal Rights & London

Blackheath Common has a long history of involvement in protest. It was here that around 100,000 anti-poll tax rebels gathered under Wat Tyler in 1381, and in 1450 that Jack Cade’s 20,000 Kent and Essex yeomen camped in their revolt against Henry VI’s tax hikes. Neither of these events ended well, nor did the several thousand Cornishmen killed and buried on the common after they rose up against taxes levied to fight the Scots 1497. The Chartists who met here also largely failed, but the Suffragettes did better.

XR, Hong Kong, Animal Rights & London

Ten years earlier, I’d come with Climate Camp to swoop to a secret destination which turned out to be Blackheath Common, and photographed the camp being setup and spent another day there as a part of the Climate Camp documentation team. But that too had failed to spur the UK into any really effective action, though perhaps more lip-service.

The situation by 2019 was clearly critical and Extinction Rebellion were calling on our and other governments to take the urgent actions needed to avoid the extinction of species including our own, and also for local councils to do everything within their powers.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to stay with the marchers all the way to the festival ground as the march started late, waiting for the samba band to arrive. I had to leave them halfway up the hill and rush back down to the station for a train to central London.

XR Rebel Rising March to the Common

Stand with Hong Kong & opposition – Trafalgar Square

My train took me into Charing Cross and I rushed the short distance to Trafalgar Square where I found a rather confusing situation. It took me a few moments to realise that the first group of Chinese protesters I met were supporters of the Chinese government, but the number of Chinese flags they were waving was an undeniable clue.

There are many Chinese students studying at UK universities, providing a very useful source of finance to these institutions. Most of that money comes from the Chinese government or from families that are very wealthy from their Chinese businesses which depend on that government, and as they intend to return to China have no choice but to come and be seen showing their support for China.

I spent a few minutes photographing their protests, then moved on a few yards to a protest with a very different colour, dominated by yellow posters, banners and umbrellas of the Hong Kong Freedom Movement.

Eventually they set off to march down Whitehall, stopping to protest opposite Downing
St. The Chinese students followed them, but police largely kept the two groups on opposite sides of the road, with the Chinese supporters shouting to try and drown out the speakers opposite.

After a rally at Downing St the Hong Kong freedom protesters moved off towards a final rally in Parliament Square – followed too by some of the Chinese who continued to shout and mock them. But I left to go elsewhere.

Stand with Hong Kong & opposition

Official Animal Rights March 2019

I’d missed the start of the vegan Animal Rights march in Hyde Park, but met them and took some pictures as they came to Trafalgar Square, where they halted, blocking all the roads leading in and out of the square.

This march was organised by the vegan activist collective Surge and non-violent civil disobedience movement Animal Rebellion, who say animal lives matter as much as ours and call for an end to speciesism, and the misuse of animals for food, clothing and sport.

Some of the marchers wore t-shirts with the number 269, the number of a calf on an Israeli diary farm whose number Israeli animal rights activists branded themselves with in a 2012 protest after which 269life became a worldwide movement.

Official Animal Rights March 2019

Charing Cross to Greenwich & Back

Deptford Creek

For once my trains to Blackheath and back from Greenwich after photographing the central London protests both had reasonably clean windows, and I took a number of photographs on the outward and return journeys. Also in this section I included the picture from Greenwich Park at the top of this post, along with a couple of others from much the same position.

Charing Cross to Greenwich

XR Rebel Rising Royal Observatory Die-In – Greenwich

From Blackheath Station I rushed to the Rebel Rising festival on Blackheath Common, arriving just in time for the start of a march from the festival to protest at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich Park.

The march proceeded behind a black banner with the text asking the question ARE WE THE LAST GENERATION? Unfortunately at least for the younger members of the marchers, some of whom were in push-chairs the answer could well be YES.

At the Royal Observatory there was a die-in on the area in front of the gates, the site chosen to symbolise we have zero time left and that we need to act now on climate change. Some taking part had clock faces drawn on their faces and the protest was just a few yards to the east of the markers for the Greenwich meridian, zero longitude.

Many of the tourists passing the protest including those going in and out of the Royal Observatory stopped at least for a few moments on the crowded paths to watch and listen, and many expressed their support for the need to take urgent actions to avoid global climate catastrophe.

Rebel Rising Royal Observatory Die-In