>Re:PHOTO Peter Marshall - Thoughts on Photography

Carnaval, Right To Protest & Tobin – 2005

Carnaval, Right To Protest & Tobin: On Sunday 7th August 2005 I began by photographing London’s Latin Americans getting ready for the Carnaval Del Pueblo procession, then went to Parliament Square for an illegal protest against the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 which had come into force on August 1st and among other things restricted the right to demonstrate within a large area around parliament without prior written notice to the police. Finally another illegal protest on Westminster Bridge expressed support for the Tobin Tax, a low rate of tax on currency conversions with the aim of discouraging short-term currency speculation and so stabilising currency markets. Here is what I wrote about the day in 2005 with some pictures and links to more on My London Diary

Carnaval del Pueblo – Southwark

Carnaval, Right To Protest & Tobin - 2005

Sunday I started off photographing London’s Latin American communities getting ready for the start of their annual Carnaval Del Pueblo procession. This year it was starting from Potters Fields near the GLA headquarters, on an empty site awaiting development, rather than from a street, and this made photography a little more difficult.

It was good to see so many groups taking part, although I found it very difficult to sort out the different nations, and found myself unable to recognise most of their national flags.

This procession, making it’s way to Burgess Park where there is a Latin-American Festival, is one of London’s most colourful events, with some costumes to rival those seen at the much larger annual Notting Hill event at the end of the month.

I was sorry not to be anle to go on to the festival, especially since there was to be a short period of silence to mark the tragic shooting by police of the innocent Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes, on a tube train at Stockwell Station the day following the second round of bombings in London.

I followed the procession up to London Bridge Station where I needed to get on a train to get to Westminster.

More pictures

The Right to Protest – Parliament Square

*Police arrest a demonstrator in Parliament Square, London. The crime? Holding a protest banner. Welcome to Britain, the police state (not that I think the police particularly welcome it.).*

Britain once had a deserved reputation as a haven for free speech and the rights of the citizen. A number of acts by our New Labour government have seriously curtailed these freedoms – including introducing a number of measures that they had opposed before they came to power.

Some of these measures have just been a part of the general trend to central control begun under Thatcher, but others have been brought on by the threat of terrorism and even more by the growth of opposition to government policies, and in particular to the war on Iran.

Formerly a life-long supporter of the party it saddens me, and angers me. One of the signs that Brian Haw holds in a picture is a quotation from a speech by Condoleeza Rice in January 2005, when she said “if a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society. We cannot rest until every person living in a ”fear society” has finally won their freedom.”

New restrictions have been brought in that move Britain into that realm of a “fear society”.

This afternoon I saw five people arrested for simply peacefully holding banners supporting the right to protest. It happened on the square opposite our Houses of Parliament, and it made me feel ashamed to be British.

Although the law was passed largely to get rid of Brian Haw, it turns out not to alter his right to be there, as his protest started before the act became law and is thus not covered by it. Rather a lot of egg on government faces there.

[The High Court decision that agreed Haw was not covered by the Act was overturned by the Court of Appeal in an alarming decision in May 2006.]

More pictures

The Westminster Tea Party – Time for Tobin Tax

*Holding up tea bags on Westminster Bridge*

In 1978, Nobel Prize-winning economist James Tobin proposed a uniform world-wide tax at a very low level – perhaps only 0.2% – on all foreign currency exchange transactions. The aim was to deter speculation on currency movements, thus giving the elected governments greater control over their fiscal and monetary policies, and reducing the power of unelected speculators (who include some of the larger multinational companies) to affect the markets.

Exporters, importers and long-term investors would all benefit from less volatile exchange rates, and the revenue raised by the tax could make a significant contribution both to the revenue of national economies and also for international development projects.

As a small gesture of support for the Tobin Tax, another illegal demonstration took place in Westminster this afternoon, unnoticed by police. A small group of demonstrators, again following an example from Boston – although this time from 1773 – chose tea as a way to symbolise their protest. Each threw a teabag, produced by one of the giant corporations, from the middle of Westminster Bridge into the River Thames below.

A couple more pictures at the bottom of this page on My London Diary.

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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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Hiroshima Day Ceremony – Tavistock Square 2004

Hiroshima Day Ceremony: On 6th August 2004 I went to the annual Hiroshima Day commemoration organised in Tavistock Square by London CND. It’s an event I like to attend each year if I’m in London, and one I’ve photographed in quite a few years.

The bombs heralded the start of a new age, the Atomic Age, and were clearly a war crime, indiscriminately destroying huge numbers of innocent civilians and with little or no military purpose. Many who survived the initial blast died in the following weeks, months and years later from the effects of nuclear radiation, particularly from the ‘black rain’ that fell later in the day caused by the bombing.

Last Saturday (02 Aug 2025) BBC Radio 4’s Archive On 4 broadcast Exposing Hiroshima, the story of US attempts to cover up the scale of the casualties and deny the “deadly and lasting impacts of radiation” revealed by Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett, the first Western journalist to publish an uncensored eye-witness account from Ground Zero in Hiroshima. Eventually revealed to the world on the front page of the Daily Express the US response was a PR campaign to supress the truth, dismissing his and other articles that emerged as ‘Japanese propaganda’.

The pictures here are all from 6th August 2004. They were made with my first DSLR, the Nikon D100 and converted from RAW files in 2004 using the then availahle conversion software which was not up to current standards. I’m sure I could do better if I now went back to the original files.

Back in August 1945 Japan was already ready to surrender and the allies (or at least the USA) knew this. They wanted to show Russia that they had a weapon that could be used should Russia step out of line. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were annihilated as a gesture to Stalin (“Uncle Joe” as some newspapers liked to refer to him then.)

*Michael Foot (at left) and others at the Hiroshima Plaque in Tavistock Square, London*

Since then we have had a continuous campaign of lies and deceptions over nuclear weapons. It continues to this day with the ridiculous pretence that we have an independent nuclear weapon, and we are being softened up for the arrival of ‘mini-nukes’, smaller but even more dangerous nuclear weapons.

The anniversary was commemorated at Tavistock Square by Hampstead and London Region Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament. Those present included the former labour leader Michael Foot and Tony Benn, as well as the oldest member of the Labour Party and an American visitor from US Labor Against The War.

*Cllr Barbara Hughes, Deputy Mayor of Camden, places flowers at the memorial plaque*

Tavistock Square has a number of interesting memorials, including a fine statue of Gandhi, and a cherry tree planted in memory of the victims past and present of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th 1945. The ceremony was a reminder that if anyone is still looking for weapons of mass destruction they are present in America; any “war on terror” should perhaps start against the country which used these weapons to devasting effect without any compunction in 1945.

*A greeting for Michael Foot from the oldest member of the Labour Party*

The event was chaired by local MP Jeremy Corbyn, and speakers included Ken Savage of Greater London Pensioners Association, Sophie Bolt, Chair of London CND [and now CND General Secretary], Darren Johnson, GLA Green Party Leader and Tony Benn. Mordechai Vanunu had been invited to come from Jerusalem where he is under house arrest, but was prevented from coming by the Israeli government. There were also songs from the Workers’ Music Association choir.

More pictures on My London Diary

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Black Lives Matter London – 2016

Black Lives Matter London: Although there is a long history of Black struggles against racism in Britain the Black Lives Matter movement with its hashtag #BlackLivesMatter only really became established here in 2016, three years after it was first formed in the US in 2013.

This protest, on Friday 5th August 2016, five years and a day after the killing of Mark Duggan by police in 2011, along with those at Heathrow and in Birmingham, Manchester and Nottingham were part of a ‘National Shutdown‘ which marked the emergence of Black Lives Matter UK.

The rally took place in Altab Ali Park on Whitechapel Road. Altab Ali, a Bangladeshi textile worker was stabbed to death in a racist attack by three teenagers in the adjoining street on 4th May 1978. In 1998 the park, formerly St Mary’s Park, was renamed in his memory.

"The event was called by BLMUK, a community movement of activists from across the UK who believe deeply that #BlackLivesMatter but are not affiliated with any political party. They called for justice and an end to racialised sexism, classism and homophobia and a new politics based on community defence and resilience."

Among those taking part in the rally were activists from Stand Up to Racism, from families of Sheik Bayou and Sean Rigg who had been killed by the police as well as Stephanie Lightfoot-Bennett whose twin brother Leon Patterson was battered to death by police in a Stockport cell in 1992, Movement for Justice and Sisters Uncut.

There were speeches from the various groups including BLMUK and from NUS President Malia Bouattia before the rally split into large groups from North, South, East and West London to discuss further actions.

Sisters Uncut set up flowers and candles in Altab Ali Park in East London to commemorate the many UK victims of state violence, including Duggan, Sarah Reed, Mzee Mohammed, Jermaine Baker, Sean Rigg, Leon Patterson, Kingsley Burrell and over 1500 others, disproportionately black, since 1990.

I left the rally before the end, when protesters blocked Whitechapel Road outside the park and some went on to block other roads in East London

More pictures on My London Diary at Black Lives Matter London.

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Broadwater Farm & Mark Duggan – 2017

Broadwater Farm & Mark Duggan: On Sunday 4th August 2017 I went to Tottenham to cover the march on the 6th anniversary of Mark Duggan being killed by police, and arriving early I took a walk around the Broadwater Farm Estate.

Broadwater Farm Estate – Tottenham

You can read the real story of the Broadwater Farm Estate on the excellent Municipal Dreams web site. In 1961 Haringey Council had a shortfall of 14,000 homes with many families living in squalid conditions in rented accommodation in overcrowded and run down Victorian back to back slums.

The estate was built on former allotments next to the Lordship Recreation Ground and above the River Moselle which was culverted. Its design was strongly influenced by the work of Le Corbusier and used ‘piloti’ to raise the homes above ground level both to combat the perceived flood risk from the river and to segregate pedestrians from traffic on walkways with the the ground level providing extensive parking for residents’ cars.

Construction began in 1967 and ended in the early 1970’s. The 1063 new homes were built to high standards, spacious and with all the ‘mod cons‘ expected in that era and with ‘constant hot water for heating and domestic use…supplied to all homes from the central oil-fired boiler’.

Things didn’t work out quite as expected, and although people were delighted at first, problems soon emerged. Flat roofs leaked, the heating system proved inefficient and noisy and there were cockroach infestations, lift breakdowns and fires of rubbish.

The huge parking spaces under the buildings were underlit and hidden from sight and “physically created a concrete ‘underworld’ for crime to thrive” and the many pedestrian walkways proved ‘impossible to police‘.” There were racial tensions too – the Tenants’ Association initially excluded black members and “its president was forced to resign in 1974 after a TV appearance speaking on behalf of the National Front.”

It became harder for the council to find tenants for the flats and the estate became a ‘dumping ground’ for difficult and disadvantaged tenants. In 1979 it became part of the government’s Priority Estates Project and Haringey council and the estate residents had mobilised to improve things. By 1984 homes were no longer hard to let and crime had been much lowered.

But policing was increasingly a problem, with many residents experiencing “heavy-handed and oppressive policing“. Things – as a second post on Muncipal Dreams details – came to a head after police raided the home of Cynthia Jarrett close to the estate looking for her son Floyd, a leading member of the Broadwater Farm Youth Association (BFYFA). She died of heart failure during the raid, and the following day, Sunday 6th August 1985, protesters set out from the estate to march for a peaceful protest outside Tottenham Police Station.

They were met and stopped by police in full riot gear, who sealed off all routes from the estate and a seven-hour riot began. As I wrote in 2017 “more and more police came into the estate with firefighters who put out a small fire. Faced by increasing attacks from residents the police withdrew, but two officers failed to escape. PC Richard Coombes was seriously injured and PC Keith Blakelock was beaten and hacked to death.”

*After the disturbances shops were moved down to Willan Rd*

Municipal Dreams continues: “A full-scale state of siege followed. Four hundred police officers occupied the Estate over the following weeks and some 270 police raids took place over the next six months. Some 159 arrests were made.” The inquiry into the disturbances at Broadwater Farm concluded that it “was essentially about policing – police activity and police attitudes.“

Work to improve the estate continued, helped in 1986 by a £33m grant from the Government’s Estate Action programme which enabled huge changes to the structures, eventually removing the walkways and bringing life to the ground level and with the BYFA leading improvements in the environment. By 2003 dit had become “a stable and safe community.”

The shooting of Mark Duggan, raised on the estate, by police on 4th August 2011 led to another march from Broadwater Farm to Tottenham Police Station three days later which sparked riots on Tottenham High Road and other areas of London and other towns and cities. Broadwater Farm was not the cause of these disturbances, which again were largely provoked by “a widespread resentment of police behaviour.“

Improvements to the estate continued after this but it is now under threat from further so-called regeneration which would see it “as ‘improved’ by importing middle-class owner-occupiers and private renters.“

Broadwater Farm Estate

Tottenham remembers Mark Duggan

People met on Willan Road in the centre of the Broadwater Farm Estate for a peaceful march to a rally at Tottenham Police Station on the sixth anniversary of the shooting of Mark Duggan by police. The marchers included members of his family and the family of Jermaine Baker, shot dead by police on 11th December 2015 in Wood Green.

Baker was unarmed and although a public inquiry found there had been a failings in the police operation that his killing was lawful and no criminal charges would be brought against any police officers although one would face gross misconduct proceedings.

Mark Duggan’s shooting had been accompanied by various false reports from the police and officers gave contradictory evidence at the inquest, where finally after weeks of deliberation the jury in January 2014 returned an 8–2 majority verdict that his death was a lawful killing. Legal challenges to the verdict were later rejected but in 2019 Duggan’s family accepted a settlement of their civil claim from the Met.

*Mark Duggan’s mother Pamela Duggan (centre) with family and friends*

Speakers outside Tottenham Police station remembered the police killing of other members of the Tottenham community apart from Duggan and Baker – Cynthia Jarrett, Joy Gardner, Roger Sylvester, and the recent murders of Rashan Charles, Darren Cumberbatch and Edson Da Costa.

As well as a minute of silence, speakers from the two families and local activists including Stafford Scott there were also speeches from Becky Shah of the Hillsborough campaign and from the Justice for Grenfell campaign.

*The crowd spread out into the street with a large group of mainly young men on the opposite side of the street*

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Tottenham remembers Mark Duggan.

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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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Hayling Island Carnival – 2005

Hayling Island Carnival: On Wednesday 3rd August 2005 I went to photograph the carnival on Hayling Island with a couple of friends. I’d been there for the carnival a couple of times in earlier years, though it wasn’t really my kind of thing.

*Neptune’s court – he had plenty to keep him busy*

Two of my friends had in earlier years got money from the Arts Council to record English Carnivals and had persuaded me to go with them in earlier years and I was with one of them again in 2005.

There is an odd fascination about English carnivals, bringing out the eccentricities of the English, something that had been exploited by earlier photographers, perhaps the first being Sir Benjamin Stone (1838 – 1914), who as Wikipedia states made “an invaluable record of the folk customs and traditions of the British Isles, which influenced later photographers of note“. Notable among these, and one who inspired many before his tragic early death was Tony Ray-Jones (1941-72) and the posthumous book ‘A Day Off: An English Journal‘ published in 1974 was certainly the most influential British photographic publication of that era.

I never met Ray-Jones, who died before I was deeply involved in photography, but I did later become friends and worked with his friend, the Brooklyn-born photographer John Benton-Harris who printed much of his work, including the prints for ‘A Day Off’ and had occasionally photographed with him. And those two photographers who first took me to Canvey were ex-students and close friends of John too.

I worked with John on producing the images for what would have been his masterwork, ‘Mad Hatters – a diary of a secret people… as seen through the looking glass of – John Benton Harris‘ still unpublished, though a few of us treasure copies printed by Blurb but never made public. In mine he thanks me for my ‘Valued Technical Help‘, though we also had many discussions and arguments on the sequencing and very occasionally the selection of images, many of which I made significant improvements by some judicious dodging and burning – though always subject to his approval.

*The ladies from the Health centre were going on a booze cruise*

Actually with John virtually every discussion was a bitter argument – we were once asked to leave an event in Borough Market after a shouting match over a review I had written of a book by Homer Sykes (another of those influenced by Stone.) Sadly ‘Mad Hatters’ remains unpublished. It’s a fine body of work but a book greatly in need of an editor – something John would never tolerate.

*The Navy gets in on the act with HMS Hayling*

Back to 2005, here is the text I wrote for My London Diary about the day:

I went to Hayling Island for the carnival with Paul and Michael, and it was a nice day. Paul drove us down - it isn't too long a drive from London, really a Londoner's day out. Hayling seems full of people from London on holiday, some with second homes there, others hiring them, often from family and friends.

*A beach tableau, complete with seagull*

Despite a longer than usual hold-up at Haslemere, we arrived just in time for the official opening. Everything was happening on the day, and it started with the crowning of the Carnival Queen and her retinue, then on to the Fancy Dress.

Then came the Baby Show, after which we went down to the other end of the town, where the carnival formed up in previous years. It seemed dead there, with more housing and less shops than before, and nothing was happening. People up that end are apparently pretty fed up to lose the carnival, and we were sorry to miss another meeting with 'the King' whose playing had been a major feature of previous years.

We grabbed a meal at a restaurant and then made our way back for the Dog Show, After which it was time for the parade to form up near the sea front. There were more mermaids than you could ever imagine and everyone seemed to be having fun and I took a lot of pictures.

More pictures from Hayling Island Carnival 2005 on My London Diary.

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Al Quds & Roma Holocaust Memorial Day – 2013

Al Quds & Roma Holocaust Memorial Day: On Friday 2nd August 2013 I photographed the annual al-Quds Day march in London, leaving before it reached a rally at the US Embassy to attend a ceremony at the Holocaust Memorial in Hyde Park for Roma Holocaust Memorial Day.

Al Quds Day March – Portland Place to US Embassy

Al Quds & Roma Holocaust Memorial Day - 2013

Thousands marched peacefully for outside Broadcasting House to the US Embassy calling for the liberation of Palestine, with a few carrying banners and chanting in support of Hezbollah.

The starting point was chosen because of the continuing pro-Israel bias of the BBC and their failure to adequately cover the Israeli apartheid, the continuing occupation of Palestine and the oppression of the Palestinian people, as well as the siege of Gaza, which already 12 years ago was denying sufficient essential medical supplies and restricting food and other materials.

The celebration of Al Quds day on the last Friday of Ramadan was introduced by Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran in 1979 and its observance has spread, mainly in Arab and Muslim countries, and for many years there has been an annual march in London in support of Palestine as a show of solidarity with the people of Palestine and oppressed people everywhere.

Often the march has been met with opposition from various Zionist and Iranian freedom, communist and royalist movements as well as fringe UK right wing groups including the EDL and March for England, but there was no sign of protests against it this year, though I imagine there will have been a counter-protest to the rally at the US Embassy, but I had to leave for another event before the march reached this.

There were also Jews taking part in the march calling for freedom for Palestine, both from the obvious and small group of ultra-orthodox Neturei Karta Jews and others from the British left.

The march, attended by many Muslim families from mosques across England, was heavily policed but was as always an entirely peaceful and closely stewarded event that requires no policing other than traffic control unless others come to try and disrupt it.

Many more pictures at Al Quds Day March.

Roma Genocide Commemorated – Hyde Park

*Grattan Puxon speaking in front of the Holocaust Memorial which was draped with a Roma flag*

A ceremony at the Holocaust Memorial in Hyde Park on Roma Holocaust Memorial Day remembered the mass killing of 3,000 Romas at Auschwitz on 2nd August 1944 and protested against the rise of neo-Nazi attacks against the Romas in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

*A few of the 3000 who died on the night of the ‘Porajmos’ on 2nd August 1944*

Around a quarter of a million Sinti and Roma were killed by the Nazis in Germany, and many others in Romania and Croatia. A Jewish socialist, who spoke at the event regretted the fact that the memorial only refers to the Jewish victims of the holocaust, which also included many others.

After a short introduction there was a two minute silence followed by speeches in Czech and in English including by Professor Rainer Schulze who spoke in some detail about the way Sinti and Roma were treated by the Nazis and of the fight they put up even as they were being forced into the gas chambers.

As well as speakers from various Roma and Sinti communities others included a Japanese peace activist who brought a statement of support from Hiroshima. Some of those present had earlier protested against the rise of Neo-Nazi attacks against the Roma in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and were going on to protest at the French Embassy against deportation of Roma from France.

Recent years have seen increasing discrimination against Roma across Europe and here in the UK, including harassment of those sleeping rough on the streets of London.

More pictures at Roma Genocide Commemorated.

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Soho Pride – 2004

Soho Pride – 1st August 2004: Soho Pride was a festival celebrated in the streets around Old Compton Street from 2003-2008, a separate event from the annual London Pride parade which now takes over the whole area for after-parties on the day of the parade. You can read a little more about it # on the Historic England web site which has a “Self-Guided Virtual Heritage Walking Tour” 130 Years of Queer Soho (or thereabouts) which includes Soho Pride.

I paid the first Soho Pride a brief visit in 2003 on my way home from a busy 5th July after covering a protest calling for legal recognition of British Sign Language and the Somerstown Festival Of Cultures. There are just a few pictures of Soho and Soho Pride 2003 on My London Diary.

I spent rather longer at Soho Pride 2004, and here is what I wrote it on My London Diary – and all the pictures in this post come from the 2004 festival.

The first Soho Pride held last year was a great success, and this year's event followed the same pattern. Street closures, restaurant tables in the roadway, DJs and loud sounds, people out to eat, drink, dance and generally have a good time.

Even in mid-afternoon, the streets were beginning to get really packed, especially outside the more popular gay bars and around the club DJs.

Really it was one big party, and a party that catered for almost all tastes except in music, which was uniformly relentless club beats. Perhaps a pity that the Jazz On The Streets events had beat a retreat to Carnaby Street (surely forty years behind us with flower power.)

After a while I began to feel my age, and escaped to the Underground and home for a quiet and leisurely alfresco dinner with a few glasses of white wine.

More pictures on My London Diary from Soho Pride 2004.

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Hunger Strikers & Sotheby’s – 2015

Hunger Strikers & Sotheby’s: Ten years ago today this protest over Palestine was about Palestinians on hunger strike in Israeli jails against the use of indefinite illegal administration. Later I went to Mayfair where cleaners and their supporters were protesting for the reinstatement of two cleaners sacked and victimised because of their trade union activities.

BBC protest over Palestinian Hunger Strikes – Broadcasting House

The hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners Muhammad Allan and Uday Isteiti held in Israeli jails under administrative detention was in its sixth week, but the BBC had failed to report this and other hunger strikes.

So Innovative Minds in cooperation with The Prisoner’s Centre for Studies in Jerusalem had come to the BBC to protest against the continuing pro-Israel bias among management and some reporters. It’s a bias that has often been confirmed by academic studies and is continuing, though the recent use of starvation in Gaza and its appalling consequences we have all seen has resulting in some toughening of the BBC reporting on Israel’s war crimes.

Administrative detention allows people to be held without any real evidence and without trial and although in Palestine it is supposedly time-limited, in practice many are immediately re-arrested when their sentence ends to begin another term and so is in practice indefinite.

As I concluded in 2015: “Many who used to regard the BBC as a great institution and praised its high standards are now disillusioned and feel that they need to listen and watch other broadcasters to get an impartial and more complete view of both overseas and UK news.”

The BBC has some fine reporters but they often come under pressure from their managers – who themselves are under pressure from powerful lobbying groups and politicians with strong sympathies for the Zionist cause, including leading figures in our government. But they also misinterpret their ideas of impartiality, often ignoring the facts of the situation in a misguided attempt to show both sides. As it has been said “there are no two sides to genocide.”

More at BBC protest over Palestinian Hunger Strikers.

Reinstate the Sotheby’s 2 – New Bond St

Early in 2015 the United Voices of the World union had come to an agreement with the company who then employed the outsourced cleaners at auction house Sotheby’s which had guaranteed the workers non-toxic products, reinstatements, fairer schedules and the London Living Wage (backdated.)

Sotheby’s, who make huge profits by selling art works and other items, decided to sabotage that deal by ending the contract with that company and starting a new contract with Servest, who decided not to honour the agreement that had been reached earlier.

This led the UVW to organise a series of protests, including a large and noisy one outside a “blockbuster £130m art sale” on July 1st. Sotheby’s responded by sacking four of the most active trade union members who had taken part in the protest, though later were forced by threats of legal action to reinstate two of them.

The protest on 31 July outside another auction demanded the reinstatement of the ‘Sotheby’s 2‘, as well as repeating the cleaners demands for proper sick pay, paid holidays and pensions and the London Living Wage.

The UVW continued with protests in Autumn 2015 and were able to announce in early 2016 that “ALL outsourced workers at Sotheby’s, including cleaners, caterers, porters and security guards would receive both the London Living Wage and contractual (much improved) sick pay.”

More at Reinstate the Sotheby’s 2.

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Rich Door, Poor Door – 30th July 2014

Rich Door, Poor Door: Class War’s Long series of protests against the separate and very different entrances to the tower block at One Commercial Street in Aldgate began on 30th July 2014 and weekly protests continued with some short pauses and a few extra visits until May 2015, when Class War devoted themselves to the General Election campaign.

Here is the introduction to my long post I made in 2014 about the event:

Class War, including three of their candidates for the 2015 General Election, protested at 1 Commercial St in Aldgate against London's new apartment blocks providing separate 'poor doors' for the affordable flats they have to include to gain planning permission for the development. Class War characterise this as 'social apartheid.'

You can still read the rest at Class War – Rich Door, Poor Door. At the time the building owners told us that there was “no internal connection between this part of the building and that containing the social housing” but on a later occasion I was taken by an owner of a flat in the “rich” section out of the building from her flat by the poor door – a route she took routinely when walking her dog.

I photographed almost all of the 30 events that took place in front of the building during that time, missing just a couple when I was out of London. And shortly after the protests ended I put together a ‘zine’ full of pictures from them (still available from Blurb) ‘Class War: Rich Door, Poor Door ISBN 978-1-909363-14-4′.

At the front of the zine is the text I posted on My London Diary on 30th July 2014, along with a list of the actions, and at its end a short note about how I came to photograph protests. But the bulk of the publication is simply pages of pictures with just a few short notes.

In a short conclusion I stated:

One Commercial Street still has its separate doors for rich and poor, but the campaign which had been suspended for the general election has made 'social apartheid' in housing an issue, and along with other housing campaigns has brought housing, and housing in London in particular onto the public agenda.

I should also had made it clear that Class War had taken an part in these other housing campaigns and their presence had helped to raise the profile of protests over these. In particular they had played an important part in making clear the involvement of Labour councils in London in collaborating with developers in the transfer of huge public assets into private ownership while failing to provide much-needed social housing.

Our current Labour government has still not got serious about the need to provide social housing rather than simply encourage developers to build more largely private housing (with a largely token amount of unaffordable “affordable” housing.) Perhaps if we do get a new party of the left things will change.

The preview on Blurb includes I think most or all of the publication and shows it better than the print publication. Viewing at full screen you can also read all the text, including my post from 2014 still on My London Diary. The pictures and text from all the other Poor Door protests are also still on My London Diary.

On My London Dairy for 30th July 2014: Class War – Rich Door, Poor Door

Stop Starving Palestine Pan Protest

Whitehall, London. 25th July 2025

Stop Starving Palestine Pan Protest: Last Friday evening thousands of us came to Whitehall shocked by the news and photographs coming out of Gaza, where much of the population is now suffering from malnutrition and over a thousand have already died of starvation.

The famine there is entirely due to the actions of the Israeli government and their army, the IDF. Over the past months they have denied access to the normal humanitarian supplies of foods and essential items to Gaza.

Israel has also disrupted the well-established channels through which food was distributed in Gaza through the UN and humanitarian agencies. Together with the USA they have set up an alternative way to supply food which has operated at only four centres; the amount of food supplied has been vastly inadequate and over a thousand of those queueing for it have been killed by the IDF.

The world has been shocked by the pictures coming out from Gaza, and by well-documented stories from medical staff that snipers and not only target those queueing for food but ‘gaming’ by targeting different parts of the anatomy on different days. One day hospitals treated many who had been shot in their testicles.

For months we have been appalled by the accounts of the shelling and bombing of hospitals, medical facilities and the arrests and interrogation of medical staff, some of whom have clearly been tortured.

Large areas of Gaza are now covered with the rubble of people’s homes and people forced to flee and living in makeshift tents, often in so-called ‘safe areas’ have been killed by the military.

The attack began after an attack by Hamas across the border into Israel in which over a thousand died – including some by Israeli military fire and hundreds were kidnapped as hostages. But it has continued for over 600 days, with the killing of many, many thousands of innocent Palestinians, men, women and children in what has clearly become a series of war crimes.

Some Israeli ministers have clearly stated their intention to entirely rid Gaza of Palestinians, and Donald Trump has supported them, with plans to turn the area into a holiday resort. Israel clearly wants to settle the area with Israelis.

From the rest of the world we have seen words of condemnation, but little or no real action, with the USA using its veto in the UN. The UK has banned some of its arms exports and is nowmaking plans for air drops of food – but these will only be a small – and dangerous – drop in the ocean of desperate need.

On Friday evening I travelled up to London with my wife – carrying a large pan and a wooden spoon to bang it with in a protest calling on our government to take effective action.

I began by photographing a rally outside the Foreign & Commonwealth office by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network UK who began weekly protests in October 2023 against the Israeli Ambassador to the UK who had called for the illegal annexation of the West Bank and for “every school, every mosque, every second house” in Gaza to be destroyed. Their protests have been hounded by police, banned first from being outside her residence and then from Swiss Cottage.

Among the speakers I photographed there was a woman holocaust survivor who received tremendous support with people banging their pans and was unable to continue for several minutes. This was also one of the few parts of the evening of protest where many people had also come with placards.

A few yards up Whitehall there were crowds of protesters banging pans on both sides of Whitehall. Police tried to keep them on the pavement but when they appeared to be trying to arrest one of those who refused to move, crowds surged around them and occupied the whole of the highway.

There were a couple of speeches from in front of the gates to Downing Street, but many of those present were too far away to hear them and people kept up the banging of pans.

Eventually the organisers asked people to come and leave their pans in front of Downing Street and start moving towards Trafalgar Square. Some did, but many others still needed them to cook with. A thin police line held up the movement towards the square for around ten minutes – though the protesters could easily have broken through they waited patiently and then marched on to the square where I left them.

More pictures on Facebook at Stop Starving Gaza Protest at Downing St and as usual available for publication on Alamy.

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