National March, Hyde Park to Israeli Embassy, London, Saturday 10 January 2010
Well over 100,000 marchers turned up to Hyde Park in London on Saturday 10 January 2010 to show their opposition to the Israeli attacks on Gaza and call for an end to the killing there. After a rally there they marched
As well as posters and banners, some carried dolls as a reminder of the 300 or so children already killed by the Israeli attacks in the current offensive, the Israeli Operation Cast Lead which had begun on 27th December 2008 and was still continuing.
The Gaza Massacre ended with Israel declaring a ceasefire eight days after this protest on 19th January 2009, by which time the Israeli attacks and killed (figures from Wikipedia) between 1,166 and 1,417 Palestinians. There had been 13 Israeli deaths, four of them killed by their own Israeli forces.
Many children were among the Palestinians killed and some protesters carried dolls or bundles of blood-stained clothing to represent the 300 already known to have died at the time the protest took place. It remains unclear exactly how many civilians were among the killed as Israel allowed few international workers into the area and denied access to journalists. Around a sixth of those killed were police officers in Gaza.
The attacks severely damaged half of Gaza’s hospitals and health facilities. A survey by the United Nations Development Programme estimated that 14,000 homes, 68 government buildings, and 31 non-governmental organisation offices were either totally or partially destroyed. The Israeli blockade on Gaza meant that it was not possible to import the building materials needed for essential repairs and rebuilding.
The police had severely under-estimated the likely size of the protest, failing to believe the figures suggested by the march organisers. They had planned for a much smaller protest and this led to problems. Quite rightly, feelings run very high over Gaza and there were many who wanted to get to the Israeli Embassy and make their feelings clear.
I had no problems with the police, but was assaulted close to the Embassy by several Stop the War stewards some of whom do seem to have a real problem with the press. They pushed me around and tried to stop me from working, although other stewards who who saw what happened did apologise to me for the treatment I received.
The official front of the march – well behind some of the angrier protesters eventually arrived and paused briefly close to the embassy, safe down a private road behind barriers and police before moving on and dispersing. But many of those on the march remained in the area and the street soon became completely blocked. I could only watch from a distance over the heads of the densely packed crowd as there seemed to be some fighting with police as demonstrators tried to climb the barriers. Placards, sticks and shoes were being thrown either towards the embassy or at the police.
I walked a few yards further down the road where a group of young men burning placards with a picture of the “World’s #1 Terrorist”. A little further still things were much quieter with some Muslim men saying prayers. It looked as if there would be protests here continuing long into the night, but I had to leave as I had promised to take pictures elsewhere at a private event.
On the evening of Monday 9th January 2012 cyclists and pedestrians protested at Kings Cross in the evening rush hour calling for an end to the killing of cyclists on city roads.
‘Ghost bike’ for Deep Lee killed here in October 2011
Bikes Alive wanted Transport for London to make changes in their policies which are leading to too many cyclists being killed on London’s Streets and were taking more direct but peaceful action to put pressure on them to make cycling in the city safer.
Jenny Jones holds her at right
Kings Cross was chosen as one of the most dangerous areas for cyclists with major roads including Euston Road, Pentonville Road, Caledonian Road, Kings Cross Road all meeting in a gyratory system of confusing one-way streets.
In particular they want changes at all major road junctions with longer gaps between different phases that would allow both pedestrians and cyclists to clear junctions before traffic from other directions dashes across, as well as changes that will lead to reductions in private car use in London and an increase in bike use.
Tamsin and a man with a bike block traffic for the ride to start
Similar protests in later years have been organised by Stop Killing Cyclists who began with a major ‘die-in’ protest outside TfL’s HQ in November 2013.
Cyclists take to the road
I arrived early for the Bikes Alive protest and found a group of friends of cyclist Deep Lee (Min Joo Lee), a 24-year old student who was killed riding her bike there on 3 Oct 2011 came to put fresh flowers on the ‘ghost bike’ which is chained to a lamp post at the centre of the junction.
and some people on foot
Others soon began to arrive on bikes and on foot, gathering on the wide pavement in front of Kings Cross Station, including a dozen or so police officers on bikes. As well as Bikes Alive spokesperson Albert Beale who had said that this protest “is the first step in a campaign to stop – by whatever nonviolent means needed – the completely unnecessary level of deaths, injuries and fear inflicted by motorists on the more vulnerable“.
The ride goes past the ‘ghost bike’
Green Party mayoral candidate Jenny Jones took part, stating “London’s roads must be fixed urgently if we are to make them safe for cyclists and all other road users. This is the Mayor’s responsibility, and I hope that if we make a statement through peaceful, direct action he will start to listen.”
The protest blocks the box junction and Tamsin leads some chanting
Also present was Tamsin Omond of Climate Rush, who have organised several cycle protests, including one in July 2011 against London’s terrible air quality with briefly blocked a junction a little to the west of tonight’s protest.
Jenny Jones
Eventually the protester began to cycle slowly, accompanied by protesters on foot on the roads around the junction, turning up York Way and then returning back down Caledonian Road and returning to Kings Cross where some stopped to block the box junction. When police came and told them they had to move they made a few circuits along a short section of the Euston Road in front of Kings Cross, making a ‘U’ turn at the traffic lights and going back east along the road to go around the one-way system again. By the time they were on their second or third circuit I felt I had seen enough and left.
London’s roads eleven years later remain dangerous for cyclists, and this junction in particular was among the three still named as the most dangerous of 22 that the London Cycling Campaign named in parliament in November 2022 as needing urgent action. There have been some improvements, with new cycle ‘super-highways’ and changes in traffic light phasing, but much more still needs to be done to make the city safer, with huge benefits in public health as many more people who would cycle if they felt safe. Unfortunately some London councils, partly thanks to lobbying from taxi drivers and others, still have virulent anti-cycling policies.
Earlier that day I had photographed another protest, where Farah Edwards, a survivor of theBhopal Disaster, challenged Lord Coe, and Mayor Boris Johnson, to taste some Bhopal drinking water, bottled as ‘B’eauPal’ mineral water. 200 days before the start of the London Olympics they called for London to drop Dow Chemicals as a major sponsor, as thousand of families in Bhopal are still being poisoned by the Bhopal disaster, when Union Carbide, a subsidiary of Dow Chemicals, released a huge dense cloud of lethal gas from their plant on the night of December 2-3, 1984.
Barry Gardiner MP holds a bottle of contaminated Bhopal water in Trafalgar Square
Government estimates say more than 3,700 died immediately and since deaths have risen to between 8,000 and 25,000 people. Around 100,000 to 200,000 people are thought to have permanent injuries and the number continues to grow as much of the contamination produced by the disaster has not been cleaned up.
But of course the idea that Lord Coe or Johnson would worry for even a split second about taking dirty money for the Olympic project was ridiculous.
I went up to London on Tuesday 8 January, 2008 for two reasons. To photograph the monthly protest outside one of our asylum reporting centres and to collect three pictures that had been in a group exhibition. I took advantage of this to have a walk around Bow starting at Limehouse DLR station and after collecting the four pictures continuing to Canary Wharf to catch the Jubilee Line back to Waterloo.
Defend Asylum Seekers: Monthly London Protest – Communications House, Old Street
Communications House on the south-west corner of the Old Street roundabout a few yards from Old Street station has now been demolished and replaced by newer offices, and asylum seekers now have to report at either Lunar House in Croydon or Eaton House out to the west on Hounslow Heath.
So asylum seekers no longer have to enter the dingy entrance down a side street, Mallow St but many have longer and less convenient journeys to make their regular visits. They still know when they enter that these may be their last steps as free persons on British soil, and they may emerge in the back of a van on their way to a detention centre to wait for a flight back to possible imprisonment and torture in their country of origin.
Few of those who walked past the protest knew what went on in the rather anonymous building on their lunch break knew what went on inside, and those who bothered to listen or take leaflets from the protesters, were surprised when they were told, with many stopping to add their names to the petition. The monthly protests here were organised by London Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! (FRFI) but others including some asylum seekers came to speak.
I commented back then: “It is hard to take the claims that this is a Christian country seriously when you look at the way we treat those who are seeking asylum here, or indeed other migrants who are here. With the recent news frenzies about Tony Blair becoming a Catholic my thoughts were that he should be spending some awfully long and difficult sessions in the confessional, and his policies towards the asylum seekers would be one of many difficult items. And surely that father in the manse that Mr Brown likes to parade should be screaming “Gordon, Read your effing Bible!”
Neither the Church of England nor the Roman Catholic authorities have taken the kind of firm and clear public stand they should to oppose the UK’s increasingly racist policies over immigration. There have been statements by the leaders of the churches and others but these are soon lost in the media. But there has been a lack of the concerted action and a failure to arouse popular opinion to bring about an end to the ‘more racist than thou‘ race between the parties to appeal to the right – and our right-wing billionaire press. Fewer people than in past years populate the pews, but if mobilised they could still be an important body, forcing governments to provide safe routes and fair treatment rather than trying to simply send back people to where they had fled persecution and fly asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Rood Unit is a working space for photographers and was then based in a former furniture (or soap or perhaps both) factory in Bow, later moving to a floor above the Four Corners photography gallery in Roman Road. I had been invited to take part in a show they were presenting, Roof Unit Foundations, at [space] in Hackney and had shown four colour pictures from around River Lea in the 1980s.
This was one of them – and the others as well as a review of the show are in a post on this blog at the time, ROOF UNIT at [ space ]. And you can see these and many other of my pictures of the Lea Valley and the Lea Navigation in my River Lea web site, as well as in my book ‘Before the Olympics‘.
I took the DLR to Limehouse and made my way rather indirectly to their studio in Pixley Street on the corner with Copenhagen Place. The old factory is still there, though Roof Unit have moved out. I spent a short time talking with some of the photographers and was taken up onto their roof terrace where I took some more pictures, all using my Nikon D200.
I couldn’t resist adding the factory chimney to those at Canary Wharf as another tower, and the long arm of a crane made a little of a border across most of the top of the image. But I took quite a few more pictures – a few of which are in the post on My London Diary.
Fortunately my exhibition prints were quite small, 30x20cm, and unframed on dibond aluminium, so it wasn’t hard to carry them, though I didn’t stop to take many more pictures before the short bus ride to Canary Wharf. By now the light was beginning to fade, but I took a short walk around – and a few more pictures – before getting the underground back to Waterloo.
On Saturday 7th January 2012 I photographed three events in London. Two were associated with Cuba, one celebrating the Cuban revolution and the second calling for the closure of US Guantanamo Bay torture camp there. The third was a protest in solidarity with the mothers of political prisoners and those murdered by the Islamic Republic of Iran since 1979. Now there will be many more of these human rights abuses as Iran clamps down on the current ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ protests there.
53 Years Of Cuban Revolution – Angel, Islington
Although Cuba celebrates 26 July 1953 as the ‘Día de la Revolución’ (Day of the Revolution), this was the start of the movement with an unsuccessful armed attack on the Cuban military’s Moncada Barracks which resulted in the leaders being captured and jailed. It was not until 31 December 1958 that the rebels finally ousted Batista and Fidel Castro came to power, leading the country as prime minister from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 2008.
53 years and one week later a street rally at the Angel Islington organised for Rock around the Blockade by Fight Racism Fight Imperialism celebrated the Cuban revolution’s building of a socialist country despite the blockade by its powerful neighbour USA, and demanded justice for the Cuban Five.
The Cuban 5 were arrested in 1998 in Miami for spying on groups of Cuban refugees who were planning illegal acts against Cuba. Their treatment in US courts has been criticised as unfair by the UN Commission on Human Rights and by Amnesty International, who also condemned their treatment in jail as “unnecessarily punitive.”
Among many internationally calling for their release were Eight Nobel prize winners from around the world including Nadine Gordimer, Desmond Tutu, Wole Soyinka and Gunter Grass. A panel of US judges had overturned their convictions in 2005, but this was overruled by the full court and the US Supreme Court declined to review their case. One of the Cuban 5 was released in 2011 having served 13 years in prison, but at the time of this rally four remained in jail. The others were later released in December 2014 in a prisoner swap for a US spy captured in Cuba.
The rally stressed the remarkable changes the revolution had made in Cuba which in 1958 was a poor and corruptly governed country, its natural resources exploited by foreign companies, its people largely living in poverty with low educational standards and life expectancy. Now it has probably the best health service in the world, low infant mortality and a life expectancy better than many parts of the UK. Free education is provided for all, and soon most will follow it to graduate level.
Cuba has also been generous in providing free medical training for students from many African and South American countries, and also has sent many doctors and nurses to work in them, making a major contribution to controlling AIDS in Africa. Although there some criticise it for a lack of freedom, it has shown that there is a real alternative to capitalism, and that has provided a healthy and dignified life for its people, improving their condition over more than 50 years. And it has done all this despite US blockade and sanctions and continuing US support for counter-revolutionary groups – including the failed Bay of Pigs military invasion in 1961.
Speakers also condemned the continuing US occupation of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, there since 1903 when the US was given a permanent lease on 45 square miles of Cuba. The lease clearly limits US activities there to those to fit the needs of a coaling and naval station and prohibits the setting up of any commercial or other enterprise in the area. The setting up of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp would appear to be a breach of these terms. The Cuban government claim that the lease was “imposed on Cuba by force” and is “illegal under international law” and have refused to accept US payments for it since 1960.
Shut Guantánamo – End 10 Years of Shame – Trafalgar Square
A rally marking the 10th anniversary of the setting up of the illegal US prison camp at in the US military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba on 11 January 2002 called for its closure and in particular the release of the two remaining prisoners with UK links held there.
Although President Obama came into office pledging to close the camp down and end the discredited military trials there, he has failed to do so, authorising the continued regime of arbitrary detention without charge or trial. 171 prisoners were still detained there at the start of January 2012.
Louise Christian
Several hundred came to the protest and listed to speeches by Lib Dem Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP, solicitor Louise Christian, Lindsey German of Stop the War, Kate Hudson of CND, journalist Victoria Brittain and others, including student representatives, trade unionists and other activists.
A group of activists wore orange jumpsuits and black hoods as used at Guantanamo, and some were also in chains. They marched in line holding up the prison numbers of the 177 prisoners still in Guantanamo, and their numbers were called and their names read out. Among those taking part and wearing ‘V’ for Vendetta Guy Fawkes masks were ‘Anonymous’ protesters who had come from the Occupy London protest camp at St Paul’s Cathedral.
Ahmed Belbacha, an Algerian national who had a residence permit and lived in Bournemouth from 1999 to 2001 while claiming asyluk was cleared for release in 2007 and 2009. In 2009 he was sentenced in absentia in Algeria to 20 years for membership of a foreign terrorist group abroad – though no evidence was given at his trial. It appears that the US intervened on his behalf in Algeria and he was finally released and returned to his family in 2014.
Shaker Aamer was similarly cleared for release in 2007 and 2009, but was thought to still be detained as his revelations of torture over his ten years of imprisonment by the US authorities (and on one occasion in the presence of a British intelligence agent) would be embarrassing to the US and UK governments. I was pleased to be able to photograph him at a rally at the US Embassy in London in January 2016 after his release at the end of October 2015.
London Mourning Mothers of Iran – Trafalgar Square
Also in Trafalgar Square were The London Mourning Mothers of Iran who had been coming there every first Saturday of the month to show solidarity with the mothers of political prisoners and those murdered by the Islamic Republic of Iran since 1979.
The Mothers of Laleh Park (formerly known as the Mourning Mothers of Iran), women whose children or husbands were killed or imprisoned after the 2009 Iranian election, come regularly to Laleh Park in central Tehran and other locations on Saturdays and stand together to bring attention to these injustices.
Iranian security agents often come and attack the mothers. On January 9, 2010 over 30 of them were attacked and arrested and held in jail for several days, and leading members have received long prison sentences. The call for the release of political prisoners, the abolition of the death sentence and the trial of those who have ordered the killings of the last 30 years.
Protests in Westminster on Tuesday 5th January 2016 by housing groups who say ‘Tories Threatens Social Housing’ and Kurds protesting against Turkish support for ISIS and the genocide of Kurds.
Kill the Housing Bill protest – Westminster
The Housing and Planning Act 2016 passed by the Tory government was said to be a landmark in housing policy aimed a promoting home ownership and it was claimed would lead to an increase in the number of homes being built.
In practice it seemed to have little impact on home building, which continued to show a small annual increase from its low point in 2010-2011. But the act did radically incorporate Tory views about housing and in particular the individual ownership of homes, both through the extension of ‘right to buy’ to housing association tenants and its attack on social housing which seem aimed at increasingly marginalising what many of us see as the most sensible and cost-effective way to provide housing certainly for those on below average incomes, if not more widely.
Tory housing policies changed radically over the years. In 1968 local authorities built over 190,000 new homes and although this had roughly halved by the Thatcher became PM in 1979, by the time she left office this was down to 17,000 with numbers continuing to drop both under the Tories and New Labour – with only 130 new local authority homes in 2004.
Aspects of the bill were opposed by over 150 housing sector organisations, but their submissions were ignored by the government. As well as its attack on both housing association and local authority housing the act also brought in a discriminatory reduction of available housing sites for Gypsies and Travellers and also hit barge dwellers.
Architects for Social Housing prepared a summary of its effects which I quoted on My London Dairy:
Replace the obligation to build homes for social rent with a duty to build starter homes capped at £450,000 in London and £250,000 in England;
Extend the Right to Buy to housing associations without the obligation to replace them, further depleting the number of hoems for social rent;
Compel local authorities to sell ‘high value’ housing, either transfering public housing into private hands or freeing up the land it sits on for property developers;
Force so-called ‘high income’ tenants with a total household income over £30,000 (£40,000 in London) to pay market rents;
Grant planning permission in principle for housing estates designated as such to be redeveloped as ‘brownfield land’;
Phase out secure tenancies and their succession to children and replace them with 2-5 year tenancies – with such tenancies also being applicable to tenants who have been ‘decanted’ for the purposes of redevelopment.
The only ‘good’ housing so far as the Tories are concerned is housing which creates profits for the private sector, many of whom make large contributions to party funds, These include house builders and private renters, including ‘buy to let’ owners who use their ability to borrow money to get tenants to buy properties for them. Buy to let mortgages first became available in 1996 and since then have seen a huge growth, particularly with the exceptionally low interest rates available until recently.
The protest on Tuesday 5th January 2016 in Old Palace Yard was on a day when the bill was being rushed through in parliament, and was supported by a very wide range of organisations, though most were only represented by a handful of people.
As I reported, “there were clearly differences in the way some thought the protest should be conducted. While Class War and others protested loudly at the front of the crowd facing Parliament, with some powerful speeches from Lisa McKenzie and Martin Smith among others and some housing songs led by John Hamilton of Lewisham People Before Profit and the Strawberry Thieves Choir, a smaller group at the back in front of George V seemed determined to hold a separate and more organised event. And when someone set off a green smoke flare, a SWP newspaper seller came and picked it up to carry away from the protest.”
Eventually after a number of speeches, Class War and friends decided it was time for a more active protest and decided to go on a march. Police tried to prevent them, but when this didn’t work gave up and facilitated a short march along the Embankment and up Horseguards Avenue to Whitehall and Downing St, where they blocked the road for a few minutes before moving on to protest in front of the Houses of Parliament in Parliament Square and then rejoin the smaller group who were still in Old Palace Yard, where speeches were continuing.
Kurds protest Turkish army killings – Parliament Square
Also in Parliament Square were Kurds protesting against the Turkish support for ISIS and the attacks on Kurds in Syria by ISIS and the Turkish army. Turkey is carrying out a policy of genocide against the Kurdish people, who have suffered years of oppression in Turkey.
On Saturday 3rd January 2015 I photographed two protests. First was a vigil following the suicide of a transgender teenage girl and the second another protest in the long series of actions calling on John Lewis to pay their cleaners a living wage.
Vigil for Leelah Alcorn – Trafalgar Square, Saturday 3rd January 2015
Leelah Alcorn was a 17-year-old who threw herself under a lorry after her Christian parents forced her into ‘conversion therapy’, refusing to acknowledge her gender and forbidding her from transitioning.
Before her death Leelah had written a poignant suicide note on her Tumblr blog blaming her Christian parents, saying that from the age of four she had felt she was “like a girl trapped in a boy’s body” and describing her relief when she found the possibility of transgender transitions – but her feeling of hopelessness after she realised that her parents “would never come around” to her transition.
Roz Kaveney reads her poem for Leelah Alcorn
Leelah wrote: “The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was, they’re treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights.”
“Gender needs to be taught about in schools, the earlier the better. My death needs to mean something. My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. I want someone to look at that number and say ‘that’s f**ked up’ and fix it. Fix society.“
Even after her suicide her parents remained unwilling to accept her transition, burying her with a gravestone under her former name ‘Joshua’.
Those taking part in the vigil included a number of people who had also transitioned as well as other supporters of transgender rights. Speakers condemned the practice of ‘conversion therapy’ which has no basis in medical science and carries a high risk of suicide, calling for it to be banned and for those carrying it out to be prosecuted. It is already banned in some US states. They also demanded that her gravestone carry her chosen name of Leelah.
The protest ended with the lighting of candles and a two minute silence in memory of Leelah.
Pay John Lewis Cleaners a Living Wage – Oxford St, Saturday 3rd January 2015
Members of the Cleaners And Facilities Branch of the IWGB (Independent Workers Union of Great Britain) protested along with John Lewis customers protested outside the flagship Oxford St John Lewis store calling for them to live up to their ethical reputation and pay those who keep the shop clean a living wage. The cleaners complain the company treats them as second class citizens.
They were also protesting at the assaults on protesters by police at their previous month’s protest inside the store, where many were attacked as they were trying to leave after a peaceful protest. This time the protesters made no attempt to enter the store which was guarded by a line of police and extra security officers, but protested on the wide pavement outside.
Over 125,000 John Lewis customers had signed a petition calling on the company to ensure that it live up to its ethical reputation and ensure that the cleaning contractor pays all cleaners working in the store the London Living Wage. Neither John Lewis or the contractor recognise the IWGB as representing the workers, although it is the registered trade union which almost all the cleaners belong to.
As well as not being paid enough to live on, the cleaners have much poorer conditions of service than the directly employed staff they work alongside – who also get a large annual bonus as “partners” in the business. By outsourcing the cleaning John Lewis is refusing responsibility for work done in its store and vital for its running. They could include conditions for proper pay and conditions for the cleaners in the specification of their contracts but fail to do so.
IWGB (Independent Workers Union of, Great Britain) General Secretary Alberto Durango
The protest was led by IWGB General Secretary Alberto Durango and President Jason Moyer-Lee. There were short speeches of support by others including Green Party London Assembly member Jenny Jones, (Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb) and Mick Dooley of London TUSC, as well as a great deal of noisy shouting and blowing of horns.
Green Party London Assembly member Jenny Jones, Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb
Many of the public on busy Oxford Street took the flyers being handed out and expressed support for a proper wage for the workers and disgust at the failure of John Lewis to treat them properly.
After around an hour and a quarter the event ended with a march around the outside of the large building, with security and police rushing inside the shop to meet them at every door. But even though the protesters sometimes arrived before them, they made no attempt to go inside.
The union, originally known as the Industrial Workers of Great Britain was founded by Latin American cleaners in August 2012 as “a worker led union organising the unorganised, the abandoned and the betrayed“.
Since then it has seen a remarkable growth thanks to its successes in achieving better pay and conditions of service for its members, expanding from cleaners into various other sector, including some never before unionised in what has become the ‘gig economy’ and has branches for cleaners, couriers, private hire drivers, foster carers, the video games industry, charity workers, nannies, security and receptionists, au pairs, yoga teachers as well as Universities of London and general members branches.
The union was formed after cleaners in traditional trade unions such as Unite and Unison saw that they were not getting the support they needed to improve their pay and conditions. The unions that were recognised by the employers seemed unwilling to confront the employers and press the workers’ case and were failing to organise actions at the workplace.
I had met some of those involved at earlier protests organised by union branches, at times in defiance of the union bureaucracy, and earlier in 2012 by the cleaners’ branch of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), including at John Lewis in July 2012 and the LSE and the Royal Bank of Canada in June.
At St Georges Tooting, May 2012
Earlier in May 2012 the I photographed a protest for cleaners led by the IWW at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, where only one of the hospital cleaners was still a member of Unison, the recognised union, as “UNISON have never campaigned for the London Living Wage at St Georges and have actively assisted the management in their efforts to undermine the cleaners resistance to cuts.” Unison had written to the cleaners, instructing them not to take part in the protest and describing the IWW as “a non TUC anti union organisation.”
Justice for Cleaners at Société Générale, 6 Sep 2012
I first became aware of the miserable pay and conditions of cleaners and photographed some of them back in 2006 when the London Citizens Workers’ Association with the support of faith organisations, trade unions (notably the T&GWU) and social justice organisations launched the ‘Justice for Cleaners’ campaign in May Day. Things seem to move slowly but I met them again in 2007 and in 2008 at noisy high-profile but peaceuful demonstrations on the streets outside companies to shame them into ensuring that their outsourced cleaners got better conditions. That success appears to have prompted government action to make such protests, continued by the IWGB and others, illegal, though it seems unlikely to actually prevent them.
Since the IWGB was formed I’ve photographed many of their protests – too many to list, and including many I’ve written about on this site as well as My London Diary – where a search on ‘IWGB’ will reveal many of them. They are not the only grass roots union representing precarious workers and I’ve also photographed many actions by the United Voices of the World. Both are very much worker-led trade unions and work in similar ways, using the law in tribunals and court cases and holding noisy protests to shame companies.
The IWGB say they are the UK’s leading union for precarious workers. They are a democratic and member-led organisation with workers in the branches leading them and determining the policies they follow. There are no high-paid union leaders, and the union has a great record of empowering its members.
The Wikipedia article lists some of their successes though it is in need of considerable updating and some minor corrections. But it does point out some of their success, particularly in the 3 Cosas campaign for proper sick pay, holidays and pensions for workers at the University of London, in attracting support from politicians including Green Party leader Natalie Bennett and Labour MPs Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell. And the IWGB have certainly led in challenging employment law relating to the ‘gig economy’.
I could fill a book (or two) with my pictures of the IWGB and the UVW, and perhaps one day I will, and I could write much more, though others could do it better. The pictures with this post, with two exceptions come from one day, 28th January 2014, when as a part of the ‘3 Cosas’ campaign low paid workers at the University of London on the second day of their 3 day strike for union recognition and better conditions took their dispute around London on the open-top IWGB battle bus, stopping at key sites, including Parliament Square and the Royal Opera House for a rally and protests.
On 27th December 2008 the Israeli military began ‘Operation Cast Lead’ after 6 months of planning, striking 100 targets in Gaza in less than four minutes. This initial attack was followed by other air attacks and on January 3rd by an invasion on the ground. Israeli Defense Forces ended their attacks on 18th January 2009 by which time around 1400 Palestinians had been killed, with only 13 Israeli deaths, four killed by their own forces. You can read more on Wikipedia.
Every year for the next four years there were large protests close to the Israeli Embassy in London on December 27th against calling for an end to attacks on Gaza and an end to the siege of Gaza which prevents the imports of building materials and other vital goods needed for health and reconstruction. But the 2008-9 attacks on Gaza have been followed by others in 2014 and 2018 and more air strikes in 2021 and 2022.
Things now seem likely to get even worse with a new Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu including anti-Arab ultra-nationalists in key posts including the finance minister, a defence ministry post and national security minister as well as in the education ministry.
Among promises made to form the coalition are the legalisation of illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank, lifting of restrictions on Jewish prayer at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and a loosening of the restrictions on using live fire against Palestinian protesters. The new government also intends to end any independence of the judicial system in Israel, making the Supreme Court subservient to government.
So far as I am aware there will be no particular protest in London today, and the last I attended on December 27th was in 2012, four years after the start of the 2008 massacres – and the pictures here come from that day. The Israeli embassy is on a private road where a ban on protest is rigorously enforced, with police and barriers preventing access, and protests take place on Kensington High Street, opposite the private street.
There are still large protests in London calling for an end to Israeli Apartheid and for freedom for Palestine – such as that on 14th May 2022 marking 74 years after the Nakba as well as many smaller actions calling for a boycott of Israeli goods and services and divestment from Israel, with the BDS movement gaining strength world-wide. Attempts by Israel to categorise any support for Palestine as anti-Semitism have largely failed because of increasing repression and increased reporting of repression by the Israeli government, Israeli forces and attacks on Palestinians by some Jewish settlers. Many of those taking part in the protests supporting Palestine are Jewish, standing alongside others from Palestine.
This year I’m pleased to feel able to have another day of relative rest after Christmas, particularly as train services are disrupted as the UK government tries to prop up our dysfunctional rail system at the expense of rail workers – while continuing the handouts to the private companies – including several European state railway companies. As in gas, electricity, water and more privatisation has proved an entirely predictable economic disaster, selling off the family silver for short-term gain.
London, UK. 15th Dec 2022. Around a thousand people, including nurses and supporters came to a lunchtime protest outside St Thomas’s Hospital on the approach to Westminster Bridge
I’ve been sitting in front of my computer for around half an hour wondering what I should write about for Christmas Eve. I tried looking back at what I’d done in previous years – all in the blog archive on the right of this page which goes back to 2006 (though I didn’t post anything on December 24th until the following year) but all that did was depress me as so many of my earlier posts seemed rather more interesting and better written than more recent entries, and much wider in scope.
London, UK. 15th Dec 2022.
This year seems likely to be a very quiet Christmas for me, and the reason is largely Covid and other infections. Although Christmas and Boxing Day will be much the same both my sons have cancelled planned visits home with their families because of the huge prevalence of disease at the moment and the risks they might cause both to vulnerable adults like us (I’m an ancient diabetic) and their families.
London, UK. 15th Dec 2022.
Of course I’ve had all the Covid jabs – I think four so far – and the flu vaccination and it’s perhaps why I seem at the moment to be doing better than some of my mainly rather younger friends. Last Wednesday four of us cancelled a final get-together before Christmas for a meal together as one had Covid and another was in bed with another virus.
London, UK. 15th Dec 2022.
But I do feel very depressed and angry. Mainly at the terrible mess our government have made of the country particularly in the last year, but also over the longer term. Truss’s nightmare government which resulted in the waste of many billions in a few days, Sunak as Chancellor and now PM and the longer term disastrous effects of Brexit and austerity. And longer term still the truly crazy privatisation of key industries such as gas, water, electricity, railways and the creeping back-door privatisation of the NHS with ‘reforms’ which have been largely about opening it to private profit.
London, UK. 20 Dec 2022.
Things do now seem to be coming to a head, with workers seeing wages clearly leaving them unable to cope with increases in prices of energy and food, as well as rises in rents and mortgages, and strikes across the public sector as well in the privatised postal service. Even some of the right-wing press have begun to desert the Tories for their incompetence – as Labour has moved and is beginning to look like a more economically competent right-wing party. And even the BBC has begun to pick up some of the more blatant lies made by ministers about the nurses.
London, UK. 20 Dec 2022.
One thing I’ve not posted much if at all about this year is my continuing photography on the streets of London, largely covering protests. I don’t do as much as I did in earlier years, but I’ve still been going out and working a few days each month since the lock-down ended. And although I’ve not been keeping My London Diary up to date, as well as filing the pictures to Alamy I’ve also been putting them in albums on Facebook.
London, UK. 20 Dec 2022.
The cold spell made it difficult for me to get out earlier in the month and rail strikes have made it impossible for me to get to some other events. But both days when the nurses were striking I went to photograph them, on the first strike day outside St Thomas’s Hospital and the second a rally at University College London Hospital followed by a march. The pictures with this post are from these two events. You can view more from both days by following the links in the previous sentence and see these pictures larger by right-clicking and choosing to open them in a new tab.
Some issues stay with us – and it seems they will never go away. But things can change and do change, and I remember the long years of protest against apartheid in South Africa. But apartheid is now going strong in Israel, and things are even worse so far as democracy and fuel poverty are concerned in this country. There seems little hope now that even if Labour were to get into power things would become any better.
More and more people are getting expelled from the Labour party including many for expressing support for Palestine, including some leading Jewish members and prominent anti-racists as the party lurches towards a right-wing dictatorial stance. I’m not a party member – and would soon be expelled for what I’ve written over the years here and elsewhere were I to join, including this post. But I did vote for Labour for over 50 years though at the moment I can’t see myself ever doing so again.
Dying For Heat – Downing St, Saturday 20th Dececember
It makes me feel frozen just to look at this picture. It wasn’t quite as cold as it has been here over the past week but was still pretty chilly back in 2014. I would have been wearing an extra layer of thermals under a heavy jacket, scarf hat and long johns. Photography usually involves a lot of standing around and keeping warm in winter is often hard.
This small group of protesters had been there since 8am, around three hours by the time I arrived determined and they were determined to complete a 24hr vigil to draw attention to the impact of fuel poverty which killed more than 10,000 in the UK in 2012/3.
Others came for shorter periods over the day to support them and Fuel Poverty Action’s ‘Energy Bill of Rights‘ to protect the poor and end these deaths. None of the eight points in this have been taken up by the government and energy costs have risen sky high in the past year. The government blames this on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, but this fails to explain why people in the UK are paying far more than those in other countries across Europe – and their blatant lies over this don’t fool many. More at Dying For Heat.
Occupy Democracy Return To Parliament Square – Sat 20 Dec 2014
Police and private security ‘heritage wardens’ watched from the fenced off grass as protesters held a rally on the paved area at the edge of the square facing the Houses of Parliament. This is not covered by the bylaws that prohibit protests on the square without official permission.
The grass had been ‘temporarily closed’ and fenced by the Greater London Authority, officially for ‘important works‘ but actually simply to deny access to people who wanted to engage in this peaceful discussion about democracy – and of course to everyone else who might want to be on what is normally a public square. There was no sign of activities of any kind being carried out on the grass or pavements under GLA control in the square.
A series of speeches and other activities was planned calling for real democracy in a Britain where 3.5 million are living in poverty. The first speaker was the then Green Party Deputy Leader Shahrar Ali, and after speaking he responded to a lengthy and wide-ranging question and answer session about Green Party policies.
Following this was to be another performance of the Fossil-Free Nativity which I had photographed two weeks earlier, so I left to go elsewhere, returning briefly later in the day when activities were still proceeding.
Don’t Buy Israeli ‘Blood Diamonds’ – Bond St , Sat 20 Dec 2014
Campaigners came to Bond Street to protest outside shops there which sell diamonds cut and polished in Israel, which are the main source of funding for Israeli military attacks on Gaza. Many diamonds cut there come illegally from conflict zones. Palestinians have called for a boycott of all Israeli diamonds.
Israeli attacks on Gaza had led a decline in tourism and other exports of goods and services but increased diamond sales have helped Israel fill the gap, and are said to provide $1 billion a year to the Israeli military.
My post on My London Diary includes details of some of the Israeli diamond companies and their activities which include the sponsorship of the notorious Givati Brigade of the Israeli army, accused of war crimes in Gaza by the UN Human Rights Council and responsible for the Samouni family massacre.
I photographed the protest outside De Beers, the worlds largest company involved in rough diamond sales and Leviev, whose company is reported by the New York Times to be “the world’s largest cutter and polisher of diamonds” and which is also involved in the construction of illegal Jews-only settlements on the West Bank.
There were speeches about the involvement of the diamond companies in Israeli military attacks on Gaza and many people passing the protest took fliers calling for a boycott of Israeli diamonds and expressed their support. There were also a few who clearly disapproved of the protest, including just one man who stopped briefly to hurl a few insults while I was there.
