TUC ‘March For The Alternative – On 26th March 2011 between a quarter and half a million people marched through London against planned public spending cuts by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government in the largest demonstration since the 2003 protest against the plan to invade Iraq.
The TUC argued that what the country needed was not austerity but policies that would grow the economy, and that we should raise income from those more able to pay rather than by measures that had the greatest impact on the poorest in society.
It was the largest march and rally organised by the trade union movement since the Second World War, and like other major trade union marches was perhaps largely worthy but not exciting – and like others it achieved nothing. The cuts went ahead and we all suffered – except of course the wealthy – who continued to grow richer and richer, helped by government bail-outs and the deliberate failures to tackle tax evasion, stop tax avoidance loopholes and raise taxes on those with excessive wealth.
The cuts particularly hit the public services, including teachers, nurses and other medical professionals – and eventually helped drive these areas into the critical conditions that they are now in. They resulted in financial problems and excessive workloads and also meant that those of us who rely on public provision for health and education often failing to get proper treatment. The gap between those who could afford private services and those who relied on the state provision increased.
Particularly hard hit by the cuts were the disabled and for them the situation continues to worsen with our now Labour government announcing huge cuts which will leave many considerably worse off – and greatly reduce their ability to lead normal lives and contribute to society.
As well as the TUC, other groups contributed to the march, announcing various feeder marches and other activities, many of which added a little life and colour to the day’s events. They also resulted in over 200 arrests and a number of injuries.
Too much was happening on the day for me to rehash it all here, but you can read my seven posts on my London Diary for my account of events. I started with the feeder marches from South London, disowned by the TUC. The ‘Armed Wing of the TUC’ brought its street theatre Trojan Horse, Spitfire, Tank and armed Lollipop Ladies produced by Camberwell art students to Camberwell Green where they marched to Kennington where the South London Feeeder March was gathering for a rally before the march in Kennington Park – the site of the final “monster meeting” of the Chartists on 10th April 1848 from where they marched to Parliament to deliver their final petition.
I left there to take the tube to Trafalgar Square where I found that the main march had started early and was well on its way to Hyde Park and I stayed around there for over an hour as marchers filed past, including photographing the Morris Liberation Front, an idea of Henry Flitton specially for the TUC demonstration, with music, provided by a couple of mandolins playing the Clash’s ‘I fought the Law’ and the Smith’s ‘Panic.
Later in the day Trafalgar Square was the site of bitter fighting as police made a largely unprovoked attack on a partying crowd, but when I was there things were peaceful.
I left the square to follow several hundred anarchists, dressed in black and mainly wearing face masks making their way up past the National Portrait Gallery, many waving red and black flags. I went with them through the back streets to Piccadilly Circus and then up Regent Street where they turned off into Mayfair and were held off by police when they attacked a RBS branch – one of the main banks to receive a huge government handout.
At Oxford Circus they attacked Topshop, then owned by the prominent tax avoider Sir Philip Green. As I went to take photographs of police arresting one of the protesters and holding him on the ground I was “hit full on the chest by a paint-bomb possibly aimed at the police, although many of the protesters also have an irrational fear of photographers. My cameras were still working and I continued to photograph, but I had also become a subject for the other photographers.”
It wasn’t painful, but it was very messy and bright yellow. I scraped and washed the worst off in a nearby public toilet for around 20 minutes, then went out to take more photographs, joining UK Uncut supporters who had come to hold peaceful protests at tax dodging shops and banks around Oxford St and to party at Oxford Circus.
Eventually I followed them down to Piccadilly Circus where 4 hours after the start of the official march people were still filing past. I stopped there and photographed until the end of the march passed, rather than going with UK Uncut into Fortnum and Mason. Inside the story they sat down and occupied the store peacefully. if noisily calling on them to pay their taxes. After an hour or more a senior police officer told them they were free to leave, promising they could make their way home “without obstruction”. 138 were arrested as they left the store, charged with ‘aggravated trespass’. Most of the cases were latter dropped but at least 10 were found guilty, given a six-month conditional discharge and a £1,000 fine.
Even after the official end of the march there were various other groups following the march route – including a group of Libyans with green flags, marching in support of Colonel Gaddaffi. I walked back to Trafalgar Square where there were still plenty of people around but everything was pretty quiet, so I got on the tube to come home and try to wash more of the paint off.
I think it was later when police made a charge to try and clear Trafalgar Square than almost all the arrests on the actual march took place – according to Google “Further clashes were reported later in Trafalgar Square. 201 people were arrested, and 66 were injured, including 31 police officers.” Had the police simply gone away people would have eventually dispersed and there would have been no trouble.
Others also got hit by paintballs
Back home I spent hours trying to scrub out yellow paint, but the rather expensive jacket I was wearing was only ever really fit to wear for gardening. The also expensive jumper underneath still has some small traces of yellow 14 years and many washes later, though I do sometimes still wear it around the house. Until my Nikon D700 came to the end of its life, beyond economic repair, a few years later I would still come across the occasional speck of yellow paint.
Much more about the day and many more pictures in the following posts on My London Diary
Atos Protest & Camden Town: – Monday 24 January 2011
Disability benefits are now under attack by our Labour government, who have insisted they will implement the Tory plans to cut the amount paid in incapacity benefits by £3 billion by 2028. And the House of Lords economic affairs committee a few days ago published a report calling for a fundamental review of the benefits system to tackle the rising social and fiscal costs of disability benefits.
Picket at the Archway Job Centre Plus Atos test centre
Also last week the High Court ruled that the previous government’s consultation on changing incapacity benefits was unlawful as “it presented the changes as a way of supporting disabled people into work but failed to make clear that 424,000 vulnerable claimants would see their benefits cut by £416 a month.”
When the Tory coalition government came into power in 2010 it picked on the disabled who it thought would be an easy target for the cuts it was making to support the bankers. Protests such as this on Monday January 24th 2001 showed how wrong they were, with determined opposition to the unfairness of their cost-cutting reforms from disabled groups including Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and the Black Triangle Campaign.
Protesters meet up in Triton Square
One part of the campaign by successive governments has been to give huge publicity and priority to benefit fraud, which according to the national Audit Office only amounts to 0.6% of the DWP budget and is a “drop in the ocean compared to the losses by tax evasion by the super-rich and the amounts lost by them and major corporations exploiting tax loopholes.“
Police try rather ineffectually to stop protesters heading for the Atos offices
In 2011 a major source of unfairness in the system was the attempts to cut costs by the use of computer-based ability to work assessments carried out for the DWP by European IT company Atos. The interviews were administered by ‘healthcare professionals’, often poorly trained and lacking the qualifications and experience to assess many types of disability, particularly mental illness. Almost 70% of those assessed were moved onto the lower benefit rates of the Job Seekers Allowance with some being refused any benefits at all.
An independent review for the DWP made fundamental criticisms of the assessments, and around 40% of those who appealed the decisions eventually had their benefits restored to previous levels – but only after months of hardship, and often just in time for their next review when their benefits would again be axed. Part of the problem was the pressure applied on the assessors to meet targets in cutting benefits by the company so they could justify their costs to the DWP.
And there were plenty of true horror stories. People assessed fit for work who died within days of the assessments, those who committed suicide and some who starved to death. Benefit cuts really do kill.
Atos went on to gain other contracts from the DWP until September 2024 when the contract for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and work capability assessment (WCA) were given to Serco. The DWP had acknowledged there were flaw in the Atos assessments but few believe that Serco will be any fairer.
Monday January 24th was a a National Day of Protest Against Benefit Cuts, with actions around the country, including protests in Leeds, Birmingham, Burnley, Hastings, Crawley, Chesterfield, Livingston, near Edinburgh (Atos’s Scotland HQ) and Glasgow. I began by photographing a local protest at Archway in North London before going on to a protest outside the London HQ of Atos Origin in Triton Square close to the Euston Road.
On My London Diary back in 2011 I wrote much more about the Atos tests and also about the details of the two protests. The protest in Triton Square was heavily policed but the organisers and those taking part, including Disabled People Against Cuts, WinVisible (Women with Visible and Invisible Disabilities) and London Coalition Against Poverty were intent on this being a peaceful protest.
Police have problems in dealing with disabled protesters. Many want to treat them carefully and their officers certainly realise that images of them being roughly handled would be terrible PR. But they were annoyed that the protesters decided to protest close to the actual Atos offices rather than in a pen they had set up a short distance away. And when one elderly man walked through the spread out police line he was roughly pushed to the ground and dragged away, though later he was allowed to rejoin the other hundred or so protesters.
The police then brought more barriers and erected them around the protesters, telling them they could only exit the fenced area when they were dispersing at the end of the protest. There seemed to be no real justification for this and they seemed simply to be a simply a matter of pique that the protesters had not followed their instructions.
I had plenty of time to get from Archway to Triton Square and got off the bus in Camden Town for a walk and to make use of one of London’s rapidly disappearing public toilets in the middle of the busy road junction there (but I think closed a few years ago.)
I’d photographed around Camden High Street and Chalk Farm Road quite often in the 1990s, often on my way home from taking pictures elsewhere in North London, and walking from Camden Town station to Chalk Farm. Then the lemon sorbets from Marine Ices were the best in London if not the world. But that’s gone too now, and in January 2011 it wasn’t the weather for it.
Back in the 1990s the streets would have been pretty empty except at weekends, but by 2011 there were plenty of tourists wandering around even on a cold Monday in January, though business was fairly slack. But mainly I pointed my camera up to the decorations above the shops
Westhumble & Ranmore Common, Surrey – 30th December 2011
The Pilgrims Way – and lower down the valley the railway from Guildford to Dorking
On Friday we went for another walk on the North Downs in Surrey, in a popular area for walking. In Summer it can get rather crowded with walkers but on a rather dull and damp winter’s day, even though many would have been still away from work over their Christmas break, relatively few were out walking the downs.
Leladene and blue plaque to Fanny Burney
The second picture I made on the walk was this one of Leladene with its blue plaque to Fanny Burney. Leladene, later renamed to Camilla Lacey was for some years the home of Burney (1752 – 1840) who came to live there after her marriage to one of the exiles from the French revolution who had made Mickleham their home, General Alexandre d’Arblay. As well as being one of the most notable authors of her age she was also for four years ‘keeper of the robes’ to Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III.
Norbury Park Saw Mill
In 2010 I wrote a brief description of the walk, although I seem to have missed out a line or so when I copied it to My London Diary so I’ve needed to do a little rewriting to make sense of one part of it. So I’ll rewrite it a little rather than simply copying here.
The weather wasn’t great and days are so short at this time of year, so we decided not to go to far for a walk, and did a roughly ten-mile circuit from Box Hill & Westhumble station.
Roaringhouse Farm
It was dry when we started, with some very muddy paths, though parts of the path were sheltered by the trees as we went along through Druids Grove.
Thatched bridge at Polesden Lacy
Many of the old yews (some perhaps 2000 years old) have now been blown down in gales but there are still quite a few on each side of the path. From there we walked past the Albury Park sawmills and on through Polesden Lacy, passing under it’s thatched bridge.
The Causeway, Polesden Lacy
The steep track down from where we crossed from the North Downs Way to the Pilgrim’s Way a couple of hundred feet lower down the slope was a greasy mud slide, but we picked up some hefty sticks to help us keep upright, and from then on the way was easy going, with just a short uphill scramble to join the North Downs Way to take us back to Westhumble.
Hogden Lane
The light, never good, was fading as we walked above the Denbies vineyard and it was getting dark by the time we reached the station around 4.15pm.
I first got to know this area a little as a boy in the 1950s. I had got my first two-wheeler bike to replace an earlier tricycle on my sixth birthday and by the time I was 9 or 10 was going out for longish rides on a slightly larger replacement, sometimes with one or two friends, but for longer rides mainly on my own.
Denbies vineyard
One of those rides I made quite a few times took me across the River Thames at Hampton Court then on south through the ‘Scilly Isles’ roundabout and on to Leatherhead and the the A24 to Box Hill, around 20 miles each way.
My routes were carefully planned with the help of the “One Ihch” Ordnance Survey map. Generally I looked for the shortest way even when it meant cycling along busy major roads like the A3 though the final stretch along the A24 Mickleham bypass built in 1937-8 to Box Hill was on one of the few roads in the UK with a separate cycle path.
Box Hill and Westhumble station – and a long wait for the train with no seats in the dry on the up platform. It had been a good walk, though the views would have been better in clearer weather.
Pensions, Cuts, Murdoch & Cafe Jiro: Thursday 23rd June 2011 – Trade unionists march against public sector pension cuts, a protest against Murdoch being allowed to take over BSkyB and one of my favourite artists turns a St John’s Wood gallery into his café.
20,000 March for Pensions & Against Cuts
Public Service unions had organised a march against pension cuts and itt was joined by many thousands of union members as well as many others protesting against cuts in public services made by the Tory coalition government.
There was a large crowd waiting when I arrived in Lincoln’s Inn Fields over an hour before the march was due to begin and more were arriving as it left a little early as the organisers and police worried about overcrowding in London’s largest square – around 28,000 square metres.
Sally Hunt, UCU, Mary Bousted ATL, Christine Blower NUT, Mark Serwotka PCS & John McDonnell MP,
Before we left there had been speeches by several union leaders and the march was led to Parliament by Christine Blower NUT, Mark Serwotka PCS and Mary Bousted ATL along with MP John McDonnell.
The Hutton review had clearly shown that the government was lying when it said that public service pensions were not affordable. This report had said it expected “benefit payments to fall gradually to around 1.4 per cent of GDP in 2059-60, after peaking at 1.9 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010-11.”
There seemed to be a huge number of police on the street for a peaceful march, particularly one that was mainly composed of teachers and civil servants with only a token presence from militant students and anarchists.
Police had earlier been busy in Lincoln’s Inn Fields where they appeared to be conducting stop and searches on any young male demonstrators in black clothing.
Things did get just a little agitated when for some reason police decided to stop the march on Strand for around 20 minutes and it got very noisy on Whitehall as it passed Downing St.
I stood outside Westminster Central Hall for around an hour as more and more marchers arrived from the main march I had been on and a number of others from various parts of London. Police and march stewards there objected to Charlie Veitch and other ‘Love Police’ haranguing the crowd in his usual deadpan fashion upholding his right to freedom of expression and they moved away.
Westminster Central Hall is a large venue but far too small for the numbers at the event and there was a large overflow rally in Tothill Street at the side of the church. A group of 20 or 30 black-clad protesters there were told by police they must remove their hoods and dark glasses and there were some arguments. I heard later in the day there were a few scuffles with them and police in Whitehall and they were kettled for a few hours in Trafalgar Square.
Save UK Democracy From Murdoch – Dept Culture, Media & Sport
Outside the Department of Culture, Media and Sport was a protest organised by on-line global campaign network Avaaz and my union the NUJ against the decision by Jeremy Hunt to let Rupert Murdoch to take over BSkyB.
This was an emergency protest organised within minutes of the news breaking early that morning, and the email calling it went out when many were already on their way to work or to attend the pensions protest, so numbers were small.
Obviously some planning had taken place earlier and there was a tall stilt walker with a large but rather inappropriately avuncular head of Rupert Murdoch, surely one of the ugliest figures in world media and pursuing a clear aim of world domination, toying with two large string puppets representing David Cameron and Jeremy Hunt.
But most of the posters were clearly last minute, with laser-printed sheets being glued onto generic NUJ placards. NUJ members were “appalled – like most of the thinking population – by the thought of the UK’s largest commercial broadcaster falling into Murdoch’s hands, and the threat that this poses for in particular for news coverage, but also for a diverse and broadly based media culture. “
“They want the government to act in the public interest rather than as puppets for Murdoch’s interest and don’t want Sky News to become another Fox News.”
Café Jiro 2011 – Queen’s Terrace Café, St John’s Wood
In the evening I was at The Queen’s Terrace Café, which had opened in April 2011. This was no ordinary café, but a cultural café, run by Mireille Galinou, who for some years had run a charity called the London Arts Café, which never quite managed to open a café but did organise a dozen or so exhibitions and numerous other art events in London.
London Arts Café and The Queen’s Terrace Café are no longer with us, but you can still read online about many of the the activities the London Arts Café organised during its existence from 1996-2007. For some of this time I was Treasurer of the organisation and also wrote the web site.
One of the most enjoyable art shows I went to in 2009 was Café Jiro, an installation in the Flowers Gallery in Cork St, London by a friend of mine, the Japanese artist Jiro Osuga who grow up in north London. The 2011 was a smaller and more intimate version of that show, with one of the large wall-size panels from the Flowers show, along with a number of other works specially produced for this space – including three in the smallest room.
The small gallery was packed for the opening – and for me a great opportunity to meet some old friends, and it was good to see Jiro’s work in a real café environment. You can read more about the show on a 2011 post in >Re:PHOTO.
Brighton MayDay Protest & Party – On Saturday 30 April 2011 I had a day out in Brighton, not with my bucket and spade on the beach but photographing an early May Day Protest against the cuts, bankers, tax dodgers and those damaging the environment and the local community.
It was a protest organised deliberately without consultation with the police, essentially a succession of static protests at a number of locations around the city in random order, selected by the throwing of a large dice.
Even the meeting point for the day was a closely kept secret and only revealed as I arrived in Brighton half an hour before the event was due to start, posted on Twitter, Facebook and a mobile number.
I arrived to join around a dozen other photographers and a couple of plain clothes police watching around the same number of protesters, but had passed several police vans and a couple of officers on police horses just a short distance away.
The protesters handed out a map of Brighton marked with 27 possible targets including arms manufacturers EDO MBM/ITT some way out in Moulscomb and Thales, several branches of Barclays, the UK’s largest investor in the arms trade, an armed forces recruitment centre and Marks & Spencer’s who support Israel by buying goods from illegal Israeli settlements. Other shops on the list included notable tax dodgers Vodaphone, Boots and the various Arcadia group brands – Topshop, BHS, Burton, Dorothy Perkins. Accused of damaging the environment were RBS who invest hugely in the area, Shell, particularly for their Rossport pipeline in Ireland, BP for their exploitation of tar sands, E.ON for coal fired power stations and Veolia. Other targets named included Brighton Town Hall, Tescos, Sainsburys and Starbucks, Fox & Sons involved in illegal evictions, Beyond Retro who sell fur and also two properties owned by the notorious Nicholas Van Hoogstraten.
At 12.30, by which time rather more protesters had arrived, a giant dice was thrown and came down on 4 which meant we were heading to Brighton Town Hall and the protesters set off, accompanied by the police and the two horses.
But although the protesters were clearly in carnival mode, the police were not and soon were stopping and harassing them.
They grabbed a few protesters apparently more or less at random and there were some minor scuffles as police kettled the protest in Duke Street for around 40 minutes.
The protesters danced while some tried to negotiate with the police and finally they were allowed to move off to hold a rally outside two banks with speeches about the cuts and handouts to bankers.
The protesters then tried to walk into the Pavillion Gardens, a few managing to do so before police decided to block the gates. There were a few more incidents and a couple of arrests, but after around 20 minutes the officer in charge decided there was really no reason why they should not walk through the gardens – and they did, to the cheers of those sitting on the grass and enjoying a picnic.
Police continued to chase the protesters around Brighton for the next couple of hours, though they seemed to be going around in circles and making occasional sudden changes in direction to leave the police – some of whom were noticeably less fit than the protesters or even the photographers – behind.
Police made at least one more arrest and the protesters eventually returned to the promenade where some sat down on the road. For the first time there was a clear message from the police that they would be kettled unless they got up, and they did, running up the hill again (with another arrest for no clear reason) before returning to party on the beach.
I rather doubt if any of those – at least 8 – arrested on the day ended up being charged, let alone convicted. The police were clearly totally confused by the event, and their response, particularly the use of police horses in some very restricted areas, put both protesters and public at risk. But I think also that the protesters rather failed to convey clearly to the people of Brighton their concerns. Perhaps and more organised series of rallies outside a more selected group of targets would have been more effective.
More detail about the protest and many more pictures on My London Diary at Brighton MayDay Protest.
Climate Justice, Congo & London – On Saturday 3rd December 2011 there was an Xmas shopping event in the City, normally pretty dead at weekends and Occupy were holding climate justice workshops before joining Campaign Against Climate Change’s annual march. That took me past a protest at Downing Street against the vote-rigging in the recent election in the DRC. I’d taken some pictures earlier as I was going around London and took a few more in the dark later on my way to an event in Acton.
City Xmas Celebrations – Bank
A live musical box
There was a special Xmas Saturday shopping event in the centre of the City of London which usually closes down for the weekend, but I think it was aimed more at the wealthy 1% than me.
Santa had come with real reindeer
I wouldn’t normally have gone but it was on my fastest route to St Paul’s Cathedral and it was the first time the City had held such an event. Though unless there were rather more visitors later in the day it would probably be the last. I didn’t feel welcome and didn’t stay long.
Occupy LSX Climate Justice Workshops – St Paul’s Cathedral steps
Occupy London was still camping next to St Paul’s Cathedral, having been there since 15th October, and they were holding workshops when I arrived about various aspects of climate justice and campaigning, and preparing banners and posters for the Climate Justice march later in the day.
They planned to make their way to the start of the march in a ‘Climate Walk of Shame’ around the offices of various climate change villians (‘unsavoury sites of climate criminality’) in the City.
As often with Occupy, the plenary session went on longer than anticipated. Many people wanted to contribute and some at rather greater length than necessary and the walk began rather late.
I’d hoped to be able to go with them, but only went as far as their first stop at one of the banks in St Paul’s Churchyard before I had to leave to make my own more direct way to the start of the march in Blackfriars.
Stand Up For Climate Justice – Blackfriars to Old Palace Yard
Around a thousand people gathered at Blackfriars for the march organised by the Campaign Against Climate Change to a rally opposite the Houses of Parliament.
Climate talks were taking place in the 17th UN conference in Durban, but seemed unlikely to make much progreess as the US were continuing to refuse to accept mandatory limits on carbon emissions. It seemed likely this would prevent any progress on global reductions in emissions, and seemed certain to lead to catastrophic increases in global temperature. Or, as I put it “bluntly, our planet is going to fry.”
While Barbara Boxer the head of the Senate environment committee was pointing out that the US is the world’s largest historic emitter and thus has a moral obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the US right, and the ‘Tea Party’ movement in particular, were still denying the existence of climate change and vehemently opposing any restrictions on the emissions of US industry.
By 2011 there had long been no serious scientific debate about the reality of climate change, though still some controversy about the exact magnitude and the timescales involved. But all informed opinion agreed that urgent action is needed, though the heavily funded fossil fuel lobby was still spreading lies and opposing any action.
Since 2011 things have become even more clear and the effects have become worse than even the more pessimistic scientists then predicted. But still politicians are not taking the urgent actions needed, and limiting the temperature rise to 1.5°C now seems impossible.
Among many speakers was John Stewart of HACAN who pointed out that while the richest 7% who cause 50% of the world’s pollution, aircraft use, one of the major sources of emissions, is limited to an even more limited group of the world’s population, with only 5% of the world’s population ever having flown.
Congolese Protest Against Kabila Vote-Rigging – Downing St
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is both blessed and cursed by its immense mineral resouces, probably the richest of any country in the world, including 80% of the world’s cobalt reserves, and between 65-80% of coltan, the mineral from which tantalum capacitors, vital for mobile phones, games consoles, computers and other electronic devices are made.
Despite this wealth of the DRC, the people remain some of the poorest in the world, and because of these minerals the country is one of the most corrupt in the world. The move towards renewable energy and the increasing need for batteries for electrical vehicles has led to increased geopolitical competition over the DRC’s cobalt resources.
The area has been the subject of various wars and there is still conflict as well as widespread violation of humanitarian and human rights law, including the sexual abuse of women and children.
The Kabila regime has been kept in office by western interests who have now turned a blind eye to the widespread vote-rigging violence and fraud in the elections. The opposition later claimed to have outvoted Kabila with 54% of the vote to his 26%, while Kabila claimed to have won by 49% to 32%.
In 2019, the son of the candidate thee protesters say won the 2011 election became President in the first peaceful transition of power since the DRC became independent but the early years of his presidency were still with governments dominated by supporters of Kabila. In 2021 he was able to form a new government which among other measures has promised to reverse deforestation in the DRC by 2030.
I’d taken a few views of London as I walked with the Climate March.
And in the early evening I went to an event in North Acton, walking to the venue from Willesden Junction. There are just a few more on-line at London Wandering.
Saturday 5th February 2011 US Embassy Rally For Egypt – Grosvenor Square Egyptian Embassy Demonstration – South St Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain at Egyptian Embassy – South St
Tariq Ali speaking at the rally at the US Embassy
Egypt’s history is long and complex, going back to the back to the 6th–4th millennia BCE when it was one of the cradles of Western civilisation. Wikipedia has a lengthy article which even so skims over the many details, and certainly I won’t go into much here.
For many years Egypt was a part of the Ottoman Empire, but after the building of the Suez Canal in 1869 France and Britain played a more important role in its history and in 1882 the UK invaded the country which became occupied and it became a de facto British protectorate, breaking away completely to become a UK protectorate during the First World War after the UK military deposed the ruling Khedive, replacing him with his pro-British brother Hussein Kamel, who declared himself Sultan of Egypt.
Elections at the end of the war led to a majority for the Egyptian nationalist movement, so the British exiled their leaders to Malta in 1919, starting the first modern Egyptian revolution. The UK caved in and granted Egypt independence, though largely nominally as the country remained under British military occupation until 1936 when the UK withdrew its troops except those around the Suez Canal.
During World War Two, Egypt tried to remain neutral despite considerable UK pressure and the presence of large numbers of British troops, who in 1942 surrounded the palace in Cairo and forced King Farouk to change his government.
In 1951, Egypt demanded all remaining British troops who were then around the Suez Canal to leave the country, but the UK refused. British soldiers killed 43 Egyptian police officers in an police station at Ismalia and extensive riots followed. On 22-23 July 1952 military officers launched a coup d’état against King Farouk and took power; in June 1953 they declared Egypt a republic, with Gamal Abdel Nasser becoming Prime Minister, becoming President in 1956.
After Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal that year the UK and France together with Israel launched a disastrous attack – the Suez Crisis. The UK and France were humiliated after they were forced to withdraw by pressure from the UN, USA and Russia. The event is widely seen as marking the end of Great Britain’s role as one of the world’s major powers. Perhaps why we cling on to a hopelessly ineffectual “nuclear deterrent”.
At the Egyptian Embassy
After Nasser’s death in 1970, Anwar Sadat took over as president until 1981, when he was assassinated by an Islamic extremist. Sadat expelled the Soviet advisers and attempted to modernise Egypt, encouraging foreign investment but his policies mainly benefited wealthier Egyptians.
Hosni Mubarak became president in 1981 following a referendum in which he was the only candidate. Under him draconian laws against freedom of expression and association were enacted, and political activities largely outlawed. In 2005 he enacted reforms which allowed for multi-candidate elections of the presidency but with severe restrictions on who could stand – and the candidate who got most votes after Mubarak was imprisoned after the vote.
Human rights organisations in 2006-7 had detailed serious violations, including outine torture, arbitrary detentions and trials before military and state security courts, and naming Egypt as an international centre for torture in the US led ‘War on Terror’. In 2007 the constitution was altered, giving the president dictatorial powers, prohibiting religious political parties and authorising extreme powers of arrest and surveillance by the police, with a new anti-terrorism law.
When the Arab Spring began in Tunisa in December 2010, it was hardly a surprise that it spread to Egypt along with other countries including Libya, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain. It began on 25 January 2011 with massive demonstrations, marches, occupations of public squares, acts of non-violent civil disobedience and strikes, with millions of protesters demanding the resignation of Mubarak.
Tahrir Square became the centre of the revolution, with over 50,000 protesters occupying it on 25 January, and later growing to perhaps 300,000. The revolt continued there for 18 days until finally the military who had held the real power in Egypt at least since 1952 removed Mubarek from office on 11 February 2011.
In London on Saturday 5th February 2011 I photographed three protests related to the Egyptian Revolution. The first was a protest at the US Embassy where speakers from Stop the War, the British Muslim Initiative and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and others castigated the USA for its support of the Mubarak government over the years and called for his immediate departure.
From there I went with the protesters to join others at the Egyptian Embassy in Mayfair, to join the Egyptians who had been protesting there all week.
While I was photographing at the Embassy I heard the noise of another protest a hundred yards or so down the street, where supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir had turned up in force. As usual most were dressed in black, but there was a group of men dressed in orange Guantanamo jump suits and wearing the masks of the corrupt rulers of Arab states.
Their rally was not in support of the current protests in Tahrir Square and elsewhere, but for a different Arab revolution, calling on the Egyptian army to remove Mubarek but in its place not to establish democracy and freedom, but to set up a Caliphate, theocratic rule rather like that in Iran.
You can read more about the London protests in the three links below to My London Diary where there are many more pictures. Sadly although Mubarek was removed, events in Egypt have not led to the increased freedoms the 2011 revolution was demanding. You can read more about the Arab Winter and the Egyptian Crisis that followed in various articles on Wikipedia and elsewhere online.
Here is a long post I wrote on My London Diary in 2011. I have made only minor changes, mainly adding more pictures. Otherwise it is as written.
Portland Place to Trafalgar Square, London. Sunday 21 Aug 2011
Muslim women show their support for Palestine more pictures
Several thousand marched through London calling for freedom for Palestine in the annual Al Quds (Jerusalem) Day march. There were small counter-demonstrations by an Iranian opposition group and the EDL.
Al-Quds is the Arabic name for Jerusalem and Al Quds Day was started by the late Imam Khomeini of Iran as an expression of solidarity with the Palestinian people and of opposition to the Israeli control of Jerusalem, as well as more widely “a day for the oppressed to rise and stand up against the arrogant.” It is on the last Friday of Ramadan which this year is 26 Aug, but the march in London took place on the Sunday before this. Most of those taking part were Muslim and were observing the Ramadan fast.
The march is organised by the Islamic Human Rights Commission, an organisation that receives funding from the Iranian government. Despite this and the appalling human rights record of the Iranian Government the IHRC does carry out much worthwhile research and campaigning, including whole-hearted support of the Palestinian cause.
The proclamation of Al Quds day and its annual celebration have helped to revitalise worldwide interest in freedom for Palestine, and the even is supported by a number of mainstream UK campaigning organisations including the Stop the War Coalition and Ireland and Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaigns, as well as major Muslim groups including the Muslim Association of Britain and Muslim Council of Britain. Also backing it, and present on the march were several Jewish groups including Jews Against Zionism, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods and Neturei Karta UK as well as other groups supporting Palestine.
The marchers, many of whom had come in coaches from around the country, gathered on Portland Place from a little before 2pm, and many said prayers on the pavement before the march formed up.
Protesters opposite the Al Quds Day march with Free Iran flag and placards condeming Khamenei
Shortly after this, a small group of protesters against the Iranian regime began a protest against them immediately opposite on the other side of the road. As I walked across the road towards them a police officer stopped me and gave me a warning that some of them or their families might face prosecution if their photographs appeared in the press, and because of this I might not be welcome. I thanked him for the advice and continued across and it was clear that the protesters actually welcomed the attention of myself and the other press photographers present.
The two groups remained in position, chanting slogans at each other for the next hour or so, while the very much larger group on the Al Quds march waited for marchers whose coaches had been held up in traffic. Although many of the marchers carried placards with the message ‘We are all Hizbullah’ and there were chants of this along with ‘We are all Palestinians’, and their were graphic images of victims of Israeli attacks on Palestinians, the main emphasis was on the need to boycott Israel and companies that support Israel, among those mentioned being Marks and Spencer, Starbucks and Coca-Cola.
A huge cheer went up when the Neturei Karta ultra-orthodox Jews arrived, having walked from Stamford Hill. They carried placards which repeated their opposition to Zionism and support for the Palestinians, and when the march started they were more or less at the front, accompanied by several Muslim clerics. The marchers made clear that they were not anti-Jewish and welcomed the support of these and other Jewish groups present opposed to Zionism and the illegal actions of the Israeli forces.
It was an impressive march, with almost all of those taking part carrying banners, placards or small Palestinian flags. There were also several very large Palestinian flags, including a very long one carried horizontally.
The route went down Regent Street and through Piccadilly Circus to Haymarket and then on to Trafalgar Square. Several EDL supporters watched it as it came to the bottom of Haymarket and police questioned two of them briefly. As the march turned into the top of Trafalgar Square four more came to see it and I saw police briefly question two women, one of whom had stood raising a finger to the front of it. Apparently two others were also questioned briefly.
The police had provided a small pen for the EDL on the south side of Pall Mall at the mouth of Spring Gardens, where they were almost invisible to the marchers who were turning into Trafalgar Square. It seemed to them – and I could only agree – to have been an unacceptably distant location.
A few of the EDL were standing closer, quietly watching the march and one was taking photographs. The police appeared not to recognise them. Later a number of them walked into Trafalgar Square and walked quietly around, but other photographers reported a small incident where one man who police had previously asked to leave the area returned and was apparently arrested.
A few minutes later a small group of EDL appeared with an EDL flag on the North Terrace balcony. They were soon surrounded by police who escorted them back down to the pen amid their complaints that British people should be allowed to demonstrate on the British soil of Trafalgar Square and show their English flag there. In all there seemed to be around twenty EDL supporters present.
Short speeches from several of those present stated that they were opposed to the Al Quds march because it supported Hizbullah, an illegal terrorist organisation, and restated their position that they were non-racist and not opposed to Muslims in general only to Muslim extremists. They insist that they are standing up for England and our English freedoms and have no problems with other people living here as long as they respect our way of life. There were a few moments when individuals started some of the chants which others object to, including ‘Muslim bombers off our streets’, but while I was there others present quickly told them to “shut it.”
The group continued to protest noisily but were too far away to be heard by the several thousand at the rally in Trafalgar Square. more pictures
All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.
The UK’s National Health Service began on 5 July 1948, 73 years ago today. Earlier in 1946 doctors had voted 10:1 against, but compromises were made to bring more of them on side. It had taken the Labour government a fierce battle to get the proposals through parliament, with the Conservative Party under Winston Churchill voting against its formation 21 times when the bill was being passed.
Churchill followed the example of a former chair of the British Medical Association and compared its formation to Nazism, calling it the “first step to turn Britain into a National Socialist economy.”
It was their often unprincipled opposition that lead Aneurin Bevan to make a famous speech two days before the NHS began that included the following: “That is why no amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party that inflicted those bitter experiences on me. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.”
In recent years various Tory MPs have claimed that the Conservative Party should be credited for setting up the NHS, when in fact the party fought tooth and nail against it. They also claim that the NHS is ‘safe in their hands’ while increasingly selling off parts of it, largely to US based healthcare companies. Many MPs have financial interests in healthcare and their votes reflect this, in what seems a clear conflict of interest.
One of the compromises needed to get the bill through was that GP surgeries would remain private businesses that could be bought and sold. Doctors in general practice were to remain independent, with the NHS giving them contracts to provide healthcare. What is now happening is that GP surgeries are increasingly becoming owned by large healthcare companies who organise how they are run and employ doctors.
At the moment we still get to see the doctor for free, though it has become more and more difficult for many to do so, in part because of the systems set up by these healthcare companies. But we have now and then heard proposals for charges to be introduced. We do currently have to pay to see a dentist, and even with these charges it has become difficult for many to get dental treatment under the NHS. Many cannot afford the higher charges for private treatment and even the lower rates under the NHS are a huge problem for those on low pay who are not entitled to exemptions.
This year there were protests around the country last Saturday, a few days before the NHS’s 73rd anniversary. Ten years ago around a thousand people marched through central London on the actual 63rd anniversary of the foundation of the NHS in a protest to defend the NHS against cuts and privatisation, ending with a rally outside the Houses of Parliament. The changes then being debated under Andrew Lansley’s bill made radical changes which brought in private companies to take over the straightforward and highly profitable areas of NHS services. Now a new bill is under consideration which will make for further back door privatisation of the NHS.
All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.
On Saturday 29th January 2011 several hundred people, “many of them Egyptians living in the UK from differing political & ideological backgrounds held a peaceful but noisy protest“
“to show our solidarity & support of our fellow Egyptians in our beloved country, who decided on making Tuesday 25/01/2011 a day of protests & demonstrations in Egypt against the unfair, tyrant, oppressive & corrupt Egyptian regime that has been ruling our country for decades.”
The ‘Arab Spring’ of protests had begun in Tunisia after street-trade Mohamed Bouazizi’s set himself on fire and died on 17 December 2010 leading to protests and the overthowing of the government on 14 January 2011. In January there were protests in Oman, Yemen, Syria, Morocco and in Egypt, where on 25 January thousands flocked to Tahrir Square in Cairo to demand the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak.
Hopes were then running high that the peaceful protests which had been met with suppression and brutality by the regime would succeed in achieving their “justified goal of a democratic, free & civil nation capable of ensuring a dignified, honourable & non-discriminatory life for all Egyptians.” But now we know that despite their early success things have not turned out well in the longer term.
A second group came to join the protest outside the Egyptian Embassy, but Hizb Ut-Tahrir Britain who were calling in on their way to protest outside the Hilton Hotel in Park Lane against “two years Fascist Rule” by the Hasina Government in Bangladesh were told very firmly that the embassy protest – like the Egyptian revolution – was to be entirely non-sectarian and that they were not welcome, and had to protest a hundred yards or so down the street. Theirs, unlike that at the embassy, was a strictly segegrated protest, with the women kept at a distance and few even holding flags.
Hizb Ut-Tahrir is an Islamist group calling for the establishment of a Muslim caliphate, and in 2012, the Freedom and Justice Party, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood which shares similar aims won elections to become the largest group in the Egyptian parliament and their candidate Mohammed Morsi was elected as president. The following year there were protests against Morsi who after widepread unrest was deposed by a military coup in July 2013, led by General Abdul Fatah al-Sisi who became president. He remains in charge of an authoritarian miltary regime using “imprisonment, torture, extrajudicial killings, home demolitions, forced disappearances and sexual violence against its critics” and running rigged elections.
A rather larger protest was taking place further east in London with thousands of students, teachers, parents and others marching peacefully in the latest demonstration to defend education and the public sector. The demonstration, backed by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts was one of two national marches today, with another taking place in Manchester.
The protest was carefully policed following some incidents, particularly at the Conservative HQ on Millbank at a previous march in November 2010, but the police appeared for once to be trying to avoid provocation, and their were few incidents on the actual march, though I think later a smaller group of protesters went on to protest on Oxford St where there were some clashes with police and most of the fairly small number of arrests were made.
As always with such a large protest with around 5-10,000 people stretched out over half a mile or more of streets, its hard to know when and where any incidents are likely to occur, though some are more predictable. Obviously there were going to be some fireworks at Downing St – and in particular on this event the lighting of quite a few smoke flares, so I was there when this took place.
But I’ve also always wanted to document events as a whole, rather than concentrate on the more photogenic and controversial aspects. So I often – if not usually – find myself for much of the time away from most of the other photographers covering protests for the press, though still trying to cover the key aspects.
In November I’d missed much of the action outside the Tory HQ, arriving rather late on, but this time I’d anticipated correctly that the police would be making sure that it was very well protected against any possible trouble. As in November I spent quite a lot of time photographing protesters as they went through Parliament Square, and by the time the last of them arrived at the end of the march at Tate Britain the rally there had ended. It was a convenient location for me, just a short walk across Vauxhall Bridge to catch my train home.
All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.
