2013 | >Re-PHOTO

Custody Deaths, Gurkhas & John Lewis – 2013

Custody Deaths, Gurkhas & John Lewis: On Saturday 26th October I went to the annual procession to Downing Street by the United Families and Friends Campaign in memory of all those who have died in the custody of police or prison officers, in immigration detention or psychiatric hospitals. Sitting opposite Downing Street were Gurkhas on hunger strike demanding justice. I rushed away to join the IWGB protesting inside John Lewis’s flagship store in Oxford St demanding that the workers that clean John Lewis stores be paid a living wage and share in the benefits and profits enjoyed by other workers in the stores.

United Families & Friends Remember the Killed

Whitehall

Custody Deaths, Gurkhas & John Lewis - 2013

Many from the families of people who have died in police custody, prisons, immigration detention or psychiatric hospitals had gathered in Trafalgar Square along with supporters for the annual procession calling for justice.

Although there have been several thousand who have died in the last twenty or thirty years, some clearly killed by police and others in highly suspicious circumstances, inquests and other investigations have failed to provide any justice. Instead there has been a long history of lies, failures to properly investigate, cover-ups, and perjury.

On My London Diary I quoted the description by the UFFC:

The United Families and Friends Campaign (UFFC) is a coalition of families and friends of those that have died in the custody of police and prison officers as well as those who are killed in immigration detention and secure psychiatric hospitals. It includes the families of Roger Sylvester, Leon Patterson, Rocky Bennett, Alton Manning, Christopher Alder, Brian Douglas, Joy Gardner, Aseta Simms, Ricky Bishop, Paul Jemmott, Harry Stanley, Glenn Howard, Mikey Powell, Jason McPherson, Lloyd Butler, Azelle Rodney, Sean Rigg, Habib Ullah, Olaseni Lewis, David Emmanuel (aka Smiley Culture), Kingsley Burrell, Demetre Fraser, Mark Duggan and Anthony Grainger to name but a few. Together we have built a network for collective action to end deaths in custody.

Among those holding the main banner as the march went at a funereal pace down Whitehall were Stephanie Lightfoot-Bennet, twin sister of Leon Patterson, murdered by Manchester police in 1992, Marcia Rigg, one of the sisters of Sean Rigg, killed by police in Brixton in 2008 and Carole Duggan, the aunt of Mark Duggan whose shooting by police sparked riots in August 2011.

At the rally opposite Downing Street many family members spoke in turn in a shameful exposition of injustice perpetrated by police, prison officers and mental health workers. You can read more and see most of them in the captions and pictures on My London Dairy at United Families & Friends Remember Killed.

Gurkhas Hunger Strike for Justice

Downing St

Gurkhas were sitting opposite Downing Stree on a serial hunger strike after failing to receive any action from Prime Minister David Cameron to their petition calling for fair treatment for elderly Gurkha veterans who are living in extreme poverty.

On 24th October 2013 they had begun a programme of nonviolent resistance (Satyagraha) with hunger strikes, at first with a “13 days relay hunger strike in the name of the 13 Ghurka VCs followed by a fast-unto-death.“

Gurkhas Hunger Strike for Justice

Cleaners Invade John Lewis Oxford Street

I met the cleaners and their supporters in the café on the top floor of John Lewis’s flagship store on Oxford Street for a protest by their union, the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB.)

*Organiser Alberto Durango and IWGB Secretary Chris Ford lead the protesters*

All the other people who work for John Lewis in their stores are directly employed by the John Lewis Partnership (JLP) and are ‘partners’ in the business with good conditions of service and decent pay, including an annual share in the company’s profits, which can amount to as much as an extra two months pay.

But JLP outsources the cleaning of its stores to a sub-contractor, who were paying them ‘poverty wages’, only around 80% of the London Living Wage, and employ them under far worse conditions of sickness, holidays and pensions than JLP staff.

By hiving off the cleaners to another company, JLP can still claim it is a ‘different sort of company’ with a strong ethical basis, but leave its cleaners – a vital part of its workforce – in poverty with minimal conditions of service.

*They stop and let everyone know why they were protesting. The security staff watch but don’t interfere*

In 2013, the cleaning contractor was a part of the Compass Group which had recently declared pre-tax profits for the year of £575 million. And JLP had made £50 million profit from its department stores. Despite their huge profits both were happy to shaft the cleaners.

*A short rally inside the main entrance to the store*

The cleaners were demanding to become employed by JLP, the owners of their workplace, and also to be paid the London Living Wage. JLP told them that this was not appropriate.

*Raph Ashley, a JLP ‘partner’ sacked for supported the cleaners*

Among those taking part in the protest were members of the RMT and PCS trade unions and former John Lewis ‘partner’ Raph Ashley, who like many other partners had supported the cleaners’ claim. He was sacked after he gave a newspaper interview raising concerns about the ethnic diversity at John Lewis and was told that ‘partners’ discussing pay and urging them to join a trade union was a disciplinary offence. The protest also demanded justice for Raph.

*A manager asks the protesters to leave – and they slowly went out*

In the café the protesters got out banners, flags, flyers, drums, horns, whistles and a megaphone and walked noisily around the fifth floor before going down the escalator. At each floor they had to walk around to reach the down escalator, and stopped on the way to explain to the shoppers why they were protesting. Many customers took their leaflets and expressed their support for the cleaners, with some applauding the protest.

They continued down to the basement and then came back up to the ground floor where they held a short rally just inside the main entrance with short speeches from RMT Assistant General Secretary Steve Hedley, IWGB Secretary Chris Ford and Chris Baugh, Assistant General Secretary of PCS.

*The protest continues on Oxford Street in front of the store*

By then the police had arrived and they told the JLP managers to o ask the protesters to leave the store, and they did so, continuing their protest on the crowded street outside for another half hour.

More about the protest and many more pictures on My London Diary at Cleaners Invade John Lewis Oxford Street.

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Teachers March against Government Plans – 2013

Westminster

Teachers March against Government Plans: Teachers found Education Minister Michael Gove’s plans for education hard to believe and impossible to swallow and came out in force in a march to a rally in Westminster to protect education on Thursday 17th October 2013. The march brought traffic in Central London to a halt for some hours and was almost a mile long as it moved from Malet Street to Marsham Street past the Education Ministry in Great Smith Street.

Gove wanted to totally deregulate teachers’ pay and conditions, which would allow all schools to set their own pay levels, working hours and holiday dates. Getting rid of the national agreements would lead to chaos and at school level, waste much time and effort in bureaucracy. Even schools which are ‘academies’ and are not required to follow the statutory guidelines have mostly chosen to do so, and the guidlines still apply to those staff working in academies who are subject to TUPE protections.

National pay negotiations lead are fairer and prevent much pointless competition between schools to attract the best teachers and avoid contention between management and staff.

Both the NUT and the NASUWT unions supported a day of strike and this rally and march by striking teachers from London and the South and some London boroughs reported over 40% of schools completely closed, with less than 10% able to work normally.

I taught full-time in education for thirty years, almost ten years in a large comprehensive and later in a sixth form and community college before taking early retirement to concentrate on being a photographer and writing about photography rather than teaching it (and other subjects.) Few outside the profession realise how stressful it can be – or the long hours involved. Most only think of the long holidays and the early end of most school days.

The teachers wanted Gove to carry out the long overdue valuation of the Teachers’ Pension scheme and to withdraw the threat to make teachers work until they are 68, and his proposals for Performance Related Pay.

I met the front of the march as it came down Whitehall and past Downing Street where it got very noisy with teachers shouting, with many were clearly very angry with the government’s proposals which they feel wreck our education system.

I kept at the front of the march to photograph it in Parliament Square where it passed Big Ben at noon before going on to the Department for Education, there were far too many on the march to get inside the hall for the rally and those not in the front section stopped here to make their vews clear.

They condemned Gove for not listening to teachers or educationalists and ignoring any opinion or research that doesn’t support his own views – or gets in the way of his plans to monetise and privatise our state education system.

But although the marchers were united and noisy in their opposition to Gove, angry and disgusted with his intentions, it remained an peaceful protest. Many of them had come withy their children – whose schools were shut for the day.

I had other things to do and had to walk to my next destination, as the bus services were completely disrupted with many roads jammed with traffic. At Aldwych I did get on a bus, but got off it five minutes later as it had only moved a few feet. An hour later when I was on my way home traffic on Kingsway was still moving at less than walking speed in both directions.

More on My London Diary at Teachers March against Government Plans.

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A Scottish Protest – SDL and UAF in Edinburgh 2013

A Scottish Protest: On Saturday 17th August I photographed anti-fascists in Edinburgh protesting a march by the Scottish EDL in Edinburgh, the only time I have ever photographed a protest in Scotland.

I was in the city for the Edinburgh Festival, which I was also attending for the first and only time, having been invited to share a flat for the week with others. We did have a good time and went to quite a few performances and events but should I ever visit the city again I’d prefer to do so when things there were more normal – as I did back in 2003.

I found photographing the protest at times more stressful than usual. Partly because of the slightly different policing and the fact that I knew none of the protesters or the other photographers covering the event, (though I did recognise a few in the Scottish Defence Leagure protest from EDL protests in London) but also because I was using different equipment, working just with the Fuji X-E1 which was then my ‘travel’ camera rather than the brace of Nikons of my professional kit.

Not that the X-E1 wasn’t a good camera – and I’ve now been working for some years with other Fuji cameras to cut down the weight of my camera bag on my ageing shoulder. The Fuji lenses are fine but I still miss the directness of an optical viewfinder and the relative simplicity of the Nikon interface.

And the Nikon reliability. Often with various Fuji cameras I find it hard to get the cameras to behave as I want them too. Last Saturday checking my kit before I left home I could find no way to persuade my Fuji X-E3 to let me work in RAW rather than jpeg mode, eventually abandoning it for an older Fuji body. I did all the things that should have allowed it, but I suspect I will have to go to a full factory reset and then restore my favourite settings.

With the X-E1 I found the autofocus noticeably slower than with my Nikons and I did miss some pictures, but the results on those I did take were fine. Fuji glass really is good and the XF 18-55 is possibly the best ‘kit’ lens ever, though I did at times miss not having something wider than its 27mm equivalent and something longer then its 82mm equivalent.

I left the protest while it was still taking place and made my way to meet my wife and go to the postgrad show at the Edinburgh College of Art and then on to the ‘Attack of the 50 Foot German Comedian’, both something of a disappontment, before a restaurant meal with the others from the flat to celebrate the end of a week together. The next morning we were up early to catch the 10.30 train back to London.

You can read more about our week at the festival on My London Diary, with more from the protest at SDL and UAF in Edinburgh.

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Frack Off, Animal Exports & Hands Off Queers! – 2013

Frack Off, Animal Exports & Hands Off Queers! On Saturday 10th August 2013 I went to Trafalgar Square for a small anti-fracking protest, took a few more pictures there and met a march from Covent Garden against live animal exports which ended with photographs on the Trafalgar Square steps. Then I made a short walk down Whitehall to photograph a protest against the homophobic policies of President Putin.

Frack Off – Trafalgar Square

Frack Off, Animal Exports & Hands Off Queers! - 2013

Protests were continuing at Balcombe, a small village in West Sussex, against test drilling and possible fracking for oil there by Cuadrilla, and a small group had come to Trafalgar Square to support their protests.

I took a few pictures and then wandered around the square a bit and missed them when they left to protest at Downing Street. Although a fracking ban later ended Cuadrilla’s attempts, Balcombe is still under threat from drilling for oil by another company, and legal battles continue.

Frack Off

Also in Trafalgar Square

I took a few pictures as I walked around Trafalgar Square, some including the blue cockerel then standing on the fourth plinth. It was hard to imagine why “Hahn/Cock” by German artist Katharina Fritsch had been selected other than to provide material for jokes, including many about us not needing another massive cock in London as we already had our then Mayor.

Trafalgar Square seems now more often to be used for religious events than political protest, and one of these was just starting, with a white-clad gosspel choir. But as I commented, “Nice hats, but some seem to have taken singing lessons from Florence Foster Jenkins” and I hope they got better after they had warmed up.

Also in Trafalgar Square

Against Live Animal Exports

I was hanging around in Trafalgar Square waiting for a march by Compassion in World Farming against the live export of farm animals. I knew it was starting from Covent Garden but stupidly I hadn’t bothered to find out its route so I could meet it on the way.

Live exports take place under the 1847 UK Harbours, Docks and Piers Clauses Act 1847 which prevents public ports in Britain from refusing to export live animals as a part of the “free trade” in goods.

But EU law has recognised animals as sentient beings rather than “goods” since 1999, and different rules and regulations should apply to them.

In 2012, over 47,000 young sheep and calves were crowded into lorries for long journeys from as far afield as Wales and Lincolnshire across the channel to France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. The journeys inflict great suffering on the animals concerned with animals having no access to water and with temperatures inside the are often 30 degrees or more, and they are sometimes confined for 80 hours or more.

In 2012, 45 sheep died in a lorry at Ramsgate that had previously been declared several times unfit for use.

The marchers defied attempts by the Heritage Wardens to stop them posing on the wide steps in Trafalgar Square for photographs at the end of the march.

Many more pictures at Against Live Animal Exports.

Putin, ‘Hands Off Queers!’ – Downing St

Protesters had come to protest opposite Downing Street against Russian president Putin’s homophobic policies.

They called on the UK government to urge Russia to respect gay rights and for an end to the torture of gay teens in Russia.

*Peter Tatchell with his poster ‘Vladimir Putin Czar of homophobia’*

The protesters called for a boycott of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, the release of Pussy Riot and for freedom of speech in Russia.

*Street theatre called for the release of Pussy Riot*

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Putin, ‘Hands Off Queers!’

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NHS at 65, Lewisham & the DLR – 2013

NHS at 65, Lewisham & the DLR: Friday 5th July 2013 was the 65th anniversary of the founding of our National Health Service and I photographed three events connected with this, two in Westminster and one opposite Lewisham Hospital where campaigners were fighting to keep services. And on the way back from Lewisham I took some pictures though the window of the DLR train, mainly as we went past Deptford Creek.

The National Health Action Party was a publicity stunt and single issue parties such as this are never likely to make much widespread impact on British politics. But given the strength of the recent Labour rebellion over Starmer’s attack on the disabled I wonder if a new left of centre political party might result in a radical change in our political system, with possibly a significant number of Labour MPs deserting the sinking ship in favour of a party which represents traditional Labour values. We could then have two different parties fighting out the next election.

NHS 65: GMB – Westminster

The GMB trade union came with three vintage ambulances to protest outside Parliament where trade unionists in vintage ambulance uniforms posed with MPs including Dennis Skinner and Sadiq Khan warning that the NHS is at risk.

I’m afraid I’ve forgotten who the other MPs were, but you can see a couple more in the pictures on My London Diary I took as the photographer for the GMB posed and photographed them. I have a personal antipathy to posing people, though I might occasionally deliberately attract their attention and even very occasionally ask them to keep still or look at me. But generally I see my role as recording what is happening rather than directing it. And here what was happening was that people were being photographed.

Later I went with them (and the ambulances) as they took 65th Birthday cards for the NHS, with the message inside “Do Not Pension Off Our NHS’ to the Ministry of Health, then still in Richmond House on Whitehall.

More at NHS 65: GMB.

NHS 65: Lewisham Hospital

In the memorial garden opposite the Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign were holding a lunchtime party to celebrate the 65th Birthday of the NHS, and as a part of their campaign to keep this busy, successful and much needed hospital open.

The plans for its closure were not related to the hospital’s performance in any way but because the health authority needed to make drastic cuts to meet the disastrous PFI debts of a neighbouring hospital.

There had been a massive community campaign to save vital NHS services at the hospital, backed by “Patients, NHS staff, Lewisham Council, MPs, schools, pensioners, families, businesses, faith groups, charities, unions, students and health campaigners” – the whole community including the Millwall Football Club.

Later at the end of July 2013 the High Court ruled in favour of the Judicial Reviews by the Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign and Lewisham Council and quashed the Government’s closure plans. And ten years later in July 2023 on the 75th anniversary of the founding of the NHS a newly engraved community bench was unveiled to celebrate the victory. I’m sorry I wasn’t present to record that occasion.

More at NHS 65: Lewisham Hospital.

DLR Views – Deptford-Canary Wharf

I decided to travel back from Lewisham into central London by taking the DLR to Canary Wharf where I could change to the Jubilee Line because I could try to take some pictures from the train, particularly on the section where the viaduct goes alongside and over Deptford Creek.

There are many problems in taking pictures from trains. Finding a reasonably clean window is the first, and avoiding reflections another. It was easier back in the 1970s when there were windows you could pull down and lean out! And now apparently AI can remove reflections, though I’ve yet to try it.

DLR Views

NHS 65: Rally & Camarathon – Westminster

On the 65th Birthday of the NHS, Dr Clive Peedell began a 65 mile ultramarathon to David Cameron’s Witney constituency to bury the NHS coffin and launch the National Health Action Party plan by doctors and health professionals to revive the NHS.

Dr Clive Peedell posed in a Cameron mask with the coffin and wreath and had come with a small group of supporters, including one wearing a mask of his coalition partner Nick Clegg. Campaigners accuse both of deliberately running down our NHS, with more and more NHS services being delivered by private healthcare companies.

After posing in front of the Ministry of Health, the campaigners crossed Whitehall to stand in front of the gates of Downing St before processing behind the coffin to Parliament for more pictures, ending with some street theatre involving severed hands and speeches by several distnguished health professions including the Chair of the Royal College of GPs in Old Palace Yard.

I left before Dr Peedell and two others set off on his long run – though I’m sure others would be carrying the wreath and coffin. The event had clearly been set up to attract the media, but received little publicity.

On My London Diary you can read a long statement by Dr Peedell about how the “2012 Health and Social Care Act, will result in the NHS being increasingly dismantled and privatised” with the Labour Party whose “previous pro-market, pro-privatisation reforms, actually set the platform for the current changes” had failed to sufficiently oppose. Health professionals had “formed the National Health Action Party to raise awareness and inform the public about what is happening to their NHS” and had today “set out our own 10 point plan to reinstate, protect and improve the NHS“.

Much more on My London Diary at NHS 65: Rally & Camarathon.

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Turkish Spring, Badgers & BNP – 2013

Turkish Spring, Badgers & BNP: My day was particularly full on Saturday 1st June 2013 as I attended a memorial service for a close friend held at Southwark Cathedral in the early afternoon as well as as the protests in this post.

London Supports Turkish Spring – Marble Arch

Turkish Spring, Badgers & BNP - 2013 — *Supporters of Turkish football team Garsi support the Gezi protests*

I began at 11am at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park, next to Marble Arch, where Turks were massing to march to the Turkish Embassy in Belgrave Square in solidarity with the ‘Turkish Spring’ protests against the Erdogan regime in Istanbul’s Gezi Park and across Turkey.

It was a high-octane event with a great deal of high-spirited chanting and more and more people were arriving for the march.

I had to leave as the event was getting underway, with most of the protesters sitting on the ground to listen to speeches. Later I heard that around 4,000 had marched to protest at the embassy,

More about the protest and more pictures on My London Diary at London Supports Turkish Spring.

Cull Politicians, Not Badgers – Westminster

This was the day on which it became legal to cull badgers in two pilot areas and over a thousand, many dressed in black and white and with badger masks or face paint met at Tate Britain on Millbank for a rally and march to Parliament against the cull.

Campaigners argue that the cull is not supported by most scientific evidence and that it will result in many badgers suffering cruel lingering deaths after being wounded by largely untrained marksmen.

*Among the speakers was Queen Guitarist Brian May, a leading campaigner for badgers*

I had to leave before they marched to go to Southwark Cathedral for the memorial service, but when I returned after attending this I met some of protesters who were still in Parliament Square, where they danced on the road in front of Parliament until they were cleared by police.

More about the cull and the protest – and many more pictures at Cull Politicians, Not Badgers.

BNP Stopped From Exploiting Woolwich Killing – Old Palace Yard

*Nick Griffin answers questions from the press under a placard ‘Hate Preachers Out’ and fails to appreciate the irony*

Fortunately police had stopped the BNP from holding a mass protest in Woolwich capitalising on the killing there of soldier Lee Rigby and had also banned their proposed march from Woolwich to Lewisham on grounds of public safety. Both would have been inflammatory and Lee Rigby’s father had also made clear that he and his family did not want his son’s death to be used to stir up hatred against Muslims.

Instead Nick Griffin and a small group of BNP supporters had come to Old Palace Yard intending to march from there to the Cenotaph to lay wreaths in Rigby’s memory, but their gesture to exploit the killing was opposed by a thousands of anti-fascists. It was a confrontation that stirred up memories from the anti-fascist mobilisation at Cable Street against Oswald Mosley’s blackshirts, and as on that occasion the police attempted to force a way through for the fascists, arresting large numbers of protesters, but eventually the BNP had to abandon the attempt to march.

*Across the heads of police they could see the counter-protest – and could clearly hear the chanting*

There were only a small group of supporters with Griffin, who blamed the low attendance on police turning back his supporters and making Westminster a “a virtual exclusion zone”. But I’d walked there with no problems from Westminster Station; there were large numbers of police and parked police vans as well as thousands of protesters, but I was not challenged or stopped.

Griffin and his group waited for around for several hours while police attempted to clear the route for him, arresting and driving away two double-deck buses full of protesters, but there were still enough to block the route. Eventually they walked in the opposite direction to their coaches.

BNP Exploiting Woolwich Killing Stopped

Anti-Fascists Stop BNP Wreath Laying – Parliament Square,

*Anonymous were there along with Antifa, trade unionists and the UAF to oppose the BNP hate*

I walked back from Old Palace Yard where Nick Griffin was being photographed and questioned by the press the short distance to Parliament Square where I saw a steady stream of protesters being arrested and taken onto two double-deck buses.

I photographed a number of those arrested, mainly walking calmly with police who were rather more violent with some others, and saw them threatening legal observers, then walked through the lines of police to the protesters who were still blocking the route. I imagine few of those arrested were charged with any offence, but probably detained for a dozen or more hours before being released – probably in the middle of the night. It’s a short period of arbitrary punishment that avoids the police having to do much paperwork.

There were some in wheelchairs who had come to block the fascists – and some were at the front of the protest.

Others were in ‘Anonymous’ masks.

Many linked arms to make it harder for police snatch squads to grab individuals

And there were some of the ‘badgers’ who had stayed on for this protest too.

The stand-off between protesters and police continued – and it was clear that it would not be possible for the police to clear the route without a clearly excessive use of force – and that they were not going to drift away as police had hoped.

There was much celebration When they heard that the BNP had abandoned their march and left the area, and the protesters marched up Parliament St to the Cenotaph, where there was a short speech and people began to leave.

Many marched up to Trafalgar Square but I went back the other way on my way home.

More on My London Diary at Anti-Fascists Stop BNP Wreath Laying.

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Edinburgh And the Festival – 2013

Edinburgh And the Festival: We came by train to Edinburgh and the following day, Monday 12th August 2013 was the first of a full week we spent in the city and the first week of that year’s Edinburgh Festival.

Ten years before this we had spent an enjoyable week in the city, three of my family staying in a very comfortable flat close to Haymarket station, and had spent a very full week exploring the city and some of the surrounding area – including Leith and walking a little of the Fife coastal path. That year we left just as the festival was about to start.

2013 was very different. Linda and I were invited to join a group of friends to stay in a large flat in Bruntsfield a short walk from the city centre who were there for the Edinburgh Festival, and although we didn’t have a great interest in many of the festival events had found a number which seemed worth attending over the week.

Between these and our share of the housekeeping for the dozen or so of us – including taking our turn at preparing an evening meal for the group – we managed to fit in quite a few other things during the week, including another climb up Arthur’s Seat, and I even managed to do a little work, covering a protest by the Scottish Defence League and a counter-protest by Unite Against Fascism on the Saturday.

But unlike on our previous visit we stayed inside the city, and spent most of the time in the central area where most of the festival takes place around the Royal Mile.

A few of the events were very much to my taste – such as a guided tour around the elegant Georgian New Town, which took us to a few places I’d not been before, and the City of the Dead tour turned out to be rather more interesting than we had anticipated.

And there were some interesting poetry and threatre performances as well as several talks. We also bumped briefly into a few old friends at some of them or on the streets, though usually then we were going different ways to other events.

On My London Diary you can read more about our packed week. It was tiring but largely enjoyable, but we left feeling going there once was probably enough and we’ve not gone back. We might return to Edinburgh but not to the festival.

There are also pictures from the other days – all of those here are from Monday 12th August 2013. I had travelled light and they were all taken with a fairly compact Fuji X-E1 using either a 35mm standard lens of the XF18-55mmF2.8-4, equivalent to 27-83mm on full-frame.

Edinburgh & the Festival
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday

SDL and UAF in Edinburgh

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Cable Car, Victoria Dock, Olympic Site & Torture 2013

Cable Car, Victoria Dock, Olympic Site & Torture: I was coming to London to photograph the ‘Say No to Torture‘ protest on the evening of Wednesday 26th June, but as it was a nice day and I came up a few hours earlier to take a ride on London’s cable car and then to take a few pictures around Victoria Dock and Silvertown before making quick visit to the Greenway to see what progress was being made in opening up the former Olympic site.

Emirates ‘Airline’ – Arab Dangleway – North Greenwich – Victoria Dock.

Now known officially since 2022 as the IFS Cloud Cable Car, the dangleway was never a viable transport system, with longer journey time and costing more than alternative routes on almost every conceivable journey.

It doesn’t quite connect up with the rest of Transport for London’s system, the south terminal being a short and slightly confusing walk from North Greenwich Jubilee and bus station, and another fairly short walk on the North bank to Royal Victoria DLR. Completed in June 2012 its cost of £60m made it the most expensive cable car system ever built.

As I noted “it should be promoted as one of London’s cheaper and more interesting tourist attractions” giving great views along the River Thames, although the journey is a relatively short on at 7-10 minutes. with London in the distance, Canary Wharf and the Olympic site a little closer and Bow Creek, Silvertown and the Dome both nearly underneath.

To my surprise, 11 years later the service is still running and TfL say that with the sponsorship deals it actually makes a profit.

Emirates ‘Airline’ – Arab Dangleway

Victoria Dock and Silvertown

I think the more interesting parts of the Thames shoreline here are not yet publicly accessible, but you can – at least most of the time – walk along by Royal Victoria Dock and across the high level bridge for some more interesting views. The area and bridge get closed off when they are flogging illegal arms at the Excel Centre fairs (if you represent a despotic government you’ll have a ticket to that anyway.)

Most of the pictures here were taken from that high level walkway across the dock, but I think I walked on to the stations on the DLR line to Woolwich (then only to North Woolwich) which are elevated and also give some interesting views.

Victoria Dock and Silvertown

Stratford Greenway Olympic Revisit – Stratford Marsh

I took the DLR to Canning Town, changed to the JUbilee to Stratford then back to the DLR for the short ride to Puddling Mill Lane, and walked up onto the Greenway, where I’d photogaphed many times in the past.

Progress in releasing the Olympic site to the public appeared to be very slow and there sre still routes closed off in 2024.

Stratford Greenway Olympic Revisit

Say No To Torture – Trafalgar Square

It was the ‘International Day in Support of Victims of Torture‘, the anniversary of the UN Convention Against Torture on 26 June 1987, and the London Guantanamo Campaign had organised a protest in Trafalgar Square.

The London Guantanamo Campaign had been active in calling for the closure of Guantanamo and other torture prisons including Bagram in Afghanistan since 2006. In particular the protest was to draw attention to Shaker Aamer, one of the 166 prisoners still held in Guantanamo. A London resident he was captured by bandits in Afghanistan where he was working for a medical charity and sold to the American forces, who tortured him – with the cooperation of the British Secret Service in Bagram, before illegally rendering him to Guantanamo where he continues to be tortured despite having been cleared for release.

In 2013 he was in very poor health having been – along with the majority of the other prisoners there – on hunger strike for 141 days. It was not until 30 October 2015 that he was finally released to the UK.

The US response to the hunger strike had been regular beatings, keeping those taking part in solitary confinement in bare cells and to use forcible feeding, strapping them into a special chair and forcing a feeding tube up a nostril and down into their stomach. The procedure is extremely painful and both this and the sensory deprivation of solitary confinement in bare cells also constitute torture under the UN definitions.

Many of those taking part wore orange Guanatanamo-style jump suits and black hoods and they held up banners an placards saying ‘No To Torture‘ in 30 languages. Some of those taking part were regular protesters with the ‘Save Shaker Aamer Campaign‘ which has been holding daily lunchtime vigils opposite the House of Commons to put pressure on the UK government to release him. Many think his continued imprisonment is because his testimony would embarrass both the UK and US security services who were clearly involved in his torture.

Others were also protesting against torture, with Balochs in Pakistan being subject to arrests and other human rights violations including torture by the Pakistan authorities for campaigning for independence. The protesters held pictures of a number of Baloch activists who have simply disappeared, believed to be held or possibly killed by Pakistani forces.

And protesters also drew attention to the US treatment of award-winning British poet and translator Talha Ahsan who suffers from Aspergers syndrome. He was extradited from the UK and was currently awaiting trial in solitary confinement in a high-security state prison in Connecticut because of alleged association with an Islamic web site and publishing house said to have links with terrorism. He was eventually released after 8 years following a plea bargain in December 2013 when time already served in the UK and US prisons was ‘time already served.’

Say No To Torture.

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CND Easter Monday Protest – 2013

CND Easter Monday Protest: On Easter Monday 2013 CND organised a large protest at the UK’s nuclear weapons establishment at Aldermaston, 12 miles to the west of Reading.

As this year, Easter Monday was also April Fool’s Day, and on Monday 1st April 2013 this was the Nuclear Fool’s Day – Scrap Trident rally. But Aldermaston is a huge site and the protesters were spread between the half dozen gates around its 5 mile fenced perimeter, with speakers travelling between the gates in a number of cars and lorries.

I’d put my bike on the train to Reading, then cycled from there to the event. I found it quite a tiring ride with some long uphill sections against a prevailing westerly wind, and was rather tired by the time I arrived.

Every time I’ve been to Aldermaston I’ve always felt a slight tension in the air.I don’t really believe the air there is any more radioactive than around my home on the edge of London, and it’s certainly otherwise less pollution laden. And although it’s possible that many of the pictures I take are going to contravene our draconian Official Secrets Act 1911 (now replaced by the National Security Act 2023) I know that it is remotely unlikely I will have any problems reporting the event.

But having the bike with me enabled me to ride around to each of the gates in turn and take pictures of what was happening at them, as well as some people stretched out along the fences away from the gates. By the start of the protest at noon there were groups of between 50 and several hundred at each of half a dozen gates around the over 5 miles of the site perimeter, with others walking around the path around the site, attaching messages and banners to its tall security fence.

Gates had been allocated to different groups from around the country, and there was also a women’s gate and a faith gate, with Christians, Buddhists and others. Police were standing behind the gates, with a few mixing with the protesters, and others driving around the roads by the site.

Among the speakers I heard were CND Vice-Chairs Jeremy Corbyn MP and Bruce Kent, CND General Secretary Kate Hudson, Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett and South East Green MEP Keith Taylor, Stop the War’s Chris Nineham and CND founding member Pat Arrowsmith and another veteran Walter Wolfgang, as well as US activist Linda Pentz Gunter, the founder of ‘Beyond Nuclear’.

*The ‘Allelulia’ is taken from the coffin where it was placed outside the Defence Ministry on Shrove Tuesday*

At the ‘Faith Gate’ there was a short ‘Easter Resurrection Hope‘ service in which an ‘Alleluia’ which had been symbolically placed in a coffin at the Ministry of Defence in London on Shrove Tuesday at the beginning of Lent was lifted out and held aloft, with a call for ‘a new heaven and a new earth‘ and the hope that ‘light and love might overcome the shadow of destruction in this place.’ This was followed by some Buddhist prayers, and some statements from other faith groups about peace.

The event ended with everyone around the site making a loud noise and some had brought various musical instruments while others joined in banging pots and pans, whistling and shouting.

I still had 12 miles to cycle back to Reading Station, but at least this way much of it was downhill and I had the wind behind me.

More pictures on My London Diary at Nuclear Fool’s Day – Scrap Trident.

Free Speech & PFI Debt – 2013

Free Speech & PFI Debt – Ten years ago on Tuesday 8th October 2013 I photographed two protests in London, the first against a controversial law which prevents some campaigning by organisations in the year before a general election and the second over the effect of huge repayments of PFI debts that are severely affecting the ability to provide proper hospital services – a result of misguided policy decisions by previous governments and poor agreements made by civil servants.

Don’t Gag Free Speech – Parliament Square

Campaigners in Parliament Square opposed the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill which was being debated that day in Parliament in what was somewhere between a staged photo-opportunity and a protest.

The name of the Bill (and the Act which came into force in 2014) is something of a mouthful as it combined three quite different things. Establishing a register of consultant lobbyists seemed long overdue, although it seemed unlikely to reduce the scandalous effect of lobbying by groups such as fossil fuel companies on government policies – and clearly has not as recent decisions on Rosebank and other environmental issues has shown.

But the restrictions on the campaigning activities by charities and other “third party organisations” in the year before a general election was extremely controversial. So controversial that it was opposed by an incredibly wide range of voluntary organisations, “including Action for Blind People, Action for Children, the British Heart Foundation, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, the Countryside Alliance, Guide Dogs, Islamic Relief UK, Hope not Hate, the National Federation of Women’s Institutes, the Royal British Legion, the RSPB and the Salvation Army.” All saw that their legitimate activities in pursuing their charitable and other aims could be limited by the new legislation at least one year in four.

The third section of the bill would effect the ability of trade unions to play a full role in informing and advising members in ways that might influence how they should vote.

Many saw the bill as an attack on free speech and something that could be used to silence critics of the government in the run-up to general elections, while failing to address the problems of lobbying by vested interests which could continue so long as the lobbyists were registered.

Rather than the mouthful of its full name, the Bill was widely referred to as the “lobbying bill”, or by its many critics as the “gagging bill” and this was reflected in some of those protesting having tape across their mouths, as well as in posters and placards. Although the bill became law it has perhaps had less effect than many of the campaigners feared, probably because of its lack of clarity. But it remains in law as a failure to deal with lobbying and a threat to free speech.

More pictures at Don’t Gag Free Speech.

Scrap Royal London NHS PFI Debt – Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel

The Private Finance Initiative (PFI) was a disastrous system which enabled essential government expenditure to be taken off the books. Essentially it involved in disguising borrowing by the government to build schools and hospitals etc by getting money from the private sector for these works and then paying these back over long periods of time.

But rather than the government paying back the loans for new hospitals, these would be paid back by the NHS through the various health trusts. It made no real sense, but made the figures for government borrowing look better.

Things were made worse, firstly by the private sector negotiators of the agreements running rings around those from the public sector inexperienced in such things meaning the contracts are far too favourable to them. Then we had the financial crash and the Tory-imposed austerity. Health trusts found themselves in an impossible situation, which required some radical government action. Even the Tories were eventually forced to do something, and in 2020, over £13 billion of NHS debt was scrapped; this good news came together with a wider package of NHS reforms in part intended to allow them to cope with Covid, and I’m unclear of what the overall effect will be in the longer term.

The Barts Health Trust which covers much of East London, including Barts, The Royal London, Newham General, Whipps Cross and London Chest Hospital, as well as many smaller community facilities has been particularly badly hit, with PFI payments of £129m a year to a private consortium who financed the new (and much needed) Royal London Hospital.

Barts Health Trust needs to cut £78m from the services it provides and planned to do so by downgrading the posts of many of its staff, paying them less for doing the same work, or rather doing more work, as there will be increasing staff shortages with vacancies being deliberately left unfilled. In any case new staff will be unwilling to come and work for a trust that wants to pay them less than their experience and qualifications merit.

Barts were also proposing to close departments such as A&E at Whipps Cross or Newham and for the population of East London things are made worse by proposed closures in neighbouring health trusts.

The rally began on a narrow pavement on the busy Whitechapel Road outside the hospital but after police told the organisers it was too dangerous moved onto the access road in front of the new PFI financed hospital where they had previously been denied permission to protest.

Although the hospital has a new building, financial problems have prevented them from making use of the top two floors – and for two days recently had been unable to admit any new patients as no beds were available.

More at Scrap Royal London NHS PFI Debt.