No Glory No More War: Monday 4th August was the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War – and campaigners marked the anniversary with a ‘No Glory – No More War‘ event in Parliament Square.
My father was 14 when the ‘Great War’ began and had just left school. Soon after was working in a factory making munitions close to Kew Bridge. Although his only formal qualification was his school leaving certificate he worked in the drawing office rather than on the shop floor – though the only work he ever mentioned doing there was sharpening pencils. Years of working with his father in their car-building workshop as a carpenter and wheelwright had made him a dab hand with a chisel.
The only war worth fighting is the Class War – “WW1 was a rich man’s war in which 15 million poor men died“
After some months he was out of a job, and fed up and decided – as he put it – “he might as well join the army” before he was conscripted. He went to join up and had a medical where the officer examining found he was severely deaf in one ear – and told him he could be excused military service. “Do you want to go?” he was asked and he said he did. “Good man!” he was told and signed up to the army.
Jeremy Corbyn
Then came military training, which he didn’t much like after which he was sent to barracks. At some point when he was ordered to do some particularly time-wasting job he told the officer concerned what he thought of it and was put on a charge. Fortunately his senior officer was a sensible man, and after telling Dad he could be shot for disobeying an order told him not to be stupid again and sent him back to his unit.
Dad’s skills were not being used in the Army and he requested a transfer to the Royal Flying Corps as a mechanic. He went first to France and later to Germany, helping to repair the planes when they came back damaged. The airfields were well behind the front line and relatively safe. On April 1, 2018 the RFC became the RAF but I doubt if it made a lot of difference on the ground. And he was on the ground, and would never say if he ever went up in the air during his service.
WW1 Veteran George Charles had stated “It was such a complete waste of lives”
After the end of the war Dad was one of the last of his unit to be demobbed, ending up as stores quartermaster, only coming home in 1919, bringing with him some odd iron German coins and fond memories of fraternising with the German people. He had not seen the true horror of the war, though many he knew and served with had died. And of his five sisters, only two ever found men to marry.
A L Kennedy
At the event there were much more dramatic stories of the war and the truth about it, with a number of well-known speakers including historians and others. Among them was Neil Faulkner, author of the pamphlet No Glory, which gives a real history of WW1.
Neil Faulkner. a historian who wrote that WW1 was “a rich man’s war in which 15 million poor men died.”
Far from being the “war to end all wars” and a “victory for democracy“, it was a military disaster and a human catastrophe, “driven by big powers’ competition for influence around the globe, and caused a degree of suffering all too clear in the statistical record of 16 million people dead and 20 million wounded.“
WW1 Veteran Harry Patch told Tony Blair ‘War is Nothing Better than legalised Mass Murder’
I concluded my account: “While we remember the bravery and sacrifice of those who took part, we should also be aware of the pointlessness of the war and make use of its anniversary to promote peace and international cooperation.”
Rastafari, Vedanta & De Beers: Pictures from protests I covered on Friday 1st August 2014.
August 1st is Emancipation Day, celebrating the effective date of the abolition of slavery across the British Empire in 1834, and 2014 also marked the centenary of the foundation of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) by Marcus Garvey and Amy Ashwood Garvey in Jamaica in 1914.
In Brixton I photographed a rally by Rastafaris preparing to march to Parliament to demand reparations for the slave trade. I left to go to Lincoln Inn’s Fields to a protest outside the AGM of mining group Vedanta, responsible for killings and environmental destruction in various countries around the world.
Finally in Piccadilly campaigners were outside De Beers asking people to boycott diamonds cut and polished in Israel which fund war crimes against Palestinians.
Rastafari Demand Reparations For Slave Trade
Windrush Square, Brixton
On the centenary of the foundation by Marcus Garvey of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, Rastafaris met at Brixton to march to Parliament demanding reparations for the descendants of those taken from Africa by the Atlantic Slave Trade.
Demands for international reparations have been increasingly made in recent years, some for huge sums. As I wrote:
“In 2004, a group of Jamaican Rastafari movement groups argued that European countries, particularly Britain, should pay £72.5 billion to resettle 500,000 Jamaican Rastafarians in Africa, but the British government rejected their claim. Other claims have been lodged in 2007 by Guyana, in 2011 by Antigua and Barbuda.”
No government has yet agreed to any financial reparations to the descendants of slaves or the countries affected. The British Government at the time of abolition paid out huge sums over many years to the owners of slaves – equivalent to 40% of the national budget – and this payment was only completed in 2015. Among those who have received payments were powerful British families, including current business and political elites in the United Kingdom.
The event go off to a slow start with drumming and dances and then some speeches. It was still continuing when I left to go elsewhere and I missed the march which only began an hour and a half later.
The protest on the opposite side of the road from the Vedanta AGM was organised by Foil Vedanta who say:
“Vedanta Resources is a FTSE 250 British-Indian mining company guilty of thousands of deaths, environmental devastation, anti union action, corruption and disdain for life on earth. They have become one of the most hated and contentious companies in the world.”
MP John McDonnell was among the protesters
A number of the protesters had bought shares in the company so that they could go into the AGM and ask questions while others continued the protest outside.
As well as protesting Foil Vedanta have also carried out a great deal of research into the activities of Vedanta and is subsidiary companies. These include Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) in Zambia which has poisoned thousands of people causing ongoing birth deformities in major pollution spills in 2006 and 2010. They had claimed to be unable to pay their fines or their tax bill while actually making around around $500 million/year.
Protests against Vedanta here where the company is listed and on a much larger scale in India and elsewhere where they operate have so far stopped Vedanta from destroying the Niyamgiri mountain in Odisha, sacred to the indigenous Dongria Kondh. The protests in London led the company to decide to de-list in 2018. They have also attempted unsuccessfully to de-list from Indian stock exchanges.
Protesters lined the front of the shop both here in Piccadilly and around the corner in Old Bond Street
Protesters at De Beers in Piccadilly asked people to boycott diamonds cut and polished in Israel which contribute around a billion dollars every year to the Israeli military and security industries and fund Israeli war crimes against Palestinians.
Workers Memorial Day, HS2 Protest: Every year since 1989, April 28th has been International Workers’ Memorial Day, and on Monday 28th April 2014 I once more attended the event commemorating this at the statue of the Building Worker on Tower Hill in London, later going to Parliament Square where protesters called on MPs to vote against the HS2 Bill being debated in the House of Commons.
Workers Memorial Day
Tower Hill
One of the more hazardous industries in the UK is construction, and the annual Workers Memorial Day points this out. There had been over 50 deaths on construction sites in the previous year and the rally place around a coffin with boots, work gloves and hard hats.
A TUC report published for the day, ‘Toxic, Corrosive and Hazardous: The government’s record on health and safety‘ pointed out that since the coalition government came to power in 2010 it had “drastically cut Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspections, cut funding to the HSE by 40 per cent, blocked new regulations and removed vital existing protections, prevented improved European regulation on health and safety, cut support for employers and health and safety reps, seen local authorities reduce their workplace inspections by 93 per cent, and made it much harder for workers to claim compensation if they are injured or made ill at work following employer negligence.”
Gail Cartmail, Assistant General Secretary of Unite
The government was now planning to exempt many ‘self-employed workers’ from health and safety protection – despite them being twice as likely to be killed at work than other workers.
This attack on health and safety, carried out under the title of ‘reducing red tape’ also played an important role in providing the environment which allowed the disastrous fire at Grenfell Tower.
Liliana Alexa of the Battersea Crane Disaster Action Group
The theme for the 2014 events from the ITUC, the global union body coordinating the event worldwide, is ‘Protecting workers around the world through strong regulation, enforcement and union rights’ and it encouraged unions to use the slogan, ‘Unions make work safer’.
Tony O’Brien of the Construction Safety Campaign
There were speeches including by Gail Cartmail, Assistant General Secretary of Unite, Tony O’Brien of the Construction Safety Campaign and Jerry Swain Regional Secretary for UCATT’s London and South East Region, after which wreaths and flowers were laid at the base of the statue by UCATT, Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman and Liliana Alexa who founded the Battersea Crane Disaster Action Group after her son Michael was killed by a falling crane as he walked past a building site near his Battersea home.
The event ended with the release of black balloons, for the 50 workers killed in the last year and a period of silence around the coffin with its boots, hard hat and work gloves and a hard hat for each one of them.
HS2 is generally seen now as an expensive disaster, failing to achieve its aims and becoming something of a white elephant. It doesn’t go to where it was intended and will have to run rather slower than planned.
Despite the plans to run to Manchester and Leeds having been dropped the scheme has had a massive increase in costs. It still remains doubtful if it will ever actually reach its intended destination in London, Euston or simply serve its temporary terminus at Old Oak Common, six miles out in the middle of nowhere very much, where it will largely rely on a connection to the Elizabeth Line.
The project was almost certainly doomed from the start in 2009 under Labour, but its position was worsened by decisions by each successive government. There are various detailed studies of where it went wrong on-line, including by Graham Winch of the Productivity Institute.
The London to Birmingham section we may one day get was only a minor aspect of the original scheme and a part that offers relatively little gain – nobody really needs to get to Birmingham 20 minutes faster. Its route was poorly chosen and bound to result in the kind of local opposition that has greatly put up costs, and the whole project was severely over-specified – and in a way that makes it incompatible with the existing network.
Others, such as High Speed UK have developed much more coherent plans for the future UK rail network which governments have refused to consider seriously – and were one of those supporting and speaking at this protest. Their plans in 2014 would have avoided “damage to the Chilterns by following the M1 and would be 25% cheaper than HS2, while offering time savings on average of 40% for most intercity services – not just those on the high speed route.“
This was a relatively small demonstration with perhaps a couple of hundred people, but a colourful one, with a large inflatable white elephant and a couple of bears with a very large rail ticket about the £50 billion rip-off of HS2. There were speeches including from several MPs and campaigners.
Palestinian Prisoners’ Day: In 1974 the Palestinian National Council approved April 17th as Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, choosing the date as the anniversary of the first prisoner exchange between Palestine and Israel – when Fatah militant Mahmoud Bakr Hijazi who had been captured by Israel six years earlier was released.
In 2008 the 20th Arab Summit adopted it for all Arab countries as a day in solidarity with Palestinian and Arab prisoners detained by Israel. Human rights organisations say many prisoners are denied visits, subjected to mental and physical tortures and denied proper medical care. Many are held without trial under ‘administrative detention‘ while Palestinians “are tried by Israel’s military courts and often held in Israel, in conditions that violate international humanitarian and human rights conventions“.
In 2014 the World Council of Churches had issued a Palestinian Prisoners Day call to churches worldwide to pray and act for justice which “resolutely confirms our solidarity with the nearly 5000 Palestinian men, women and children languishing in Israeli prisons” and called for churches to press UN Member States to put pressure on Israel to end arbitrary detention, meet its obligations over human rights, provide apt medical care and end athe use of torture.
Bill Gates End Support Of Israeli Child Torture
Cardinal Place, Victoria
On 27th April 2014 I photographed the Palestinian Prisoners’ Day protest in Westminster, where protesters met on the plaza outside Westminster Cathedral for a ‘mystery protest’.
There they put together a mock prison cell and gave a briefing that the protest was to be at the Europe and Middle East Office of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in Portland House, just across the road inside the Cardinal Place shopping centre.
We crossed the road with the prison cell and some protesters, one with a Bill Gates mask and they tried to deliver a petition from the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, a Palestinian NGO based in Ramallah which monitors and provides legal support to Palestine prisoners in Israeli and Palestinian jails.
“By holding shares in G4S, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is complicit in Israel’s detention without trial and torture of Palestinians.
As people that share your belief that every life has equal value, we call on you to divest from G4S immediately.”
The Gates Foundation is one of the biggest shareholders in G4S and Addameer say it “is legitimising and profiting from Israel’s use of torture, mass incarceration and arbitrary arrest to discourage Palestinians from opposing Israel’s apartheid policies.”
Addammer point out that their investment makes a mockery of the foundation’s aim to use its investments to fund projects that “help all people lead healthy, productive lives“.
A few protesters who tried to enter the building were quickly ejected by security and the protest continued outside with speeches, chanting and music. They promised to leave after someone came down from the Gates Foundation office to receive the petition, but no one came in the 20 minutes while I was there before leaving to cover another Palestinian Prisoners’ Day protest at the G4S offices a short walk away.
The Inminds Palestinian Prisoners Campaign – which began twice-monthly London protests against companies supporting Israel’s prisons in 2012 – had arrived outside the G4S offices before me and set up their banners. They were handing out leaflets about the terrible conditions under which prisoners are held and calling for the release of all Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails.
British multinational G4S is the worlds largest security contractor and provides security services for many prisons in Israel where Palestinian men, women and children are tortured and caged.
After around 25 minutes we were joined by some of the protesters who had been at the Gates Foundation and their cage.
After a few minutes some of the protesters walked into the foyer of the offices and I followed them to take photographs.
They brought in the ‘cage’ as well.
And there was soon a prisoner in the cage with a smiling ‘Bill Gates’ and another protester holding it. There were some short speeches about why they were there protesting against G4S and some chanting, but the foyer is large and the protest did not interfere with people entering and leaving the building – which contains other offices as well as that of G4S.
Eventually a couple of police arrived, and took a look at what was happening and decided just to watch. More protesters arrived and some brought their banners into the foyer.
Outside the protest also continued, with people handing out detailed leaflets about the conditions in ‘G4S Israeli Dungeons’ in which men, women and children are tortured.
You can read some of the details and in particular about the case of the 5 Hares boys on My London Diary.
I’d first met the young mothers facing eviction from the Focus E15 hostel in Stratford around a month earlier when I had gone with them into the offices of East Thames Housing Association to occupy the show flat there and hold a party in protest against the threat of being evicted from their nearby hostel because Newham Council had decided to cut its funding.
Newham Council seemed clearly to be failing these mothers and children and were trying to move them away from Newham into private rented accommodation, sometimes hundreds of miles away from their friends, families, colleges, nurseries and support networks in Newham in order to evade their responsibility for them.
Clearly the council, then led by Newham Mayor Robin Wales, had not expected these young women to put up much if any fight against this unjust treatment, but the Focus E15 women were determined not to move away from London. Their continued protests, always powerful and colourful attracted media coverage and made their case into a national scandal, and they revealed the serious mismanagement of the council.
‘Boris Build More Homes’
Stratford was at the centre of a housing boom, particularly around the former 2012 Olympic site but this was largely for private sale, which many flats being bought up by investors, many from abroad wanting to cash in on London’s housing price boom, despite Newham having the highest waiting list for social housing in London.
Focus E15 and others pointed to the Carpenters Estate, a well-designed and highly popular council estate in a highly desirable location next to Stratford Station and the Olympic site where there were large numbers of empty flats and houses – some having been left empty for 10 years. Rather than seeing this as successful housing for the people of the borough, the council had regarded it as an asset to be sold off.
In February 2014 the mothers and children were still all living in the Focus E15 Mother and Baby Unit despite having been served eviction orders the previous October – East Thames had promised they would not be forced out until they had alternative accomodation. And they hired an open-top bus to bring themselves to City Hall.
Green Party GLA member Jenny Jones visited the protest
City Hall has now moved out to the Royal Docks, but in 2014 was in an unusually shaped Norman Foster building on Queens Walk next to the Thames on the privately More London office development owned by the Kuwaiti sovereign wealth fund (Ken Livingstone called it a ‘glass testicle’.) And although Focus E15 were allowed to protest by the security there, they were told they must not hand out leaflets. And no one at City Hall was prepared to accept the card the mothers signed for Boris Johnson.
The card for Boris
Their protests did result in them being rehoused in London, but the women didn’t stop there, developing into a ‘Housing For All’ protest, including an occupation of empty flats on the Carpenters Estate which achieved national news coverage. Locally they fought for others, going with them into Newham’s housing office and demanding the council meet its legal requirements and also stopping evictions.
They set up a housing advice and support stall every Saturday on Stratford Broadway and more. I’m sure that it was due to their activities that eventually the local Labour party turned against Robin Wales, getting rid of him.
Assistant director of the affordable homes programme in London, Jamie Ratcliff came to meet the E15 Mums
Their Focus E15 campaign, still continuing and still demanding ‘social housing, not social cleansing!’ became the most effective housing campaign in the country. I’m pleased to have been able to give them some support.
The mothers take their card for Boris into City Hall, but staff refused to accept it
The pictures on this post are all from Friday 21st February 2014 and there are more together with the text I wrote in 2014 at Focus E15 Mums at City Hall.
Margaretta D’Arcy, Education & African Refugees: On Wednesday 22nd January I photographed a protest at the Irish Embassy demanding the release of anti-war activist Margaretta D’Arcy before going to a peaceful march by London Universitry students for democratic, public education free from exploitation and police violence. Finally I went to a protest close to the Israeli Embassy in Kensington in solidarity with African asylum seekers in Israel who are protesting their against arbitrary arrests, imprisonment and inhumane treatment.
Release Margaretta D’Arcy Now!
Irish Embassy
Selma James calls for the release of Margaretta D’Arcy
Margaretta D’Arcy (1934 – 2025) was an prominent Irish actress, writer, playwright and anti-war activist and a veteran of the Women’s Peace Camp at the US airbase on Greenham Common, where she had been a powerful member of the group at the ‘Yellow Gate’; protests by the Peace Camp eventually led to a legal challenge and the closure of the US Base with its cruise missiles.
Earlier in 1961 D’Arcy had joined the anti-nuclear Committee of 100 and in 1981 had been imprisoned for the first time after defacing a display at the Ulster Museum. Active in many campaigns in Ireland including the Shell to Sea campaign against the Corrib gas project and the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, she was arrested in October 2012 for lying down on the runway at Shannon in a peaceful direct action by members of Galway Alliance Against War against the use since 2001 of Shannon by Galway Alliance Against War in violation of Irish neutrality.
D’Arcy received a suspended sentence but after she had been arrested again on the runway at Shannon in September 2013 and she refused to sign a bond to keep out of restricted areas at Shannon the suspended 12-week sentence was reactivated. After serving nine and a half weeks of this she was released from Dublin prison in March 2014. She continued her activism until a few days before her death in 2025.
The protest at the Irish Embassy in London took place a week after D’Arcy was arrested to serve her suspended sentence, and around 50 people had come with banners and posters for a protest outside the Irish Embassy in London and to deliver a petition calling for her immediate release.
On My London Diary I list some of the many groups who supported the protest and most of those who spoke.
The protest by London University students took place following a number of incidents in London and elsewhere the previous term when university management had called police onto the campus or gone to the courts to prevent or oppose student protests or to harass students. This had led in December 2013 to a Cops Off Campus National Student Protest.
A student speaks about police violence, and in particular violence directed at the black community including the killing of Mark Duggan
The protest began outside the University of London Union which the university is closing down with a speech by ULU President Michael Chessum and also by representatives of the lecturers who were taking action that week and the cleaners, maintenance and security staff who were about to hold a 3-day strike in their ‘3 Cosas’ campaign for sick pay, holidays and pensions, as well as for recognition for their union, the ndependent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB). Another student spoke about police violence, in particular against the black community.
A few from the black bloc enter Woburn House, home to theUniversity & Colleges Employers Association but it was only a token gesture
The marchers then went on a tour of key university sites including Senate House and the University & Colleges Employers Association in Tavistock Square where there was a brief token occupation of the lobby before going on to protest outside Holborn Police Station. Here as well as protesting against police violence they also protested the police execution of Mark Duggan.
They continued down Kingsway to Aldwych and the Strand, ending the march with a short rally outside the Royal Courts of Justice. The police had kept at a discreet distance while the students were in the university area but both the police station and the law courts were guarded by a line of police.
At the end of the rally Alfie Meadows suggested people might like to go on to a protest at the Royal Opera House, where the cleaners are also going on strike the next month for a living wage and proper conditions of work. About half the students then marched off with him, but I needed to leave for another event.
Tens of thousands of African asylum seekers had been protesting in Israel since the start of the year holding mass rallies against their treatment by the Israeli authorities.
Protesters stand on the pavement in front of the private road in which the Israeli embassy is located
In December new laws in Israel had meant entering the country without proper papers could be held for up to a year without trial, and those already in the country could be held in indefinite detention. The detention facility in the Negev desert, like many other Israeli prisons, is run by the private security company G4S.
There were around 50,000 refugees currently living in Israel, most who had fled brutal conflicts in Sudan and Eritrea, with only a few hundred of their applications had been processed. Most keep alive by working illegally, exploited and in fear of arrest.
Recently a strike by those working as cleaners, cooks, dishwashers and other low paid workers had brought many restaurants, hotels and businesses to a standstill. They held a rally with over 20,000 in Rabin Square in the centre of Tel Aviv with banners saying ‘We are refugees, not criminals’ and demanding their rights.
The London protest was one of many around the world following a call by the African Asylum Seekers Community in Israel for international solidarity. It isn’t possible to protest outside the Israeli Embassy in London which is down a well-guarded private street, but the protesters gathered on the pavement in front of the entrance to this street, refusing police attempts to move them further away.
Gaza, Freedom, Syria & Gay Tourism: Saturday 18th January 2014 was the fifth anniversary of the end of the 2008/9 Israeli massacre in Gaza, Operation Cast Lead in which around 1,400 people, many unarmed civilians were killed. I also photographed a rather unorganised protest by Anonymous against privatisation, cuts, environmental and other issues, a peace vigil by Syria Peace & Justice and finally Queer Strike and ‘No Pinkwashing’ picketing a beach-themed LGBT tourism event promoting Israel as a tourist destination.
Gaza Massacre 5th Anniversary
Israeli Embassy, Kensington
Around 500 people had come to a protest on Kensington High Street opposite the private road leading to the Israeli embassy. The attacks on Gaza in 2008-9, Operation Cast Lead, had shocked the civilised world, though the 1400 largely civilian deaths were on a small scale compared to the current ongoing genocide when over 70,000 have died, with deaths continuing daily since the so-called ceasefire.
As well as continuing Israeli attacks children and old people are now dying in Gaza due to the freezing conditions and inadequate shelter because of the destruction of buildings and the continuing Israeli restrictions preventing much of the humanitarian aid and critical supplies needed to keep people safe, alive and well.
The hundreds who came to the protest in 2014 kept up a noisy barrage of chanting calling for justice for the victims of Israel’s massacre and against the ongoing siege on Gaza for around an hour before a series of speeches.
Among those at the protest were many Palestinians as well as Jews some of whom had been leading the call for a boycott of Israeli goods. It was supported by a wide range of groups and on My London Diary I gave the following list : “Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Palestinian Forum in Britain, British Muslim Initiative, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Stop the War Coalition, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Friends of Al-Aqsa UK, Liberal Democrats Friends of Palestine, War on Want, Unite the Union, Public and Commercial Services Union, Amos Trust and ICAHD UK.”
This protest had been called by Anonymous supporters following their large protest on Novemeber 5th, but fewer than a couple of hundred had arrived. Some had instead gone to the Gaza protest, and like me will have arrived rather late for this event.
They were in one corner of Trafalgar Square and people took turns to speak at an open microphone. As well as those in ‘Anonymous’ masks I recognised many who had taken part in Occupy London.
Charlie X at the protest
Eventually someone suggested that they march to Parliament. For once the police facilitated this, suggesting they could walk along the southbound carriageway of Whitehall, and shepherding them across the traffic lights to do so. It “had been organised as a peaceful and family-friendly event, and this was the case, as they marched past Downing St with nothing more than a few shouts and rude gestures and on to Parliament Square.”
When they arrived outside Parliament “it became obvious that this was a protest without leaders, and with no real idea where they were going or what to do.” People – including some police made a number of suggestions but eventually they decided to stop in Parliament Square for a rally.
They were still on the roadway, but after a couple of minutes agreed to police suggestions that they move onto the pavement so that traffic could flow again.
There were then a few speeches followed by some discussion about what they should do next.
One suggestion was that they should stay where they were and party in Parliament Square and it seemed likely that they would do so.
I decided it was time to leave and walked back up Whitehall past a small crowd of police vans. The police were obviously taking no chances and I think probably outnumbered the protesters, although most simply sat in their vans.
Back in Trafalgar Square I found a small group from Syria Peace & Justice holding a peace vigil “calling for immediate humanitarian ceasefires and the release of all political prisoners and an inclusive Syrian-led peace process.”
The Geneva 2 peace talks were to start the following week and they said that the agenda was being “being set by major foreign powers like the US and Russia” and that only the Syrian government and a Turkey based Syrian group had been invited.
They demanded “an inclusive Syrian-led peace process that includes strong representation from Syrian women, Syrian civil society organisations and various moderate Syrian opposition groups.”
Queer Strike, Women of Colour, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, and people from the ‘No Pinkwashing’ campaign had come to picket an event promoting Israel as a tourist destination for LGBT people.
A security man objects as the protesters block the arcade entrance briefly for photographs
The Gay Star Beach Party LGBT tourism event claimed Tel Aviv to be “one of the best gay cities in the world” and together with the Israeli Tourism Board they were trying to persuade gay people to holiday there.
The protesters say that this is “pinkwashing”, an attempt to divert attention from human rights crimes against Palestinians, using opposition to homophobia to legitimise Israel and undermine support for Palestine. They called on those going to the event to boycott it and not go to Israel until it ends human rights abuses, recognises the Palestinians’ right to self-determination and complies with international law.
They handed out a card with five reasons for LGBT tourists to boycott Israel:
- the military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza since 1967, with over 100 illegal Israeli settlements on land stolen from Palestinians;
- the violence against Palestinian children, hundreds of whom are arrested each year and held in military detention without access to lawyers, mainly for alleged stone-throwing;
- the inhuman siege of Gaza, blocking import of food, fuel and medical supplies and preventing the repair of many homes destroyed in the 2008-9 invasion by Israel;
- the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homes and land which began in 19438 and still continues, creating millions of refugees;
the apartheid system of roads reserved for Jewish Israelis, the apartheid wall and the many check points involving long waits and searches for Palestinians.
The protesters also highlighted Israel’s racist treatment of African people, There had been protests the previous week in Tel Aviv by 30,000 African asylum seekers and refugees demanding that all African refugees imprisoned in Israeli prisons and detention centres be freed and for recognition of their rights as asylum seekers and refugees.
Isle of Dogs and Poor Doors: On Wednesday 3rd September 2014 the weather was fine with blue skies and clouds and I decided to spend the afternoon photographing in the Isle of Dogs before meeting with Class War for one of their ongoing series of protests against separate entrances for the wealthy and social housing residents of a tower block in Aldgate.
Isle of Dogs Panoramas – Island Gardens to South Quay
The main purpose of my visit to the Isle of Dogs was to make panoramas of scenes which I had photographed more conventionally over the years, including the black and white images that I included in my book ‘City to Blackwall‘ and more of them are now in my albums on Flickr.
I had gone back so make some panoramas in the area in the 1990s and early 2000s, using various panoramic film cameras, but the switch to digital had made creating panoramic images much simpler for me.
Perhaps the most important change was in accurate viewfinding – with my first panoramic film camera the most accurate way to see the extent of my pictures was by viewing along two arrows on the top of the body – much more reliable than its viewfinder. But of course digital also gave a wider range of shutter speeds and ISO.
And to do this, the camera needed to be firmly mounted on a tripod – and I carried a rather heavy Manfrotto around with me. This also enabled me – with the aid of a spirit level – to ensure that the camera was level. The Nikon I used for these panoramas had level indicators in the viewfinder and was easy to use handheld.
However to make these on digital I needed to use a fisheye lens – the 16mm Nikon fisheye. Not the kind that gives a circular image, but a full-frame fisheye where the image circle goes through the corners of the frame. This gives a 180 degree image across the frame diagonal, but rather less horizontally and vertical, with considerable curvature of straight lines.
Software – I then used PTGUi for these – than comes to the rescue, converting the spherical perspective into a cylindrical one which rendered verticals upright (there are several ways this can be done with slightly different results.) Later I moved to simpler software.
With the 36Mp Nikon D800E there were far more pixels than necessary even after this stretching and this was no longer a problem. I could work with single exposures rather than stitching together several images as I had done earlier with digital cameras.
Although I had mainly gone to make panoramas I also took a Nikon D700 body and made pictures with a 16-35mm Nikon zoom. Not everything is best suited by the panoramic treatment.
Again there are many more pictures at Isle of Dogs.
Class War ‘Poor Doors’ picket Week 6 – Aldgate
A police officer watches as people walk down the alley leading to the ‘poor door’ of the luxury development
Class War and friends held their sixth weekly protest outside 1 Commercial St in Aldgate and it was a relatively uneventful one.
As the protesters arrived, two police officers came out from the building and talked with the protesters making clear that they expected the protesters not to block the doorway for people entering or leaving the building. More officers soon arrived to police the event.
There were a few heated arguments between protesters and police but nothing of any consequence. The protesters held their banner well in front of the door.
They talked and handed out leaflets to people leaving and entering the ‘rich door’ as well as to people walking past – and to at least one cyclist stopped at the traffic lights.
After keeping up the picket for an hour as intended, Class War packed up and left – until the next week.
Al Quds Day March in London: International Quds Day is an annual event at the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan which expresses support for Palestinians and oppose Israel and Zionism. In particular it is a protest against the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem – al-Quds in Arabic.
Neturei Karta ultra-orthodox Jews oppose Zionism
A peaceful Al Quds march has taken place every year in London for over 40 years and the organisers describe it as having a “family atmosphere with demonstrators coming from all walks of life. Christians, Jews, Muslims, people of other faiths and none all march in common cause side by side.”
This is largely true, but the march in London attracts counter-protests from Zionists and others (including Iranian freedom, communist and royalist movements and UK right wing fringe groups), which have sometimes led to confrontations and delays and increased security with some marchers becoming mistrustful of photographers.
It has at times been a difficult event for me to cover in the close way I like work. Many of my pictures are made with wide angle or extreme wide angle lenses, 28mm or less focal length down to fisheye, working inside or on the edge of crowds. I want to be close to people, if not within touching distance, seldom more than a couple of metres away to give greater interaction and immediacy.
The Quds Day march and rally in 2025 was on Sunday 23rd March, but chaotic rail services that day prevented me from covering it, though I had photographed a pro-Palestine rally close to the Israeli Embassy the previous day. The organisers pointed out that it was taking place “amid an ongoing genocide in Gaza where Israeli forces have slaughtered 50,000 civilians in Gaza, most of them women and children. At the same time armed colonial settlers and troops are running rampage in the occupied West Bank, invading, looting and attacking Palestinian towns and villages with the international community turning a blind eye or actively complicit in the slaughter.”
Back in 2014, the situation in Gaza was dire. As UNRWA states, “During the 50 days of hostilities lasting from 8 July until 26 August 2014, 2,251 Palestinians were killed; 1,462 of them are believed to be civilians, including 551 children and 299 women. 66 Israeli soldiers and five civilians, including one child, were also killed. Overall, 11,231 Palestinians were injured during the conflict, including 3,540 women and 3,436 children.”
83 schools and 10 health centres were damaged, over 12,600 homes were totally destroyed and there was “a massive displacement crisis in Gaza, with almost 500,000 persons internally displaced at its peak.” The “scale of human loss, destruction, devastation and displacement caused by the 2014 conflict in Gaza – the third within seven years – was catastrophic, unprecedented and unparalleled in Gaza.”
But of course Gaza is now experiencing something far worse – and humanitarian agencies including UNWRA are being prevented by Israel from supporting the people and supplies of food and other necessities are largely being blocked. Inadequate amounts are brought in by the so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” and people desperate to get it are being shot by the Israeli Defence Forces.
Of course we all know this npw – even though the Israeli government has tried to hide it by preventing international journalists from entering Gaza – and also systematically targeting the Palestinians who are able to report. An article in Modern Times Review on July 15, 2025 quoted the Cost of War project as stating “more journalists have been killed in Gaza in the past 18 months than were killed in the U.S. Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, and Afghanistan combined.” Early in July the number killed in Gaza had risen to 226.
On 24th July 2014, the march began close to the BBC and went to a rally outside the US Embassy, then still in Grosvenor Square. It was covered by several foreign media organisations but – as with most UK demonstrations – willfully ignored by the BBC.
Protesters called for a boycott of Israel and an end to the occupation of Palestine as well as an end to the attacks on Gaza.
On My London Diary I give a list of the organisations supporting the march – and there is a rather longer list of those supporting the 2025 march. One of the major organisations in both is the Innovative Minds Human Rights Group (InMinds). Founded in 1997 and alleged to have links to the Iranian Islamic Republic it has held regular protests in London against companies supporting the Israeli military, against the arbitrary detention of Palestinians, the torture and imprisonment of Palestinian children and calling for an end to apartheid in Israel.
In the pictures you will see many flags and posters from Inminds – and also a few images of Ayatollah Khomeini who started the celebration of Al Quds Day in Iran in 1979 as well as the current Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei.
Also standing out in my pictures are the ultra-orthodox anti-Zionist Neturei Karta Jews who state clearly their belief that Judaism is a religion and not a state, and “Judaism rejects the Zionist state And condemns its ATROCITIES”
One contentious issue in 2014 was over the carrying of flags of the Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group Hezbollah. In 2014 the political party, which was part of the government of Lebanon had not been proscribed and it was only illegal to carry it if there was other evidence to show support of the proscribed terrorist group. I was looking for these flags but only found a very few to photograph.
As the march made its way down Regent Street there were shouts against it from an upper floor window and vegetables were thrown down at the marchers who shouted back angrily. The march organisers asked police to investigate and urged to people to march on.
I left the march well before it reached the US Embassy and saw no other protests against the march. You can see more pictures from the march on My London Diary at Al Quds Day march for Jerusalem.
Italian Festival & Ritzy Strike: On Sunday 20th July 2014 I spent several hours at the Italian festival in Clerkenwell and photographed the procession around the local streets before rushing off to Brixton where striking cinema workers were holding a protest in front of the Ritzy cinema.
Festival of Our Lady of Mount Carmel – St Peter’s Church, Clerkenwell
I think I first photographed the procession of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in 1992 – you can see pictures from then and the following year in one of my Flickr albums, Procession in Honour of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
There were many stalls selling Italian food and drinks in the Sagra
In 1883 when the event began it was the first Roman Catholic event on English streets for 349 years and required special permission from Queen Victoria, but since then – with a few interruptions for war etc – has taken place every year on the third Sunday in July.
Since then I’ve frequently gone back to the event and taken more photographs, though in more resent years it has become more of a social event for me, meeting up with photographer friends – including one with Italian heritage – and sharing plastic cups of cheap Italian wine.
As well as the procession I’ve always photographed the people at these events and Sunday 20th Jul 2014 was no exception. As well as watching the procession many from the Italian community come from across this country to meet with old friends at the event and enjoy the food, wine, music and dancing in the Sagra in Warner Street.
This year (2025) it is also on 20th July and if you are in London and reading this on the day I post it, if you can get to St Peter;s Church in Clerkenwell (a short walk from Farringdon Station) by 3.30pm you can see what is I think London’s largest annual and certainly most colourful Christian processions.
It is still in my diary, but probably I won’t make it this year, partly because of being tired from photographing another protest calling for an end to the genocide taking place yesterday. But also because last time I went the wine had gone up in price and down in quality. More seriously because I’ve photographed it so many times it is hard to find anything new and not just repeat myself.
The event in 2014 was, as I noted, the first I’ve attended when there were no white doves released. So, although the other pictures are all from 2014, here is one from the last time I went to the festival in 2019. Pigeons are unpredictable and often look rather strange in flight and I was pleased to get one frame with them all visible.
London, UK. 20th July 2019. Three white doves are released from a basket in the historic procession in London’s Clerkenwell from St Peter’s Italian Church.
I usually stayed for an hour or two photographing the people celebrating, but in 2014 I rushed off after the procession to photograph another event.
Ritzy workers strike for Living Wage – Windrush Square, Brixton,
Despite some torrential rain “the Ritzy workers, some soaked to the skin, kept standing behind their long banner across the whole wide frontage of the cinema. Some had umbrellas, others did not, but it was the kind of rain that made umbrellas next to useless.”
I sheltered under the tree and my umbrella but still got wet.
For once I had my own umbrella up, holding it while taking pictures but still “enough came through to soak my clothes and my feet were squelching in my shoes.“
The Ritzy is the busiest and most successful art-house cinema in the the UK but was still paying its workers at only 82% of the London Living Wage – not enough to live on in London. Backed by their union, BECTU, they went on strike after negotiations with employers Cineworld failed. The workers say ‘Living Staff – Living Wage.
