Posts Tagged ‘Bush’

Bring the Troops Home – 2005

Wednesday, March 19th, 2025

Bring the Troops Home: On Saturday 19th March 2005 I photographed the Stop the War march on the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. From Hyde Park it went past the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square on to a rally in Trafalgar Square. I published text and pictures on My London Diary.

Bring the Troops Home - 2005
Don’t unleash your missiles on Iran – No more Bush wars.

This is another slightly hard to find post from the early years of My London Diary before I redesigned the site with links to every post on top of each monthly page and discovered the Shift key. Then I felt it was somehow cool not to capitalise, but I now regard as an unfortunate affection – like those photographers who think turning their digital colour images to black and white somehow makes them more authentic.

Bring the Troops Home - 2005

Back in 2005 I was very critical of Stop The War – and I still feel they lost the initiative after the huge February 2003 protest against the invasion of Iraq and that a more radical approach could have prevented Blair taking Britain into the war beside the USA.

Bring the Troops Home - 2005
George Solomou with coffin representing Iraqis killed in the invasion and occupation

That protest and the many before and after showed our nation united in a way no other campaign has succeeded in doing, with protests in almost every town and village in the country. Even in Surrey where driver after driver hooted support as we stood at the side of our local bridge with posters during Friday evening rush hours.

Bring the Troops Home - 2005

I’m still sorry I had to miss that big one in 2003, which came just the day after I was discharged from hospital following a minor heart operation and I could only walk a few yards. My family went leaving me at home. But I did cover all of the other main protests in London against the invasion and they are recorded in My London Diary.

Bring the Troops Home - 2005

In my 2005 post I was also very critical of Stop the War’s attitude to photographers, which has mellowed slightly over the years. It can still be difficult to photograph the front of their marches though the stewards are generally much more friendly.

But for all their faults, Stop the War and other organisations they work with have kept up protests over many issues, particularly in recent times over the genocide taking place in Gaza. And have been doing so in defiance of Tory and Labour governments, laws restricting our right to protest and clearly political policing.


Bring the Troops Home – Stop the War March and Rally

I remember standing in Trafalgar Square listening to Tony Benn and Tariq Ali urging us all to take immediate and radical action should our troops invade Iraq. At the time a majority of the British people was clearly against the war, and we should have taken to the streets to stop it. Instead Stop the War organised marches and peaceful demonstrations the government could easily ignore. And they did.

So the latest in the series of anti-war demos was a sad case of déjà-vu from the blinkered dinosaur. Not least because again Tariq Ali (and doubtless Tony Benn) again urged radical action and again we cheered.

Tariq Ali has the perfect anarchist hair-style, and it’s hard to get a bad picture of him. Nenn wasn’t looking at his best, but there were plenty of others to photograph, including those who had made their stand as soldiers (and a diplomat.) And some very bubbly school students.

Stop the War are also tough on the press, or at least tough on photographers. Most demonstrations welcome publicity, but they train stewards to get in the way. One colleague was physically prevented from taking pictures at one point in the march, I was obstructed and threatened quite unnecessarily by a couple of stewards, and all of us were generally ordered around and hassled.

More pictures of the march and rally on My London Diary.


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Stop Trident, Troops out of Iraq – 2007

Monday, February 24th, 2025

Stop Trident, Troops out of Iraq: On Saturday 24th February 2007 I photographed the march and rally organised by Stop The War, The Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament and The British Muslim Initiative to call for British troops to be brought back from Iraq and for an end to the deployment of Trident nuclear missiles and their proposed expensive replacement.

Stop Trident, Troops out of Iraq - 2007

The marchers met in Hyde Park around Speakers’ Corner and marched to a rally in Trafalgar Square.

Stop Trident, Troops out of Iraq - 2007

I wrote a slightly long text to go with the pictures which I’ll repeat in a more normal form below with normal capitalisation. It includes an explanation of how I arrived at an rough estimate for the numbers taking part for this and other protests – often very significantly greater than that then given by the police to the press and usually rather less than that of the organisers.

Stop Trident, Troops out of Iraq - 2007

Stop Trident, Troops out of Iraq – Stop the War/CND/BMI Demo

Stop Trident, Troops out of Iraq - 2007

I’ve for many years been opposed to the so-called independent British nuclear weapons. Even at the height of the Cold War they were never credible as an independent deterrent. If they have ever had any justification it was that they made the USA feel less guilty, although American guilt at its huge nuclear arsenal and at being the only country ever to have used nuclear weapons has always been an incredibly stunted growth.

Stop Trident, Troops out of Iraq - 2007

I was also firmly against the invasion of Iraq. It was always clear to those who didn’t want to be deluded that the so-called ‘intelligence’ on weapons of mass destruction was laughable.

A cheaper alternative to Trident, and at least as effective. The bicycle & trailer costs rather less than a nuclear sub too.

Blair was either a liar or a fool as he misled a minority of the British people and a majority of their MPs. Or most probably both. (Saddam may also have been deluded and certainly was an evil dictator, but we had long failed those who tried to oppose him.) The invasion was criminal, but the lack of planning for the occupation that inevitably followed even more so.

Tony Benn

So Saturday’s march, organised by Stop The War, The Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament and The British Muslim Initiative against both of these had my whole-hearted support (although i would have photographed it anyway.)

George Galloway beseiged by the Press

It is hard to be sure of numbers on events such as this, but the police estimate is laughable (the first figure they gave to the press, of 4000, was totally ludicrous.)

Blair and Bush on the march

It took around 90 minutes for the march to pass me in Park Lane, and although there were a few short gaps, there were plenty of times when the wide street was too crowded to really take pictures. My estimate of the average number of people passing me per minute is 200-600, giving a total of 18,000-50,000 marchers from Hyde Park.

A reminder of Guantanamo Bay

You can add to these figures perhaps another 10-20% who for various reasons go direct to the rally or join the march closer to Trafalgar Square, giving a total that could be between 20,000 and 60,000.

After photographing the marchers, I took the tube to get to the rally in time to hear some of the speeches (marchers were still arriving almost up to the end of the rally.) As I arrived, there were many people already leaving, and the square was filled, with people spilling out at both the northeast and northwest corners.

So where are the Weapons of Mass Destruction? In the American arsenals of course.

I wasn’t there in time to hear Ken Livingstone, MPs John Mcdonnell and John Trickett, MEPs Caroline Lucas and Jill Evans, playwright David Edgar, Paul Mackney of the University & College Union or some of the other speakers, but I did hear the co-chair of the US ‘United For Peace And Justice’ Judith Leblanc, Lindsey German, George Galloway, and Augusto Montiel, a Venezuelan MP, as well as several Muslim speakers, trade unionists and singers including Julie Felix. I didn’t catch all of their names.

Julie Felix

For me the most moving speech was from Rose Gentle, whose son Gordon was killed in Iraq. Together with others from ‘military families against the war’ she is camping out over the weekend opposite Downing Street.

Six of her colleagues stood with her as a group while she addressed the crowd, lending their support. She was simple, direct, emotional.

The final speaker (I think) was Jeremy Corbyn, MP, and it started to rain again as he began speaking, so I headed for the Underground and home.

Many – too many – more pictures on My London Diary.


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More from East Hull 1989

Monday, May 27th, 2024

More from East Hull: The final episode of my walk around East Hull in October 1989.

The Fish House, Holderness Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8p-65
The Fish House, Holderness Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8p-65

The Fish House I think sold decorative tropical fish to swim in your aquarium but I was mildly amused by the small house on the pavement in front of their sign. Certainly it was unsuitable for fish, but I couldn’t decide what it was for, perhaps a kennel for a Chihuahua. And further up on the house is a picture of dog of some sort.

Putting “the fish house holderness road hull” into Google brings up, apart from this picture, a large number of fish and chip shops and restaurants mainly around Hull. But I think the fish here would have generally been rather insubstantial as well as expensive to eat.

Bush, Opticians, 337 Holderness Road, Hull, 1989 89-8p-66
Bush, Opticians, 337, Holderness Road, Hull, 1989 89-8p-66

Bush are still there on the corner of Durham Street, though its frontage now looks rather different with a front extension across the whole of it. Though I’m sure this gives a better working space it has lost the character of the ground floor with its fort as the left, angular bay windows and glasses sign.

Bush, Opticians, 337 Holderness Road, Hull, 1989 89-8p-52
Bush, Opticians, 337 Holderness Road, Hull, 1989 89-8p-52

Another view of Bush Opticians. The Bush family have been prominent opticians in Hull for many years, with Herman Bush being one of Hull’s first opticians in the mid-19th century.

The sign jutting out from the shop has the date 1865, and there have been branches run by members of the family around Hull and in surrounding areas where five generations of the Bush family have been testing eyes and making spectacles in Hull. Though one of the Bush opticians websites states that, it seems now to be at least six generations, as the obituary of the most controversial of the fifth generation, the late Sydney Bush, includes a quote by his son who worked with him for over 30 years.

Country Butcher, Clip Joint, Newbridge Trophy Centre, 142-6, New Bridge Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8p-51
Country Butcher, Clip Joint, Newbridge Trophy Centre, 142-6, New Bridge Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8p-51

Hairdressers seem often to have punning titles like The Clip Joint, though the scissors taking the lower part of the T was a nice touch. The years have been tough for small shops, particularly those a little off the main streets, and The Country Butcher with its curiously altered bay windows is now residential.

The hairdresser went though several name changes and has now become a shop selling “Eco-friendly, Handmade Products” and the Newbridge Trophy Centre at 142 has become a pizza place.

Mo's Cafe, Great Union St, East Hull, 1989 89-8p-54
Mo’s Cafe, Great Union St, East Hull, 1989 89-8p-54

Mo’s Cafe in this picture was at the north end of Great Union St, at the rear of the Waterloo Hotel on the corner of Clarence Street. The buildings behind and at left were a part of the Rank Hovis mill site at Drypool Bridge and were demolished with the mill in 2015 for a hotel that was never built.

The sign on the window says Mo’s Cafe has moved to 18 Hedon Road, 2 minutes walk away.

River Hull, Drypool Bridge, Hull, 1989 89-8p-56
River Hull, Drypool Bridge, Hull, 1989 89-8p-56

My walk in East Hull was at an end and I took a final picture before going to the Old Town as a walked across Drypool Bridge. The wharf at left is part of the Rank Hovis Mill. There were still a few vessels moored in the River Hull in what was Hull’s first harbour, with some fine warehouses on the right bank converted to flats.

The next post from Hull will be the last of my pictures there in October 1989 – and after that I will return to posting more pictures of London.


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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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March for Peace and Liberty – 2005

Sunday, September 24th, 2023

March for Peace and Liberty – 2005 Eighteen years ago on Saturday 24th September around 50,000 of us were marching through London for peace and calling for the withdrawal of forces from Iraq.

March for Peace and Liberty

The protest, called by Stop the War Coalition, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) coincided with an even larger protest in Washington close to the White House.

March for Peace and Liberty

Organisers of the Washington protest claimed that around 300,000 took part, while US police said the half that number was “as good a guess as any.” Police estimates of the London march were, as usual more political than based on any reality, and their figure of 10,000 was laughably low.

March for Peace and Liberty

I had developed my own simple methods to assess numbers. For smaller protests I’d simply stop at a suitable point and count those passing. When numbers got a little larger I’d count in groups of roughly ten, larger still groups of hundreds. Though sometimes that hundred might only have been 80 or sometimes 125 the overall figure was probably within around ten percent of the actual total.

March for Peace and Liberty

But with really large protests such as this, well over the police figure of 10,000, any form of counting is too time-consuming and tedious. I’d often still try to get a rough figure by counting for a minute where I was taking photographs a few times as the protest went part, and then make a rough estimate using the time the whole protest took to pass me. Typically the answer this gave me was around half the number claimed by the march organisers and anything around four to ten times the figure release by the police and often quoted by news media.

It’s a little difficult to find the text I wrote about the protest on My London Diary in 2005 as there are no headings in the text column on the September page, with headings and images in a separate unlinked column to the right – later I improved the site design to unite text and pictures and provided a list of links to stories which remains at the top of the monthly pages. Back in 2005 you simply had to scroll down a long page, and while the headings and text were simple to find, many viewers never managed to find the of text, which ends with a little art criticism. So here it is, with a few minor corrections:

What a fine mess you’ve got us into” is probably the conclusion of most of the British people about Blair’s decision to join in with Bush’s Iraq invasion in 2003. Quite how many of them turned up on the 24th to march for a British pull-out is a matter of contention. Both police and organisers estimates – ten and a hundred thousand respectively – seem to me extremely unlikely.

So I was there with probably between twenty-five and fifty thousand people, walking across Parliament Square in front of the Houses of Parliament, despite it being a Saturday afternoon, with no business taking place inside, the ban on the use of amplification within a kilometre of parliament was still in force, so the event was a little quieter than usual. Some did choose to defy the ban and the police appeared not to notice.

Gate Gourmet supply in-flight meals for British Airways. It used to be a part of the company, but was separated out, then sold to American management. Rather like what is starting to happen in our National Health Service, and of course British Airways was also originally owned by the nation.

The company takes advantage of a largely Asian labour force living around the edge of the airport, paying them relatively low wages. The new management decided to cut labour costs even more by bringing in casual labour to do much of the work (while apparently employing more managers!) and when the employees held a meeting to protest, they were sacked.

Pressure from both BA and the union (TGWU) led to the company offering to take back some of the sacked workers, but not all, and the strike continues. Some of the strikers came to take part in the rally, to publicise their case as well as call for a withdrawal from Iraq.

Most of the usual people were there at the march, and I took their pictures again – and some are on the site. When the march started I hung around in Parliament Square to watch it go past before walking rather faster than the marchers up Whitehall.

By the time I’d reached Trafalgar Square and waited again for the end of the march to pass, my knee [I’d injured it earlier in the month] was beginning to ache and I didn’t feel up to walking to Hyde Park. I sat down and ate my sandwiches contemplating the new sculpture on the ‘fourth plinth’, ‘Alison Lapper Pregnant’ by Marc Quinn. This 15ft white marble shows Lapper, an artist born without arms, sitting naked and eight months pregnant, and will stay on the plinth until April 2007.

It is a striking piece of work and was obviously attracting a great deal of attention from the tourists in the square. I took my time sitting and looking at it while I was eating, and then walking round it from all sides (slightly impeded by the preparations for a juvenile TV show to be broadcast from the square the following day.) Lapper herself works with photographs of her body, and this statue is perhaps too like her black and white photographs, with a rather unpleasant surface, sometimes more soap than marble. I found myself thinking thank goodness for the pigeons who were perching on it and doubtless adding their contributions to it.

Its position up there on a plinth is not ideal. This is work that would be best seen from roughly the same level as its base. The other plinths in the square are occupied by men on horses, which raise their figures more suitably above the plinths. Perhaps when it leaves the square a more suitable display place can be found, but its present placing is a great for catalysing debate about disability. Of course another disabled figure dominates the square; Nelson has his back to her and does not need to call upon his blind eye not to see her.

Many more pictures on My London Diary


Freedom To Protest Under Threat

Wednesday, January 12th, 2022

Back in 2008, people were protesting against the severe restrictions against our freedom to protest, that had been brought in by the Labour government under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. As well as greatly widening the powers to arrest people and widening the scope of harassment, the act had criminalised trespass at certain protected sites and severely limited the holding of protests in a wide designated area of up to one kilometre from any point in Parliament Square.

CSG border post “To the left you have lost your freedom to protest

This latter provision was particularly aimed at Brian Haw and his Parliament Square Peace Campaign, but also prevented many other protests, and led to a number of arrests of campaigners. Parliament Square in particular had become the main focus of protests against the government and may government ministries were also inside the prohibited area.

There was wide disquiet about the effect of SOCPA on protest, and Prime Minister Gordon Brown had begun a public consultation with the Home Office on October 2007 issuing a document ‘Managing Protest’ which many felt threatened further threats to freedom of assembly throughout the UK.

The provisions regarding protests in the area around Parliament were replaced in 2011 by the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 which gave police more draconian powers to restrict certain prohibited activities in and around Parliament Square – and have been used to seize tents, umbrellas, tarpaulins, sleeping bags and other equipment in the area.

Brian Haw complains that a police officer pushed his camera into his face and caused this injury

The Freedom to Protest is under even greater threat now, with the current passage through Parliament of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill – which a select committee has said “would curb non-violent protest in a way that is inconsistent with our human rights” and has led to many ‘Kill the Bill’ protests. Also disturbing is the reaction of many Tory politicians to the jury verdict in the Colston statue trial, which apears to be threatening state control of our legal system.

On Saturday 12th January 2008, I covered protests in Trafalgar Square and in front of Downing St upholding the freedom to protest. Earlier I had covered Hizb ut Tahrir marching to the Saudi Embassy against Bush’s Middle East tour and a small group of rich young people outside the National Gallery on the last day of the Siena exhibition protesting against the expansion of Siena airport which would bring more less well-heeled tourists into the area.

Although I’m very much against any expansion of air travel – the planet simply can’t afford it, I found it hard to take this particular protest too seriously – it seemed to be rather more about protecting privilege than opposing environmental crime.

And while I had gone to Downing St mainly for the Freedom to Protest demonstration, while there I photographed another protest calling on an end to the Israeli government’s siege of Gaza. This included a number of British Jews, including those calling for a boycott of Israeli goods.

Also present opposite Downing St were another large group of Kenyans, protesting against the re-election of the incumbent President Mwai Kibaki. A US commissioned exit poll suggested opposition leader Raila Odinga had won by a 6% margin and there was widespread international agreement that the election was rigged.

More on My London Diary:
Hizb ut Tahrir against Bush tour
Siena Airport Protest
CSG Border Post
Freedom to Protest – Downing St
End Gaza Seige
Kenyans Protest Election Fraud


Dirty Money Still Rules

Sunday, November 7th, 2021

Nine years ago on Wednesday 7th November 2012, the day that the election of Obama for a second term as President of the US was announced, the Campaign against Climate Change organised a series of protests in London urging him to stand up against the lobbying, dirty money and media lies funded by the Koch brothers and other fossil fuel companies.

Nine years later, after both the end of Obama’s presidency and four years of climate denier Trump, President Biden is still having problems in getting his plans to clean up the environment (and other policies) voted through because of opposition by a Senator who made a fortune from a coal brokerage business in which he owns more than a million dollars in shares and who receives more donations than any other senator from the coal, oil and gas industry.

Campaign Against Climate Change, March 2003

The Campaign against Climate Change was founded in 2001 as a response to President Bush’s rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, and I think I first photographed one of their marches back in March 2002 when they pushed a bed with Bush in bed with the Esso tiger from Esso’s UK HQ to Westminster. It was a long walk and the wheels fell off the bed as it came to Westminster Bridge, but in 2012, after a static protest at the HQ of giant US private company Koch International they chose sturdier wheels in the form of an open-top bus.

Koch Industries is the US’s largest private company and made its fortune through developing improved processes of oil refining, and this remains a major part of its widespread activities. It is owned by the Koch Brothers, who ‘have been a major source for funding disinformation on climate change and in instigating the wave of populist anti-science, anti-regulatory, right-wing extremism associated with the “Tea Party”.’

Both in the US and the UK, governments are hugely influenced by the lobbying of big business, with many politicians accepting large payouts for services rendered, as well as a large PR and lobbying industry aimed at law makers and the media. The truly shameful think about the current case of Owen Paterson is not that he was paid paid £100,000 and broke the rules, but that their are rules that exist which he claims to have kept within to allow such paid lobbying by MPs.

Phil Thornhill at the front of the bus

Although the bus didn’t lose its wheels, it was desperately cold as it went through London on a cold, wet and windy November evening, with Phil Thornhill of the CCC leaning over the top with a large megaphone informing the public about the reason for the protest. It was also extremely bumpy, which together with the low light made photography rather difficult, and most of the time I was too busy holding tight to the rail across the top of the seats to take pictures.

Finally after its journey through the rush-hour streets the bus arrived at the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square and we all alighted. At first police tried to push the protesters into a penned area in a dark corner of the square where it would be neither heard nor seen. The protesters sensibly refused and after some discussion were allowed to protest as usual in front of the locked front gates – protected outside by a thin line of police, and inside the tall fence by wandering armed officers.

Barach Obama with David Koch on the top of the bus

Protests such as this of course had no effect on Obama’s business-friendly administration, while Trump made climate denial core policy of his tweets. But these and other protests did raise awareness of the catastrophe the world is facing. Many of us had been aware of the coming crisis for many years – at least since the 1980s, though there were warnings from some scientists years earlier, but the wider public, often misinformed by the media was largely ignorant.

Without protests such as this around the world, it seems unlikely that their would have been an agreement reached at COP 21 in Paris in 2015, and since then, helped by the publicity given to Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough, not to mention various extreme climate events around the world, there is now a wide consensus that something needs to be done, and done urgently. But thanks to the huge continued efforts of big business in fossil fuels the politicians are still locked into doing too little too late.

More pictures: Stop Fossil Fuel Dirty Money takeover of US.