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Class War’s Lambeth Walk & More London – 2018

Class War’s Lambeth Walk & More London: On Saturday 24th February 2018 Class War celebrated their win in the High Court against the Qatari royal family over their right to protest outside the Shard, where ten £50 million apartments remain empty. I took the opportunity to take a few pictures around the 13 acres of London around the then City Hall, now private land owned by the State of Kuwait, the inappropriately named More London.

Class War’s Lambeth Walk for housing

Southwark

Class War's Lambeth Walk & More London - 2018

Class War and friends met at Potters Fields next to City Hall and facing Tower Bridge, for a protest celebrating their court victory and a part of their ongoing campaign for more social housing to meet the needs of the people of London.

London councils have huge waiting lists for homes, private rents are hugely expensive and house prices out of the reach of those even in many professional jobs let alone most working people.

But increasingly London councils – particularly in boroughs including Southwark, Lambeth and Newham but across the city are carrying out schemes with private devlopers to demolish council estates – such as the Heygate and Aylesbury estates in Southwark and replace these with expensive private developments with token amounts of affordable properties – which at up to 80% of market cost – are not affordable to the mass of London’s population.

Many properties on these new developments are sold across the world to private investors, many even before they are built, advertised and strongly promoted particularly in the Far East. The rapid increases in London property prices makes them a highly profitable investment. Many of these investment properties are left empty, or perhaps visited for a few weeks a year.

London desperately needs more housing, but not empty boxes. As the speakers at the rally in front of City Hall pointed out, what it needs is social housing that Londoners can afford.

The campaigners called for the thousands of empty buildings in London – and across the country – including those empty £50 million flats in the Shard – to be taken over and used to house the homeless.

’10 Floats at £50 Million each sit empty in The Shard. 26,000 flats over £1 Million each about to be built in London … while thousands are sleeping on the streets – NO MORE HOMES FOR THE RICH – Class War’

Class War had brought their ‘Lucy Parsons’ banner with the message from the famous American anarchist “We must devastate the avenues where the wealthy live“, but they were instead calling for them to be used to house the poor. Among those who joined them were the the RCG – Revolutionary Communist Group – with their banner banner with its message ‘HOUSING IS A RIGHT – NOT A PRIVILEGE‘.

Among the speakers was Whitechapel anarchist Martin Wright who pointed out that the coming cold snap next week will probably be “another Grenfell“, likely to kill at least 80 people of the thousands who are sleeping on the streets.

The protesters had intended to dance the Lambeth Walk from the rally at City Hall to another at the Shard, led by ukuleles, but only one ukulele player turned up and so they simply marched with banners.

Because of the cold, the rally opposite the Shard was a short one and ended with Class War amusing themselves by mounting a mock charge on the offices of Murdoch’s News UK, publishers of The Times and The Sun, pulling up sharply just in front of the row of security staff on its steps.

More pictures at Class War’s Lambeth Walk for housing.

More London?

Southwark

Property developers named the large area once occupied by warehouses and wharves a few yards upstream from Tower Bridge on the Southwark bank of the river ‘More London‘ although the site is owned by Kuwait and the public is allowed to use it, but under some restrictions they set down – as our royals do for London’s Royal Parks.

Their large real estate interests in London are run by the English sounding St Martins Property Group – it was founded in 1924 as the St Martins-Le-Grand Property Company Limited but is now wholly owned by the Kuwait sovereign wealth fund, Future Generations Fund.

Among their rules are bans on photography and protests. But with thousands or tourists walking its open pathways the photography ban is seldom enforced, though should you look too commercial you are likely to be approached by security personnel who will tell you to stop.

And while they have prevented some protests from taking place and have imposed restrictions on others, protests such as the one on this day by Class War have continued.

*At least Tower Bridge is still owned by the City of London*

City Hall, in More London was leased from the Kuwaitis from 2002-2021 as the former home of London government, County Hall at Westminster, had been stolen from it by the Thatcher government back in the ’80s. I wrote that I found it shameful that London did not own its own seat of government, and at least the move to The Crystal in the Royal Docks has put that right, unsuitably remote though it is.

But in 2018 I commented “Also shameful that many if not most of the government buildings in Whitehall now have overseas owners, some of them by UK tax dodgers in overseas tax havens. ‘Taking our country back’ from the EU will certainly have little effect at restoring Britain to British ownership.”

More pictures at More London.

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Focus E15 Mums at City Hall

More London

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.

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.

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.

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Global Divestment, Guantanamo & Venus – 2015

Global Divestment, Guantanamo & Venus: Saturday 14th February 2015 was Global Divestment Day, designed by the UN to “to draw attention to the importance of divesting from fossil fuels, which are the main cause of global warming.” But of course it was also St Valentine’s Day, and two events reflected this.

‘Bad Boy Borises’ in Global Divestment Day

London City Hall

Global Divestment, Guantanamo & Venus - 2015 — *One of the Boris bloc at the rally in front of City Hall and Tower Bridge*

The protest at London City Hall, then at More London close to Tower Bridge, called on the Mayor and London Assembly to end their pension fund investments in climate wrecking fossil fuels and lead a fossil-free London.

The event began with a nightmare vision as multiple Mayor Borises arrived, revelling in dirty fuel. They were greeted by a choir singing songs specially written for the occasion and fed with some disgusting looking things supposed to be dirty fuel.

After several speeches the protesters split up around 3 metre tall letters which they eventually lifted up to spell out the word ‘DIVEST’.

They called for an end to investment in fossil fuels which are causing catastrophic climate change.

Two dressed as bishops called on the Church of England to get its act together and take its investments out of fossil fuels. Many churches have already divested, and campaigners were pressing others including the Church of England to do so.

More pictures at ‘BadBoy Borises’ in Global Divestment Day.

Valentine Day – 13 years for Shaker Aamer

Westminster

*A person in an Obama mask has a message for the President, ‘Free Shaker – Yes YOU Can’*

A march from Parliament Square to a rally opposite Downing Street called for the urgent release of London resident Shaker Aamer from Guantanamo, where he arrived has been held and regularly abused for 13 years without charge or trial.

Aamer had been in Afghanistan helping to build a school for an Islamic charity when he was captured by an Afghan militia and sold to US forces for a £5,000 reward. After the US and tortured him, aided by MI5, in Bagram Air Base they illegally rendered him to Guantanamo, on Feb 14, 2002.

*Joy Hurcome holds a Valentine for David Cameron asking him to ‘Show your Love – Free Shaker Aamer’*

There his torture continued – and he was lucky to escape death in 2006 when he was one of four prisoners taken to a special secret interrogation site – and the only one to survive the ordeal.

*Bruce Kent – and a large inflatable Shaker Aamer*

Aamer has permanent resident status in the UK and his British wife and family were living in Battersea, but it was not until 2007 that the UK government began to request his release. And despite doing so, the government also spent over a quarter of a million pounds in legal fees to prevent his legal team gaining access to evidence which might prove his innocence.

The years of torture of him and others at the hands of the US military have failed to come up with any evidence against him, and he was twice cleared for release in 2007 and 2009 – but only if he went to his native Saudi Arabia where he would almost certainly disappear without trace. Both UK and US intelligence agencies are thought to have prevented his release to the UK as the evidence he would give about their use of torture would be highly embarrassing.

*Aisha Maniar, London Guantánamo Campaign organiser*

The protest was the start of a new ‘We Stand With Shaker’ campaign bringing together groups including the Free Shaker Aamer Campaign, the London Guantánamo Campaign, Amnesty International and others. Among the long list of speakers at the rally were Joy Hurcombe of the Free Shaker Aamer Campaign, writer Victoria Brittain, Lindsey German of Stop the War, veteran peace campaigner Bruce Kent of CND, Katie Taylor from Reprieve, Yvonne Ridley, Aisha Maniar from the London Guantánamo Campaign, campaigner Andy Worthington and Joanne MacInnes of We Stand With Shaker.

More at Valentine Day – 13 years for Shaker Aamer.

Venus CuMara Reclaim Love 13 at Eros

Piccadilly Circus

*People in the Reclaim Love Meditation Circle in Piccadilly Circys lift up their arms and chant the mantra*

Venus CuMara’s 13th Reclaim Love Valentine Party at Eros in Piccadilly Circus included bands, dancing and a “Massive Healing Reclaim Love Meditation Circle beaming Love and Happiness and our Vision for world peace out into the cosmos“.

As usual there was a great atmosphere as people came together to share in love and party together in opposition the the huge commercialisation of Valentine’s Day and indeed of love itself. It is nothing to do with money, just about people.

Venus speaks to everyone and tells them to form the Massive Healing Reclaim Love Meditation Circle…

beaming Love and Happiness and our Vision for world peace out into the cosmos and together they chant the mantra: “May All The Beings In All The Worlds Be Happy & At Peace“

After which the music and dancing continued, along with hugging and other activities, and was still continuing when I left for home.

More pictures at Venus CuMara Reclaim Love 13 at Eros.

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Hardest Hit, Biofuels, Tibet and OccupyLSX – 2011

Hardest Hit, Biofuels, Tibet and OccupyLSX: Saturday 22 October 2011 began for me with a protest at City Hall (still then in Southwark close to Tower Bridge) Next in Whitehall I photographed a protest against the pollution, environmental damage and human rights abuses of burning forests produce energy. Also on Whitehall I met Tibetans and supporters marching from the Chines Embassy to Downing Street demanding an end to China’s increasing repression in Tibet. Finally I went to St Paul’s Churchyard for a brief visit to Occupy London a week after their camp there had begun.

Hardest Hit Protest At City Hall

City Hall, More London

Hardest Hit, Biofuels, Tibet and OccupyLSX

The Hardest Hit campaign, organised jointly by the Disability Benefits Consortium and the UK Disabled People’s Council were holding a rally outside City Hall as a part of protests in cities and towns across the country calling on the government to stop the cuts in benefits and services and changes in the assessment of disabilities which have hugely affected their lives.

Of course the Mayor of London was not responsible for the cuts, and I assume this was just a convenient location he had made available for the protest. Of course many services provided by local government had been cut as a result of the government funding cuts. And as usual the government claimed to be concerned with the plight of the disabled and to be trying to help them while at the same time making cuts that really hurt them.

The protest took place in the Scoop, an outdoor sunken amphitheatre next to City Hall, part of the More London development, an events space which can seat around a thousand and it looked a little empty though there were many disabled protesters, some with carers and supporters.

More at Hardest Hit Protest At City Hall.

Environmentalists Protest Against Biofuels

DECC, Whitehall Place

*Protesters against Barton Renewable Energy in Davyhulme, Manchester*

People had come from across the country to protest at continued government support for biofuel energy production despite it now being clear that this is contibuting to climate change, causes deforestation and the loss of valuable forest land, results in a loss of food production and threatens human rights in many areas.

Biofuels were once seen as a green alternative which would help us reduce global warming, but it is now clear that are worse polluters than coal or oil. Despite this, they still receive huge payouts from funding meant to encourage renewable energy sources. The huge wood-burning plant at Drax in Yorkshire in 2024 received £869 million in public subsidies – over £2 million a day for polluting the planet.

At last in February 2025 the UK government has announced a cut in the subsidies for Drax, and the winding down of using imported wood pellets for energy generation. But even when this comes into force in 2027 Drax will still be getting £1.2 million a day. Drax will cut its power production to around half its current level and further reductions are expected from then.

More at Environmentalists Protest Against Biofuels.

Tibetans March Against Chinese Repression

Whitehall

Several hundred Tibetans and supporters marched from the Chinese Embassy to Downing Street in a protest over China’s increasing repression in Tibet, where in March 2011 eight young monks and a nun had set themselves on fire in desperate protests. Five had died.

Protests around the world like this one aimed to get the international community to end their silence over the Chinese abuses of human and civil rights in Tibet. It was supported by the Tibet Society, Free Tibet, Students for a Free Tibet, Tibetan Youth UK and the Tibetan Community in Britain.

The held a rally opposite Downing Street and delivered a letter to the Prime Minister calling for the UK Government to take action.

There was to be a world-wide day of action on Wednesday 2 Novemeber, the to call for action from international governments the day before world leaders meet in Nice, France for the G20 Summit.

More pictures Tibetans March Against Chinese Repression.

OccupyLSX Continues At St Paul’s

St Paul’s Cathedral

A week earlier on 15th October 2011 I had been at the protest when around 2000 Occupy protesters had tried to protest outside the Stock Exchange but were prevented by police. They had returned to the steps of St Paul’s and held a general meeting. Police kettled the protesters (and me) there, but I left when a group of them forced their way through the police line. Those that were still kettled decided to stay and occupy the area after police told them they should leave. A week later they were still there and I went back to see what was happening.

There was a full program of events for the day, and a general meeting was taking place with Selma James speaking.

*A mother and daughter concerned about privatisation of the NHS at OccupyLSX*

As I said “the organisation of the camp is impressive, although clearly there are some people around who don’t respect the camp’s ‘no alcohol’ rule. But like the previous camps in central London, the camp attracts a number of the rough sleepers and odd characters who normally wander the streets of our city. It’s a useful service for people who are normally neglected, but does bring some problems.”

More at OccupyLSX Continues At St Paul’s.

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Just Shares, Riverside & No to the Crook, the Toff, The Fascist or Cop 2008

Just Shares, Riverside & No to the Crook, the Toff, The Fascist or Cop: Friday 2nd May 2008 was the day the results came out for the election for London Mayor and it turned out to be a sad day for London. Earlier I’d covered a protest calling on the City of London to move away from its unjust economic prcarices and then gone to an exhibition and walked along the riverside while I waited for the mayoral declaration, though it came after I had given up and left for home

Just Shares Take On The Bank – Royal Exchange, Bank

‘Just Share’, “a coalition of churches and development agencies seeking to engage with the City of London on issues of global economic injustice” and to “address the widening gap between rich and poor in the global economy” based at St Mary-le-Bow church in Cheapside had organised a protest in the heart of the City, in front of the Royal Exchange and at the side of the Bank of England.

I don’t think anyone at the Bank was listening to Ann Pettifor, Guardian economist Larry Elliott or the others as they spoke on the steps of the Royal Exchange, or took seriously the seminar later by Pettifor in one of Hawksmoor’s finest churches, St Mary Woolnoth, where former slave captain John Newton, writer of ‘Amazing Grace‘, preached his last 28 years.

She argued that current global debt-based financial systems are unsustainable and that structural change is necessary which gives proper regard to actual production, and the rediscovery of the insights of earlier Christian (and of course Muslim) traditions.

more pictures

London Riverside – South Bank and Southwark

After visiting an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery on the South Bank next to Waterloo Bridge I walked slowly along the riverside and took a few pictures.

I was on my way to London’s City Hall, then close to Tower Bridge, owned by the government of Kuwait. In 2021 City Hall moved to a GLA-owned property in Newham, some miles to the east. The results of the London Mayoral Election were expected to be announced there in the early evening.

A few more pictures.

No to the Crook, the Toff, The Fascist or Cop -City Hall, Southwark

I sat on a wall close to City Hall reading John Updike’s novel ‘Terrorist’ which is perhaps why I attracted quite so much attention from a Metropolitan police FIT team (Forward Intelligence Team) photographer who took a number of photographs of me sitting there. I don’t object to being photographed, but was a little surprised when later I put in a Freedom of Information request to find the Met claimed they had no pictures of me, despite having photographed me working at many protests.

Protesters from various anarchist groups including Class War had come to City Hall to wait for the new London Mayor to be announced, though they were clear that they were against all the candidates – who they described as the Crook, the Toff, The Fascist and the Cop (there were six others also standing including Green Party candidate Sian Berry who got more votes than “the fascist” BNP candidate.

The protesters were allowed to protest in front of City Hall for around 35 minutes until Fitwatch went into action to frustrate the FIT teams (who could really use a little more intelligence) enclosing one of them in their banner.

Police called up their waiting reinforcements and the TSG arrived four minutles later and began to push the demonstrators, along with some bystanders, mainly tourists, towards the waiting pen which had been set up a short distance away.

One French woman was bemused. “But why are they just letting themselves be pushed” she asked me as I took photographs. “Because this is England and not France” I replied.

I watched as police told a man leaning peacefully on the river wall watching that he had to move as he was “obstructing the highway“. Clearly he wasn’t (though the police were) and he refused to move. They dragged him from the wall, claimed he was struggling (visibly he wasn’t), handcuffed him and led him away to one of the over 40 police vans parked nearby.

I showed my press card and for once was allowed through the police line obstructing the riverside path and made my way to a public balcony overlooking the area. “Cannier protesters had moved away faster, and were able to display their banner” for a couple of minutes but as I arrived they saw the police coming after them and made a run for a nearby pub.

“The police obviously couldn’t be bothered to chase them, and contented themselves with moving the innocent public away from the balcony, and after a short time, also moving the press.” I joined the protesters in the pub for a drink before leaving for home.

By the time I arrived home Boris Johnson (the Toff) had been announced as the winner and London suffered from a dysfunctional mayor for the next 8 years as he was again elected in 2012. Later those the police had penned were allowed to go home.

Many more pictures.

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Overground, Olympics and a Christmas Card – 2007

Overground, Olympics and a Christmas Card: Like most of my posts on My London Diary before a redesign of the site in 2008, my contributions for Thursday 13th December 2007 are a little difficult to read and navigate, with the text separated from the pictures. But at least by then I had discovered the capital letters when I was writing about my activities. So I’ll repost them again after the introduction here.

On 13th December 2007 I began with a morning protest by the RMT union over the privatisation of the East London Line, previously run by London Transport. They wanted the line to remain run, like the Underground run by a publicly owned body – the Underground is run by London Underground Limited (LUL), a statutory corporation wholly owned by Transport for London (TfL).

Although TfL is still responsible for the Overground it is was until recently run by Arriva Rail London which was owned by the German national rail company Deutsche Bahn from 2010 until June 2024. It was then sold to I Squared Capital, a US-based private equity firm with global investments mainly in infrastructure. The Elizabeth line is run by a subsidiary of MTR Corporation, largely owned by the Hong Kong government.

Both Overground and the Elizabeth line have been considerable improvements to transport across London, but we can still question whether it makes sense to have so much of our infrastructure run by foreign companies – and so much land and buildings becoming owned by overseas investors.

The RMT protest ended shortly before noon and in the afternoon I walked from Stratford High Street to Hackney Wick past the Olympic area around Stratford Marsh.

RMT Protests East London Line Privatisation – City Hall, Southwark

Overground, Olympics and a Christmas Card

Improving our transport system in London should be good news, although the closure of the East London Line for almost three years from 22 Dec seems excessive (and of course the Shoreditch end has already been closed for some time.

Looked at on the map, the new overground routes, from Dalston (and later, Highbury and Islington) down to Crystal Palace and West Croydon (and perhaps eventually also to Clapham Junction) seem mainly a matter of connecting together existing routes, and adding a couple of new stations at Hoxton and Haggerston.

But what upsets the unions – and almost three-quarters of Londoners – is that when the line reopens after great public expense, it will have been privatised, paying profits to eight different companies for various aspects of its running – including some involved in the Metronet failure.

Part of those profits will come from paying staff less – and worse working conditions. The unions are also worried about possible safety problems as the signalling on the route will be shared between London Underground and Network Rail systems.

A hundred or so demonstrators from the RMT union, Respect and others marched around City Hall several times, led by a coffin for the line carried by ‘undertakers’ to represent the private contractors and a tuneful 3 piece jazz band, before a short rally.

And although there are various replacement bus services during the years of closure, these leave a gap at the most essential part of the current route – across the Thames between Wapping and Rotherhithe. It is apparently beyond the wit of Transport for London to find buses that can use the Rotherhithe tunnel – or even provide a ferry service (the ferry downriver at Canary Wharf takes 3 minutes, but costs £1.90 if you have a travel card or over £500 for an annual season.)

Unless you bring your own canoe, the quickest alternative is probably to swim, though swallowing the water might be fatal. On the tube it takes one minute; the alternatives the TfL web site suggests on a weekday are mainly around an hour. Surely not acceptable.

More pictures at RMT Protests East London Line Privatisation

Stratford Marsh – Hackney Wick (2012 Olympic Site)

*My shadow falls on one of the few remaining buildings on Marshgate Lane*

The ‘Greenway’ path on the top of London’s Northern Outfall Sewer reopened recently after a temporary closure during the nearby demolition works, and as it was a fine day I took a walk along it from Stratford to Hackney Wick.

Almost all of the buildings on the Olympic site have gone, with just occasional bits of wall or outbuildings left, and there are some pretty huge piles of earth or whatever. Gone too are most of the many trees, particularly the willows by Marshgate Lane and all the wild areas – as well as the tyre mountains and other car parts.

*Northern Outfall carrying London’s sewage over the Lea Navigation*

The light under the Northern outfall where it crosses the navigation was interesting, low sun bouncing up from the water and giving the structure a golden glow.

I went on over the lock at Old Ford to ‘Fish Island’ and then through the red circle footbridge to Hackney Wick, taking a few pictures from the station footbridge while waiting for the train back to Stratford. The line also gives some views of the vast building site.

Many more pictures at Stratford Marsh – Hackney Wick (Olympic Site).

My London Diary – Christmas Card – Tower Bridge

For once I’ve printed and sent my Christmas cards before the last date for posting, which is a pity, because if I’d waited I think the picture of two Santas at the Christmas Fair next to Tower Bridge [taken while waiting for the RMT protest to begin] would have made a good image. I think it’s the third figure in red at left of picture that really makes it work.

So this picture comes with my Christmas Greetings for all of you who visit the site.

I think I used this picture on my 2008 Christmas Card. I’m still trying to find a suitable picture for 2024.

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Southwark Housing, Bermondsey & Rembrandt – 2014

Southwark Housing, Bermondsey & Rembrandt: On Thursday October 16th 2014 I photographed a march from the Elephant to Southwark Council Offices over the borough’s housing scandals, took some time off in Bermondsey to take some panoramic images and then covered a protest at the National Gallery against sponsorship of art exhibitions by companies such as Shell, G4S, BP and Serco.

Compulsory Purchase Orders for Southwark Councillors

Housing campaigners from Southwark marched from the Elephant and Council to Southwark Council Offices to serve ‘People’s Compulsory Purchase Orders‘ on the homes of the Council leader and other councillors who they say have accepted gifts from developers to sell off council estates at knockdown prices.

The shameful demolition of over 1200 homes in and close to the well-designed and largely popular Heygate estate has cost the borough dearly, with the costs to the council of ‘decanting’ the residents exceeding the knock-down price it charged the developers.

Of course the estate residents suffered more, losing their homes and being forced to move further out into the suburbs. Leaseholders were only offered roughly half the true market value of property in the area.

The demolition and redevelopment has meant the loss of over a thousand social homes, and the new properties on the site had already been advertised to overseas buyers in Singapore and elsewhere as second homes, investment properties, homes for wealthy overseas students studying here, buy-to-let etc. There are just a few so-called affordable units at 80% of market rates, still well above what most Londoners can actually afford.

The protesters met at the base of the Strata Tower, an ugly development of largely luxury flats with three wind turbines built into its roof for show – unable to produce electricity as when running they produce excessive vibration in flats at the top of the building. Facing them ‘One The Elephant‘ was going up, a 44 storey block of luxury flats with no social housing, and is being sold abroad, with ‘studio flats’ starting at around £320,000 or 640,000 Singapore dollars.

Southwark campaigners were joined by members of the Focus E15 ‘Housing for All campaign’ and their first stop for a brief protest was the Elephant Park Sales Office on the Walworth Rd. They then walked through several council estates to the north of the New Kent Road which are also attractive targets for developers who can make huge profits by demolishing them and building high price flats at much higher densities.

They continued through other council estates in the area to London Bridge Station and on to the council offices in Tooley Street, where they were stopped by security from entering the Council offices. Police were called and after much argument two of the campaigners who were Southwark residents were allowed in and waited to present letters containing ‘People’s Compulsory Purchase Orders’ for their homes to council leader Peter John and two other councillors.

They asked at reception to see the councillors and were told to take a seat and wait. They waited and waited. Eventually someone from the council came to tell them that all three named councillors were unavailable but took their letters promising to hand them over personally to them.

More at CPOs for Southwark Councillors.

Bermondsey Thames Panoramas – City Hall to Angel Wharf

I had some time before my next protest and took a short walk by the River Thames,

beginning in Potters Fields where ‘One Tower Bridge’ was going up close to City Hall.

Past Tower Bridge I took a short walk on the foreshore in front of Butler’s Wharf before continuing along Shad Thames and across the footbridge over St Saviour’s Creek.

I continued along the Thames Path past the moorings, and got as far as Angel Wharf before I realised I needed to catch a bus to get me back to Trafalgar Sqaure in time for my next event.

More pictures Bermondsey Thames Panoramas

Art Not Oil Rembrandt Against Shell – National Gallery

The Art Not Oil coalition had gate-crashed the press launch of the National Gallery’s Rembrandt exhibition to give a brief performance protesting against oil sponsorship of the arts and privatisation of gallery staffing.

On the evening of 16th October they met on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields before marching the few yards to give a repeat performance outside the gallery which was then holding a gala evening for special guests and highly ranked staff.

The National Gallery was making plans to privatise up to two thirds of the gallery staff and this exhibition was being guarded by a private security firm rather than the gallery’s own staff.

Art Not Oil held banners and placards and handed out flyers agains the sponsorship by Shell stating:

"The presence of unethical sponsors like Shell and the contracting of external security firms shows the growing influence the private sector is having over our arts and culture. With its meagre contribution to the gallery, Shell is buying social legitimacy for its dodgy deeds worldwide, including:

- its failure to clean up its multiple spills in the Niger Delta
- its reckless plans to drill in the Arctic for yet more oil
- its tar sands projects in Canada that are undermining Indigenous people's rights"

They sang a number of specially written songs and performed the short playlet they had previously given inside the gallery during the press launch.

More at Art Not Oil Rembrandt Against Shell.

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March For Homes – 2015

March For Homes: St Leonard’s Church to City Hall

Defend Council Housing, South London People’s Assembly and Unite Housing Workers Branch had called for a march to draw attention to the crisis in housing, particularly in London where council housing lists are huge and many councils are failing to meet their legal requirements to rehouse homeless families.

These requirements generally do not extend to single homeless people and in London alone over 6,500 people had slept rough at some time in the previous year with around one in twelve of 16-24 year-olds having been homeless at some point. Government figures comprehensively and deliberately underestimate the numbers.

It isn’t really a housing crisis, but a crisis of affordable housing. There are more than enough empty properties to house the homeless, but those who need housing are unable to afford the high rents or house prices being asked.

There has been a huge surge in building high-rise properties in London, with whole areas like Battersea and Nine Elms as well as elsewhere across inner and outer London being increasingly filled with them, but almost all are high-price properties, many sold overseas before the buildings are completed not as homes but as investments. Others are low specification student housing and also do nothing for the housing crisis.

What is needed is a crash programme of housing at social rents for family units of all sizes. Developers have become adept at evading what laws there are about providing social housing in new developments, fiddling the books to claim they cannot make sufficient profits which ridiculously lets them off the hook.

Much of the UK problems over housing go back to the Thatcher administration which both sold off council housing piecemeal under ‘right to buy’ but also stopped councils replacing what they had lost.

In earlier years both Tory and Labour councils had built generally high quality low cost housing though of course there were some examples of poor planning (often when councils were forced to cut costs) and shoddy work as well as unfortunate government encouragement of high-rise system building, which many of us were campaigning against in the 60’s and 70s.

But perhaps even more importantly under Tory administrations council housing became something just for what they regarded as ‘feckless’ and the ‘dregs of society’, those unable to fend for themselves. We got this ridiculous concept of the ‘housing ladder’ and very much it is a ladder that expresses “pull up the ladder, Jack. We’re alright“.

Municipal housing can provide housing for all at low cost and provided a rational approaching to providing decent housing for all, getting away from the poor conditions and high cost of private rented housing at much lower cost than owner occupation.

The March for Homes on Saturday 31st January was actually two marches, one from the Elephant in South London and the other from East London which I photographed at Shoreditch, calling for more social housing and an end to estate demolition and evictions. On My London Diary at March for Homes: Shoreditch Rally I published a very long list of some of the various groups which supported the march, as well as some of the speakers at the rally there. Eventually the march set off on its way towards City Hall, making its way towards Tower Bridge.

Class War left the march briefly to protest as it went past One Commercial St, where they had been holding a long series of weekly ‘Poor Doors’ protests against the separate door down a side alley for the social housing tenants in the block. They had briefly suspended the protests a few weeks early when new owner for the building had offered talks about the situation, but these had broken down.

Approaching the Tower of London the protest was joined by Russell Brand riding a bicycle. He had earlier lent support to a number of housing campaigns by residents in estates threatened by evictions.

By the time the march was going across Tower Bridge Class War had rejoined it, and their banners were in the lead.

The march was met on the other side of Tower Bridge by the South London March for Homes, a similar sized protest called by Defend Council Housing and South London People’s Assembly which had started at the Elephant, marching past the former Heygate Estate. The two marches merged to walk on to Potters Fields for the rally outside City Hall.

We had been marching most of the day in light rain, and this got rather heavier for the rally outside City Hall. Together with a large crowd being jammed into a fairly small space it made photography of the rally difficult.

While the rally was still continuing some of the protesters began to leave Potters Fields to protest more actively, led by Class War and other anarchit groups and accompanied by the samba band Rhythms of Revolution.

They moved onto Tooley Street and blocked it for a few minutes, then decided to move off, with police reinforcements who had arrived than taking over their role of blocking the road as the protesters moved off eastwards.

I watched them go, and later heard that after a brief protest at One Tower Bridge, a new development mainly for the over-rich next to Tower Bridge they had taken a long walk to join occupiers on Southwark’s Aylesbury Estate.

But I was cold, wet and tired, and my cameras too, having been exposed to the weather for several hours were becoming temperamental and I waited for a bus to start my journey home.

Much more on My London Diary:
March for Homes: After the Rally
March for Homes: City Hall Rally
March for Homes: Poor Doors
March for Homes: Shoreditch to City Hall
March for Homes: Shoreditch Rally

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Murdoch, Tower Bridge and Poor Doors

I came up to London on the afternoon of Thursday 26th March 2015 and began my work by going to News International opposite the main entrance to London Bridge Station where te week of Occupy Rupert Murdoch was on its fourth day. Not much was happening there, so after taking a few pictures I went for a short walk to Tower Bridge and back. Things were only just beginning to start for an evening of events there when I needed to leave and cross the river for another weekly protest by Class War at One Commercial Street.

Occupy Rupert Murdoch – News International, London Bridge

I’d been at News International three days earlier on Monday 23 March 2015 when campaigners against the scandal of the UK’s media monopoly, with 5 billionaires owning 80% of the media, had marched there the short distance from London Bridge to present an arrest warrant for Rupert Murdoch, charging him with for war crimes, phone hacking, political blackmail, tax avoidance and environmental destruction.

Someone from News International had come and taken the warrant, and the campaigners had then set up camp on the pavement outside for a week of activities, Occupy Rupert Murdoch Week. I’d been busy for a few days and this was my first opportunity to return and see what was happening.

The answer when I arrived late on Thursday afternoon was not very much, though the camp and some of its supporters were still there, and still putting up posters and telling people going into London Bridge Station opposite the camp why they were protesting.

I went for a short walk along the riverside to Tower Bridge and came back later when more people were beginning to arrive for the evening session. But unfortunately I needed to leave to walk across the river and join Class War in Aldgate before things really got going.

Occupy Rupert Murdoch

Around Tower Bridge

I’d thought that Tower Bridge was probably the most photographed building in London but a survey of Instagram tags in 2022 showed that Big Ben had inched ahead with 3.2 million posts to Tower Bridge’s 2.6 million.

I don’t often feel a great need to add to the number of pictures of London’s most famous bridge, which I think I first photographed 50 years ago, though I’d gone under it on a school trip almost 20 years earlier, back before primary children had cameras. Most of the pictures which I’ve taken including it in the last 25 or so years have a group of protesters outside nearby City Hall in the foreground.

London’s City Hall is now no longer within sight of Tower Bridge, hidden out beside the ROyal Victoria Dock in Canning Town, though it was still in its rented home, bought back by the Kuwaiti state a couple of years earlier. Tower Bridge is still owned by Bridge House Estates, a charity set up in 1282, its only trustee THE MAYOR AND COMMONALTY AND CITIZENS OF THE CITY OF LONDON.

But mostly my attention was on the north bank of the river now rather dominated by a cluster of ugly and idiosyncratic towers in the centre of the City of London, until close to Tower Bridge where the Tower of London, actually outside the City in Tower Hamlets, still stands out despite its relatively low height.

Around Tower Bridge

A Quiet Night at Poor Doors – One Commercial St, Aldgate.

Eight months earlier in July 2014 Class War had started a series of weekly protest outside the massive largely residential block of One Commercial Street on the corner of that street and Whitechapel High St. The block includes flats for both private owners and a smaller number of socially rented flats, with the two groups having separate entrances.

The ‘rich door’ is on the main road, next to the Underground station entrance, while the ‘poor door’ is down a side alley. When the protests began the alley was dark, with dumped rubbish and a strong and persistent smell of urine, but one positive result of the protests has been that the alley has been cleaned up and new lighting installed.

As the protesters were getting ready at the rich door, I went after Ian Bone of Class down the alley to look at the poor door. We returned to the front of the building and the rich door, followed by two police officers who had come to watch us.

It was good to see again among the banners the ‘Epiphany’ banner based on the Fifth Monarchists who led a short-lived rebellion in London which began on 6th January 1660. Class War had taken part in the filming of a re-enactment of this event in 2013.

It began as a fairly quiet protest with speeches and some chanting, and at some point a yellow smoke flare rolled across the pavement.

There was a small confrontation when one resident entering the rich door pushed rather roughly past the protesters, but very few came in or out of the rich door. The ground floor also includes shops and a hotel, and I think residents could probably use the hotel entrance. We had also found that they were able to exit via the ‘poor door’.

At the end of the protest some of the protesters who had brought a Hello! magazine Queen’s Diamond Jubilee flag attempted to burn it. But this turned out to be difficult and it melted a bit but didn’t catch fire. Some then when down the alley to look at the poor door before everyone left.

More pictures on My London Diary at Quiet Night at Poor Doors.

Firefighters and Nurses – 2015

Key Workers were protesting in London on Wednesday 2nd December 2015, but their protests were ignored by government and then Tory Mayor of London Boris Johnson. Since then we have seen that the warnings of the protesters were real and the consequences of Tory policies have led to disaster. It’s a failure of our system of government that allows dogmatism and class interests to pursue such irresponsible policies at both local and national level, and one hugely facilitated by a media largely controlled by a handful of billionaires.

Firefighters say cuts endanger London – City Hall, Wednesday 2nd December 2015

Firefighters and supporters protested at City Hall against plans to get rid of 13 fire engines and slash 184 firefighters in the London Fire Brigade. These came on top of previous cuts and station closures which have already led to increases in the time taken for firefighters to arrive at fires which have lead to people who would otherwise have been rescued dying in fires.

Trade unionists and others came to support the firefighters and some spoke at the rally along with speakers from the FBU. It took only a little persuasion to get George Galloway to speak. Members of the London Assembly had put forward an alternative plan to make savings and avoid the loss of the fire engines but these were dismissed by London Mayor Boris Johnson.

One of the consequences of the cuts to London’s fire services came sadly and disastrously with the loss of 72 lives at Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017. We found then that London simply didn’t have a single fire engine capable of dealing with a fire in the upper floors of the building. Fortunately Surrey, although it has far fewer high rise buildings had kept one which could be called in to help, or the death toll would have been even higher.

Firefighters say cuts endanger London

Save NHS Student Bursaries – Dept of Health, Whitehall, Wednesday 2nd December 2015

George Osborne had decided to scrap NHS student bursaries from 2017. Nurses and other healthcare students have to spend around 50% or their time working in hospitals for the NHS during training and so are largely unable to take on part-time work as many other students do. They only payment they get for this work is through the bursaries.

It seems totally unfair to ask them to take out student loans and work for the NHS for nothing as well. And since many of the jobs they go into are not particularly well-paid, it makes little financial sense as many would probably never fully repay their loans.

*Always plenty of money for our arms manufacturers*

But what nurses said it would do was to lead to a reduction of students applying for healthcare courses, particularly the many single mothers and more matures students who are enabled to take the courses by the bursaries. And to take this action at a time when there was a critical shortage of medical staff was sheer lunacy.

Of course they were right. The situation in the NHS is even worse now partly due to this axing of bursaries. Of course there are other factors too – including a racist immigration policy which has been made much worse with Brexit. And the continually increasing privatisation taking place.

The NHS has so far suffered various areas of breakdown caused of exacerbated by various government policies – including some under New Labour who promoted disastrous PFI schemes that have brought some hospital trusts to financial ruin. Covid was another savage test and things look set to get far worse in the coming winter months. And given the years of below inflation pay offers its hardly suprising that nurses are now about to strike.

The problems with scrapping the student bursary were so intense that the government was forced to set up a new bursary scheme in 2020. But while the previous scheme had a maximum of £16,454 a year, with a minimum of £10,000, the new scheme was considerably less generous, at a standard £5000, with additions for shortage areas and childcare giving a maximum of £8000.

Save NHS Student Bursaries