Welfare State & Tar Sands Party: On Saturday 10th of April 2010 pensioners led a march to defend the welfare state and oppose cuts in public services and later I went to a party at a BP garage in Shepherds Bush against the company’s plans to exploit Canadian tar sands.
Defend the Welfare State – Temple
The National Pensioners’ Convention, which represents over a thousand local regional and national pensioner groups with a total of 1.5 million members had organised a march and rally in London to defend the public services they are particularly dependent on ahead of the 2010 general election. The march was supported by the TUC and all major unions.
Age Concern has predicted that over 40% of votes in the next month’s election would be made by those over 60, and had identified five key issues which particularly impact pensioners. In particular they said that the basic state pension was seriously inadequate and the pension rise of only £2.40 was far too low. A quarter of all pensioners were living in poverty.
But all three major parties were making plans for cuts in public expenditure and moving away from the consensus Britain had come to during and after the Second World War, the welfare state with pensions, a free NHS, free education and other public services. Over the years some of these provisions had been eroded (and in a few areas such as dental care, never fully implemented) but now they were increasingly under threat, whichever party wins the general election.
Huge deficits had come from handouts to the bankers and the cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the NHS had been hit particularly hard by the costs of privatisation under the huge debts from the Private Finance Initiative.
Cuts to local authorities who many pensioners rely on for social care and support services such as meals on wheels, as well as housing benefit, threaten the daily life of many and are leading to the closure of day centres and other provision.
It was pressure from protests such as this, as well as the presence of the Lib-Dems in the coalition with the Tories that was elected that led to the introduction of the “triple lock” on pensions in 2010. In 2020 the state pension was around 16% of average earnings and by 2025 it had risen to around 25%. But pensioners have been badly hit by cuts in care.
Tar Sands Party at the Pumps – BP, Shepherd’s Bush Green
BP Sponsors Climate Chaos
The UK Tar Sands Network, Rising Tide and the Camp for Climate Action had organised a ‘Party at the Pumps’ as a part of a ‘BP Fortnight of Shame’ trying to get BP shareholders to reverse the company’s decision to take part in the exploitation of the Canadian Tar Sands which environmental activists say is “the dirtiest and most desperate attempt yet to profit from – and prolong – humanity’s crippling addiction to oil.“
Whistles signal its time to follow the flags and get on the Central Line
Extracting usable crude oil from tar sands always results in between three to five times the amount of carbon dioxide production as normal oil wells. Deposits close to the surface are strip mined, destroying ancient forests and peat bogs to dig up around 75 metres depth of sand and oil with huge trucks and mechanical shovels.
At the previous stop we were told to alight at Shepherds Bush
In Alberta four-fifths of tar sands are too deep to be mined in this way and are brought to the surface by the injection of high pressure steam – which uses around twice as much energy and pollutes twice as much highly toxic waste water which is already leaking into drinking water.
Indigenous people living in the area have very high cancer rates and their staple moose meat has been found with 300 times the acceptable level of heavy metals from the tar sand extraction.
People on the canopy roof with a banner
BP only got involved in the Canadian tar sands in 2007, probably because they had cheaper sources of oil elsewhere. They signed up with Canadian company Husky Energy for a large-scale tar sands project they called the ‘Sunrise Project’ and for other tar sands projects. This was put on hold when oil prices crashed in 2008, but BP shareholders were expected to approve it going ahead at their meeting in April 15th.
Protesters were told to meet at Oxford Circus with a Travel Card and after an hour or so we all – including a few police – went down into the station following those with green and yellow (BP’s colours) flags, at least some of whom knew our destination and boarded a west-bound Central Line train.
At Shepherds Bush the message came to alight. We rushed behind those carrying the flags along the busy shopping street, across the green to the BP garage on the south side, which had already been occupied by a smaller advance group of demonstrators.
Some of them had got onto the roof from scaffolding on a neighbouring block of flats and were fixing a banner there, while others blocked the forecourt entrance with a large ‘CLOSED’ banner. The protesters occupied the area and put tapes and stickers around the petrol pumps and elsewhere with the messages ‘DANGER GLOBAL WARNING‘ and ‘BP TAR SANDS – BACK TO BLACK?’
The Rhythms of Resistance band had also arrived and was drumming loudly and there was also a bicycle trailer sound system and the protesters were dancing. A live band and a caller played for more dancing and the protesters sat on the pavement and talk, eat sandwiches and snacks and drink, while some handed out leaflets to the passers-by and explained why the protest was taking place.
When I left after a couple of hours the protest was continuing. Police and a man from BP had earlier asked them when they would be leaving and were told ‘sometime later in the day‘ and assured that they would cause no permanent damage and although the police were still watching the protest, filming and taking notes but not otherwise taking any action. I presume BP had asked them to avoid more publicity for the event by trying to force it to an end or make arrests.
TUC ‘March For The Alternative – On 26th March 2011 between a quarter and half a million people marched through London against planned public spending cuts by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government in the largest demonstration since the 2003 protest against the plan to invade Iraq.
The TUC argued that what the country needed was not austerity but policies that would grow the economy, and that we should raise income from those more able to pay rather than by measures that had the greatest impact on the poorest in society.
It was the largest march and rally organised by the trade union movement since the Second World War, and like other major trade union marches was perhaps largely worthy but not exciting – and like others it achieved nothing. The cuts went ahead and we all suffered – except of course the wealthy – who continued to grow richer and richer, helped by government bail-outs and the deliberate failures to tackle tax evasion, stop tax avoidance loopholes and raise taxes on those with excessive wealth.
The cuts particularly hit the public services, including teachers, nurses and other medical professionals – and eventually helped drive these areas into the critical conditions that they are now in. They resulted in financial problems and excessive workloads and also meant that those of us who rely on public provision for health and education often failing to get proper treatment. The gap between those who could afford private services and those who relied on the state provision increased.
Particularly hard hit by the cuts were the disabled and for them the situation continues to worsen with our now Labour government announcing huge cuts which will leave many considerably worse off – and greatly reduce their ability to lead normal lives and contribute to society.
As well as the TUC, other groups contributed to the march, announcing various feeder marches and other activities, many of which added a little life and colour to the day’s events. They also resulted in over 200 arrests and a number of injuries.
Too much was happening on the day for me to rehash it all here, but you can read my seven posts on my London Diary for my account of events. I started with the feeder marches from South London, disowned by the TUC. The ‘Armed Wing of the TUC’ brought its street theatre Trojan Horse, Spitfire, Tank and armed Lollipop Ladies produced by Camberwell art students to Camberwell Green where they marched to Kennington where the South London Feeeder March was gathering for a rally before the march in Kennington Park – the site of the final “monster meeting” of the Chartists on 10th April 1848 from where they marched to Parliament to deliver their final petition.
I left there to take the tube to Trafalgar Square where I found that the main march had started early and was well on its way to Hyde Park and I stayed around there for over an hour as marchers filed past, including photographing the Morris Liberation Front, an idea of Henry Flitton specially for the TUC demonstration, with music, provided by a couple of mandolins playing the Clash’s ‘I fought the Law’ and the Smith’s ‘Panic.
Later in the day Trafalgar Square was the site of bitter fighting as police made a largely unprovoked attack on a partying crowd, but when I was there things were peaceful.
I left the square to follow several hundred anarchists, dressed in black and mainly wearing face masks making their way up past the National Portrait Gallery, many waving red and black flags. I went with them through the back streets to Piccadilly Circus and then up Regent Street where they turned off into Mayfair and were held off by police when they attacked a RBS branch – one of the main banks to receive a huge government handout.
At Oxford Circus they attacked Topshop, then owned by the prominent tax avoider Sir Philip Green. As I went to take photographs of police arresting one of the protesters and holding him on the ground I was “hit full on the chest by a paint-bomb possibly aimed at the police, although many of the protesters also have an irrational fear of photographers. My cameras were still working and I continued to photograph, but I had also become a subject for the other photographers.”
It wasn’t painful, but it was very messy and bright yellow. I scraped and washed the worst off in a nearby public toilet for around 20 minutes, then went out to take more photographs, joining UK Uncut supporters who had come to hold peaceful protests at tax dodging shops and banks around Oxford St and to party at Oxford Circus.
Eventually I followed them down to Piccadilly Circus where 4 hours after the start of the official march people were still filing past. I stopped there and photographed until the end of the march passed, rather than going with UK Uncut into Fortnum and Mason. Inside the story they sat down and occupied the store peacefully. if noisily calling on them to pay their taxes. After an hour or more a senior police officer told them they were free to leave, promising they could make their way home “without obstruction”. 138 were arrested as they left the store, charged with ‘aggravated trespass’. Most of the cases were latter dropped but at least 10 were found guilty, given a six-month conditional discharge and a £1,000 fine.
Even after the official end of the march there were various other groups following the march route – including a group of Libyans with green flags, marching in support of Colonel Gaddaffi. I walked back to Trafalgar Square where there were still plenty of people around but everything was pretty quiet, so I got on the tube to come home and try to wash more of the paint off.
I think it was later when police made a charge to try and clear Trafalgar Square than almost all the arrests on the actual march took place – according to Google “Further clashes were reported later in Trafalgar Square. 201 people were arrested, and 66 were injured, including 31 police officers.” Had the police simply gone away people would have eventually dispersed and there would have been no trouble.
Others also got hit by paintballs
Back home I spent hours trying to scrub out yellow paint, but the rather expensive jacket I was wearing was only ever really fit to wear for gardening. The also expensive jumper underneath still has some small traces of yellow 14 years and many washes later, though I do sometimes still wear it around the house. Until my Nikon D700 came to the end of its life, beyond economic repair, a few years later I would still come across the occasional speck of yellow paint.
Much more about the day and many more pictures in the following posts on My London Diary
Lambeth Protests Massive Council Cuts: it was already half an hour after sunset when I joined several hundred Lambeth residents who had turned up outside Lambeth Town Hall where later that evening on Wednesday 23rd Feb 2011 councillors were set to approve drastic cuts to council services. I took a few pictures without flash but soon realised I would need to use flash for the rest of the event.
Lambeth is a large borough in south London with over 300,000 residents, roughly a third of whom were born outside the UK. It includes some wealthy areas but also had eight areas among the 10% most deprived in the country.
One of the few taken by avaialable light
Lambeth Council has been under majority Labour control since 2006 and in the 2010 elections Labour won around 70% of the council seats. One of the councillors who spoke at the protest to loud applause was Kingsley Adams, now a former Labour party councillor after being thrown out of the party for opposing the cuts and is now an Independent Labour councillor.
And after I switched to flash
The council argues that the cuts are an ideological policy forced on them by the Tory-led Coalition Government rather than a real need to make savings, but the protesters from Lambeth Save Our Services say that they are imposing them with a much greater enthusiasm and severity than is necessary. As one banner read, “Labour Cuts in Lambeth? Thatcher would be proud!”
Speakers pointed out that there were many ways that the council could have made the necessary savings without cutting services, including bringing some private services back under council control and ending the expensive use of consultants and high levels of expenses paid to councillors.
They point out that the chief executive’s salary alone at £270,000, which seems quite excessive and is one of the highest in the country is enough to keep a library running, and compared this to the Prime Minister’s salary of £142,500.
The council had large reserves some of which they suggested could be used to keep services running while the council made more sensible plans for long-term savings. The also said that large savings could be made by paying back the council’s pension deficit over a longer period.
The cuts are indeed draconian, expected to result in one quarter of the total staff – around 1000 council workers – losing their jobs. Among those to be lost completely are park rangers and school crossing patrols, many regeneration schemes and cultural events, and the noise nuisance service.
There will be massive cuts in services for children and young people, adult social care and the upkeep of estates – where rents will be raised. Discretionary travel passes for adults with mental health problems will go.
Levels of street cleaning, and the maintenance of roads, cemeteries and parks will be cut. There will be massive cuts in education, including the merging of Lambeth College with Lewisham College. Three of the borough’s four public toilets will close, and drastic cuts in libraries will probably mean at least four closing.
I left as some of those at the protest were going into the council offices to make their case, shortly before the council meeting was scheduled to start, though there were still several hundred on the pavement outside.
Later I heard that the protesters had occupied the meeting room for a couple of hours. But the council simply held the meeting in another room and approved the plans for cuts of £79 million without them being able to make their case.
Students march for free education: Several thousand students marched from Malet Street to Parliament on Wednesday 15th November 2017 calling for an end to all tuition fees, for living grants for all and an end to all government cuts.
Around 60% of 18 year-olds now continue their education in either universities or FE colleges, with just under 40% at university – though rather more women than men. This figure has increased massively since the 1960s when only around 4% of us went to university.
But back then we paid no fees and there were means-tested maintenance grants which gave those of us whose parents were on low incomes enough to live on during term-time though parents who could afford it were expected to make a contribution.
Many of us needed to find jobs in the long Summer Vacation or over Christmas when many students were needed by the Post Office to deal with the huge volume of Christmas cards, but universities generally prohibited working in term-time – and those students that needed to because their parents didn’t cough up with their contribution had to keep their work a secret.
My full grant was I think £300 a year which had to cover rent, meals, travel, books etc over the 30 weeks at university – equivalent, allowing for inflation to around £5,300 now, though I think it would be impossible to survive on that now. The maximum student loan for living expenses for 2024/5 for those living apart from their parents is now £10,227 – or £13,348 for those in London.
Students now also have to pay tuition fees for which they can also get loans up to the full amount – currently £9,250 but with a recently announced increase to £9,535 for the 2025-26 academic year.
So for a normal 3 year degree course those taking out the full loans possible will end up owing around £60,000. I ended my course with a degree and around £7 in the bank.
Of course student loans are not like other loans, and students only start repayment when there income exceeds a certain threshold – currently around £25,000, though this depends on when students took out their loan. And after 30 or 40 years (again depending on this) any remaining loan is wiped out. But still the amounts are daunting.
Because these are loans, the government is still essentially paying out the cost of tuition and maintenance for current students. But they hope eventually to get some of the money back – again the forecast of how depends on the scheme in place when students took out their loan.
I’ve been unable to find a figure for the amount of repayment the student loans company is currently receiving, but I think it is fairly low compared with the amount they are giving out in new loans. The total debt owed is expected to rise to around £25 billion.
With this background its perhaps not surprising that students now – and in 2017 when I took the pictures here that students are angry about the cost of their education and that several thousands took part in the student march organised by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts despite it not being supported by the National Union of Students.
But this was not their only concern. They also marched to condemn the increasing marketisation of the education system that is resulting in cuts across university campuses and a dramatic reduction in further education provision across the country. They also say that the Teaching Excellence Framework which was supposed to ‘drive up standards in teaching’ has instead intensified the exploitation and casualisation of university staff as a part of the marketisation agenda.
Press Inquiry & Cold Homes Kill: On Thursday 29th November 2012 people protested outside the QEII centre as part 1 of the Leveson inquiry into the general culture and ethics of the British media was being published. Later there was a protest outside the Treasury and Parliament against government cuts in benefits and services that were leading to 24,000 extra winter deaths.
Leveson Comes Out
The Leveson inquiry had been set up in 2011 following the News International phone hacking scandal and after a long series of public hearings came to the obvious conclusion the existing Press Complaints Commission was a total failure – and praised Private Eye for refusing to join it. A subscription to that magazine and the many articles it had published over the years could have saved the £5.4 million that Leveson cost.
Leveson was not of course set up to address the overriding problem of the UK media which is the narrow range of its ownership. As the Media Reform Coalition argued “we couldn’t just rely on better press regulation to improve standards are newspapers – we also had to challenge the disproportionate power these corporations held because they so much of our news media.”
The MRC stated in 2023 “Just three companies—DMG Media, News UK and Reach—dominate 90% of the national newspaper market” and go on to show similar resticted ownership of local newspapers and online news platforms.
The news which almost all of us are allowed to hear is controlled by a very few companies and their billionaire owners such as Rupert Murdoch, and Avaaz had brought to the protest large puppet heads of Murdoch and a gagged Prime Minster Cameron with placards ‘End the Murdoch Mafia‘ with a flaming dustbin into which Murdoch lowered the Leveson report.
The industry response to Leveson was to establish in place of the Press Complaints Commission the almost equally toothless Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) which my union, the NUJ labelled a “pointless so-called regulator” and the Hacked Off campaign described as a sham “owned and controlled by the very newspapers it is supposed to regulate” which does nothing to stop them.
The Press Recognition Panel (PRP) was set up by Royal Charter in 2014 with the duty to establish whether any press regulator met the standards set by Leveson. IPSO declined to apply for recognition but an independent body IMPRESS founded in 2016 has gained recognition.
IMPRESS thas been rejected by all the major national papers and most regional and local papers but now regulates “more than 100 publishers, publishing over 200 publications across the UK.” Most of these are small and local independent print or on-line publishers including many on the left. Among them are Novara Media, Skwawkbox and The Canary.
As well as failing to legislate on setting up the independent regulatory body which Leveson concluded was needed, the Tories later quietly shelved the second part of the inquiry into extent of unlawful or improper conduct within news organisations and the extent of police complicity. It was a clear demonstration of the power held by Mudoch over our government.
Over 50 people turned up outside Parliament and the Treasury to protest against the cuts made by George Osborne and the government’s energy policies which are leading to 24,000 extra winter deaths.
The protest on the day that Energy Secretary, Ed Davey, was introduing the Energy Bill to Parliament was organised by Fuel Poverty Action along with Disabled People Against Cuts and the Greater London Pensioners’ Association.
Other organisations taking part include Single Mothers’ Self-Defence, Southwark Pensioners’ Action Group and WinVisible (women with visible and invisible disabilities).
Many came with plastic silver reflective coated ‘space blankets’ to wear, and there were three ‘tombstones’ with the messages ‘George Osborne Your Cuts KILL’, ‘Gas Power = Killer Bills’ and ‘24,000 Winter Deaths – Big Six Profits up 700%’.
As speakers at the open mike in front of the Treasury on Horse Guards Road said, many were now having to choose between keeping warm and eating – heat or food – and could not afford to do both adequately. Food banks were now common but often unable to keep up with demand, and libraries where many went to keep warm were being closed.
Hypothermia, even among children, was on the increase, had doubled among pensioners and many disabled people had special needs for heating – and some were suffering from having their benefits removed by unfair Atos work capability tests – often to have them eventually restored on appeal, but with no or inadequate means for months before this happened.
Police tried to keep them off the steps of the Treasury but they declined to move and eventually police came and pushed them down, sometimes with rather more than necessary force, but the rally continued on the pavement. Among the speakers was Green Party leader Natalie Bennett.
There were some further confrontations with police as the protesters moved around the area and protested on the pavement in front of parliament, where there was some hilarity as police came to tell them there has to move as “a Royal movement” was about to take place (they didn’t) and the protest ended with photographs on the grass of Parliament Square with the House of Commons and Big Ben as background.
Jesse Jackson, Cuts & Paris • New York • London Opening: Wednesday 20th October 2010 was an unusual day for me. I don’t often photograph conferences, but I started at one where Jesse Jackson was speaking and then went to lobby my MP over tax justice. Kwasi Kwarteng was seldom seen in the constituency but later became notorious when he helped Liz Truss crash the economy. From there I used to cover people marching to Downing Street against the government spending cuts before leaving to go to the Shoreditch Gallery for the opening of a show by three photographers I had organised, ‘Paris – New York – London’ (I was Paris.)
Jesse Jackson & Christian Aid Lobby – Westminster
2,500 Christian Aid supporters including my wife had come to Westminster to lobby their MPs on 20.10.2010, asking them to press for transparency and fairness in the global tax system and for action on climate change.
According to campaigners for tax justice various forms of tax dodging by multinational companies was then robbing the global South of more than $160 billion a year. And our high dependence of fossil fuels had led to a climate crisis which impacts these countries far more severely despite their much lower per capita carbon footprints.
The rally took place in the vast Methodist Central Hall, opposite Westminster Abbey, and as we were reminded where the United Nations started. There was a huge ovation for US Civil Rights leader, activist and politician Jesse Jackson, a protégée of Martin Luther King president and founder of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
But there were also other distinguished speakers including the then new director of Christian Aid, Loretta Minghella, Suzanne Matale from Zambia and secretary of state for international development and MP for Sutton Coldfield, Rt. Hon Andrew Mitchell MP.
After the rally we met our local MP Kwasi Kwarteng and went with him into a pub opposite Parliament where he he listened to us and basically told us we didn’t understand global finance and climate change, before going outside to pose with for photographs.
Outside there was some street theatre by younger Christian Aid supporters as people queued to meet there MPs and I made a few pictures before rushing away to find people marching to protest against government cuts.
March Against Spending Cuts – Malet St & Lincolns Inn Fields
Earlier in the day the government had announced there would be considerable cuts in welfare benefits and the loss of many public sector jobs as services are cut following their comprehensive spending review.
The deficit left by New Labour had given the Tories in the Con-Dem coalition a perfect excuse to slash the public sector and privatise services in a way they would never have dared before. £83 billion to be cut from public services, in a move that the Coalition of Resistance pointed out will mean many workers with less to spend and cause a slump in the economy.
But as I commented “Big business must be rubbing its hands with glee at the thought of the profits it will be able to make in the health service, from so-called ‘free schools’ and elsewhere.”
But for the rest of us the prospect was bleak. More than a million jobs lost – and some would be replaced in the private sector with lower wages, fewer benefits, lower standards of delivery and safety and higher workloads. Profit will come before anything else in the kind of “efficiency” we’ve seen in hospital cleaning – where I found used needles and dressings under my hospital bed as cleaners were not allowed the time to do the job properly.
I went to photograph students setting off from outside the student union in Malet Street for the march to Downing Street, then went to Lincoln’s Inn Fields where trade unionists and more students gathering and there were speeches from an open top bus before they too set off.
But I went in the opposite direction to my opening at the Shoreditch Gallery.
John Benton Harris (1929-2023), one of the finest photographers to come out of New York, settled in London in 1965 but continued also to photograph his native city and elsewhere. He was long a personal friend and I worked with him on a number of his projects including his Café Royal Zines and his unpublished book on the English.
Paul Baldesare, another friend of mine with whom I’ve often shown pictures and a former student of John Benton-Harris showed work from one of his many projects on London, He is probably best known for his pictures on the tube.
And I was showing a selection of images made in Paris in 1988 from a book I had also then recently published on Blurb.
Occupy London Begins: On Saturday 15 Oct 2011 over 2000 protesters came to St Paul’s Cathedral as a part of a world-wide ‘Occupy’ protest “Inspired by Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring, and answering to the call out made by the Spanish Plataforma ¡Democracia Real YA! in May 2011 for a Global Day Of Action” and Occupy London began.
Similar protests were taking place in “Spain, Rome, New York, Portugal, Chile, Berlin,Brussels, Zageb, and many more … inspired by the example of Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring.”
Although people from various groups were present, including the Education Activists Network, Socialist Workers Party, Anonymous, Right to Work, UK Uncut, South London Solidarity Federation and there were several well known figures present who spoke including Peter Tatchell and Julian Assange, the whole movement deliberately lacked overall organisation with all decisions being taken by General Assemblies with the slogan ‘No Leaders, No Hierarchy’.
A General Assembly on 9th October on Westminster Bridge plans the occupation
The event had actually come about from one such assembly on Sunday 9th October at the end of the ‘Block the Bridge NHS Protest‘ when a ‘General Assembly’ of several hundreds had come together at the north end of Westminster Bridge to discuss and endorse a planned occupation of the London Stock Exchange area.
In response to this the Stock Exchange obtained a High Court injunction to prevent public access to Paternoster Square, one of the increasingly large areas which appear to be public space in the city but are actually now privately owned, although previously Paternoster Row was a public street and police were present in force to enforce this injunction.
Most of the several thousand protesters were intent on an entirely peaceful protest, calling for a democratic revolution to “fight for a new political and economic system that puts people, democracy and the environment before profit.” They saw that “Our political elites have chosen to protect corporations, financial institutions and the rich at the expense of the majority.“
After a few short speeches a few hundred protesters, led by the banner of the Education Activist Network made and attempt to enter the square through Temple Bar, but police on foot and horses were waiting for them, and the relatively narrow entrance of the Bar, moved here a few years ago, was designed to be easily defended.
They then made a tour around the block containing the Stock Exchange but found the narrow passages leading to Paternoster Square heavily defended by police. When finally they found one with only a thin line of a thin line of police, the protesters hesitated for long enough for the police to bring up reinforcements. It was probably for the best as they would have immediately been easily kettled inside the square had they got in.
Eventually a General Meeting began on the steps of St Paul’s. There were a few minor scuffles when police pushed protesters around, which could probably have been avoided had police explained clearly that they only intended to clear a path to clear a path into and out of the cathedral at one end of the steps. Several people were arrested then and later.
I decided to leave, as it really seemed unlikely that anything much more would happen for some time. As I was leaving, police decided to block Ludgate Hill, but along with a group of several hundred protesters I managed to get through their line as it was forming.
The General Assembly takes a show of hands to remain at St Paul’s
Police continued to clear protesters from the steps of St Paul’s and urging people to leave the area, but many set up tents on the level area of St Paul’s Churchyard and the occupation had begun – and was to remain in place until finally removed on 28th February 2012. You can read a great deal about the occupation in the Occupy London web site which includes the various statements agreed by consensus at Occupy London General Assemblies. Unfortunately Wikipedia’s article on Occupy London is unusually poor and misleading about the events of 15th October.
Save Hospitals & Secular Europe: On Saturday 15th September 2012 almost two thousand people marched from Southall to meet others at a rally in Ealing to save Accident & Emergency Services at their local hospitals. Later I photographed humanists, atheists and others marching in Westminster.
Thousands March to Save Hospitals – Southall
A large crowd had come to Southall Park for the start of a march against the the closure of A&E and other departments at Ealing, Central Middlesex, Charing Cross and Hammersmith hospitals. Another march was going from Acton to the rally in Ealing.
A few days ago Keir Starmer talked about the crisis facing the NHS, and how it will take perhaps eight years to put it on a firmer footing for the future. He and Health Secretary Wes Streeting blamed its current parlous position on the reforms criticised by Lord Darzi as “disastrous” introduced by the coalition government in 2012 and the lack of investment in infrastructure under the Tory-led years of cuts since 2010.
Of course both these things are true, but not the whole picture and they say little that was not said by those working in the NHS and almost every commentator at the time about Andrew Lansley’s controversial Health and Social Care Act which came into force under his successor Jeremy Hunt, as well as lack of proper funding.
But they also leave out the disastrous effects of the many PFI schemes introduced under New Labour which landed the NHS with huge debts and continue to impose severe costs on many hospitals with excessive maintenance and other charges. PFI did provide much needed new hospitals, but did so at the expense of the NHS, transferring the costs away to make government finance look better; avoiding short-term public financing but creating much higher long-term costs.
New Labour also accelerated the privatisation of NHS services, which has of course increased greatly since the Tories came to power. Both parties became enamoured of a move away from the original NHS model to an insurance based system modelled on US Healthcare, a system that leaves many poorer US citizens with inadequate access to healthcare and is responsible for around 62% of the two million annual bankruptcies in the USA when for various reasons people’s insurance does not cover their treatment costs.
We in the UK spend almost a fifth less on health than the EU average, and only around a third of the per person spending in the USA – according to a 2010 article in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine comparing the two systems.
We all now have complaints about the level of service provided currently by our overloaded and cash-strapped NHS. Waiting times are sometimes ridiculously long and appointments hard to get. We need a better NHS, and to pay more for a better NHS, one that is better integrated rather than divided by Lansley’s competitive marketing-based model. But I have little confidence that our current government will make the right changes for either the NHS staff or the people.
We also need much better industrial relations, and the efforts by the new Labour government to sort out the disputes with healthcare workers deliberately engineered by the Tories which led to the strikes are encouraging. But many more changes to improve staff morale and retention are necessary. To remove the reliance on agency staff there needs to be an improvement in the treatment of NHS employed staff – and a number of simple measures including the removal of staff parking charges would help. And of course we also need to train more healthcare staff at all levels and in all specialities.
The rally on 15th September 2012 was supported by local councils and local MPs and there were many speakers with years of experience in the NHS who gave short speeches about the effects the closures would have – and the inevitable deaths that would result, particularly from the longer journey times through often highly congested streets to the remaining A&E services. Fortunately most of the politicians were told they would have to wait for the rally at the end of the march to speak. So I missed them as I walked a few hundred yards with the marchers along the main road towards Ealing and the rally, but then left them and walked to the station to take a train into central London.
Around 250 humanists, atheists and others marched from Storey’s Gate, next to Methodist Central Hall and across the road from Westminster Abbey, both in their different ways reminders of the links between the state and states and religion. And I presume the rally venue in Temple Place was chosen for the same reason.
They had come protest against the privileged status of religion and call for a truly secular society with freedom of religion, conscience and speech with equal rights for all in countries across the world, but particularly in Europe.
They demanded a secular Europe with complete separation between church and state and with no special status on grounds of religion, one law for all without execeptions.
The main banner read ‘For Universal Human Rights‘ and marchers chanted slogans including ‘2,4,6,8, Separate church and state‘ and of course ‘What do we want? A Secular Europe. When do we want it? Now‘, as well as stating that Women’s rights (and Gay Rights, Children’s Rights etc) are Human Rights.
But perhaps the most popular chant was one directed in particular against the Catholic Church, ‘Keep your rosaries Off my ovaries.” And at the rally in Temple Place Sue Cox of Survivors Voice, reminded us not just of sexual abuse of children by priests, but also of the continuing failure of the Catholic Church to deal with this, as well as the sinister power that that church still wields in countries including Italy.
As the march arrived at the rally there the London Humanist Choir performed some Monty Python songs before a number of speeches from Peter Tatchell and others. As he said, many people of faith also support both equality and the separation of religion and state, and that “for every bigot there are also people of faith who are with us.”
Fire Service Cuts Cost Lives: On Thursday 18th July 2013 I photographed a march and rally by the Fire Brigades Union in London against cuts proposed by then London Mayor Boris Johnson. He had in 2010 repeatedly denied that he would make any cuts to London’s fire services, but the cuts which this protest was against led to the closure of ten fire stations in Greater London and the loss of over 550 firefighters in the force.
There was also a loss of the number of fire engines, at first of 14, but followed later by another 13, a cut of around 15%. Unsurprisingly the response times to fires across the capital increased. The first fire engine should arrive within six minutes of a fire being reported, and in late 2014 the figures showed that this was exceeded in around a third of London’s wards. Although the average increase in response times was only 12 seconds, in the worst case it went up by two minutes and 48 seconds.
Matt Wrack, General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union
Fast response to fires is essential in saving lives and cutting damage to properties, and although fortunately few lives are lost to fire in London thanks to our firefighters it seems that there was at least one fatality in the following year which was widely attributed to a slower response time. As I wrote in 2013, “7 out of 10 Londoners think that the Mayor’s proposed cuts will put public safety at risk, and the remaining 3 are just not thinking.”
In our great 2017 tragedy at Grenfell Tower, the fire service responded promptly, but it took over half an hour for a turntable ladder to arrive, and at the time the LFB only had ladders that reached under half way up that building. They called in a taller ladder from Surrey which took several hours to arrive. The LFB finally got its first 64m turntable ladder, the tallest in the UK, in 2021.
A Scottish band from Hull sponsored by the FBU and a photo of Boris
Appropriately the march began at The Monument, a 202ft column topped by a bright brass ball of fire erected shortly after the 1666 Great Fire of London as a permanent memorial to the event.
Fire-fighters, many in uniform, and supporters gathered in the area around, along with a fire engine and a small marching band with bagpipes sponsored by an FBU branch. London’s own firefighters were supported by some for other brigades, including at least a couple from the New York Fire Department as well as retired fire-fighters and anti-cuts protesters.
When the march which went across London Bridge to the London Fire Brigade HQ in Southwark for a rally outside where the cuts were being decided at a Fire Authority meeting I had gone up on top of the fire engine.
What I hadn’t realised was that I would be unable to get down until the end of the march, and although it gave me a good viewpoint it was in some ways a limiting one. I always like to take most of my pictures close to people using wide-angle lenses and during the march was unable to do so. And when the marchers sat down briefly to block London Bridge I could only watch from a distance.
I’d also not realised how much vibration there would be on the top of the fire engine, where we were in a fairly small enclosure made with scaffolding tubing on its top. I found myself having to hang on tightly in some of the bumpier parts of the roads, while trying to take pictures largely one-handed.
It was a rather uncomfortable and just a little scary experience, but it did take me close to some of those who had come to first and second floor windows to applaud the protest as it went past. But I was very pleased when we came to a stop at the Fire Brigade HQ and I could get back to ground.
You can read more about the rally at the end of the march and a long list of the speakers on My London Diary and there are photographs of most or all of them as well as many more from the event.
Pensions, Cuts, Murdoch & Cafe Jiro: Thursday 23rd June 2011 – Trade unionists march against public sector pension cuts, a protest against Murdoch being allowed to take over BSkyB and one of my favourite artists turns a St John’s Wood gallery into his café.
20,000 March for Pensions & Against Cuts
Public Service unions had organised a march against pension cuts and itt was joined by many thousands of union members as well as many others protesting against cuts in public services made by the Tory coalition government.
There was a large crowd waiting when I arrived in Lincoln’s Inn Fields over an hour before the march was due to begin and more were arriving as it left a little early as the organisers and police worried about overcrowding in London’s largest square – around 28,000 square metres.
Sally Hunt, UCU, Mary Bousted ATL, Christine Blower NUT, Mark Serwotka PCS & John McDonnell MP,
Before we left there had been speeches by several union leaders and the march was led to Parliament by Christine Blower NUT, Mark Serwotka PCS and Mary Bousted ATL along with MP John McDonnell.
The Hutton review had clearly shown that the government was lying when it said that public service pensions were not affordable. This report had said it expected “benefit payments to fall gradually to around 1.4 per cent of GDP in 2059-60, after peaking at 1.9 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010-11.”
There seemed to be a huge number of police on the street for a peaceful march, particularly one that was mainly composed of teachers and civil servants with only a token presence from militant students and anarchists.
Police had earlier been busy in Lincoln’s Inn Fields where they appeared to be conducting stop and searches on any young male demonstrators in black clothing.
Things did get just a little agitated when for some reason police decided to stop the march on Strand for around 20 minutes and it got very noisy on Whitehall as it passed Downing St.
I stood outside Westminster Central Hall for around an hour as more and more marchers arrived from the main march I had been on and a number of others from various parts of London. Police and march stewards there objected to Charlie Veitch and other ‘Love Police’ haranguing the crowd in his usual deadpan fashion upholding his right to freedom of expression and they moved away.
Westminster Central Hall is a large venue but far too small for the numbers at the event and there was a large overflow rally in Tothill Street at the side of the church. A group of 20 or 30 black-clad protesters there were told by police they must remove their hoods and dark glasses and there were some arguments. I heard later in the day there were a few scuffles with them and police in Whitehall and they were kettled for a few hours in Trafalgar Square.
Save UK Democracy From Murdoch – Dept Culture, Media & Sport
Outside the Department of Culture, Media and Sport was a protest organised by on-line global campaign network Avaaz and my union the NUJ against the decision by Jeremy Hunt to let Rupert Murdoch to take over BSkyB.
This was an emergency protest organised within minutes of the news breaking early that morning, and the email calling it went out when many were already on their way to work or to attend the pensions protest, so numbers were small.
Obviously some planning had taken place earlier and there was a tall stilt walker with a large but rather inappropriately avuncular head of Rupert Murdoch, surely one of the ugliest figures in world media and pursuing a clear aim of world domination, toying with two large string puppets representing David Cameron and Jeremy Hunt.
But most of the posters were clearly last minute, with laser-printed sheets being glued onto generic NUJ placards. NUJ members were “appalled – like most of the thinking population – by the thought of the UK’s largest commercial broadcaster falling into Murdoch’s hands, and the threat that this poses for in particular for news coverage, but also for a diverse and broadly based media culture. “
“They want the government to act in the public interest rather than as puppets for Murdoch’s interest and don’t want Sky News to become another Fox News.”
Café Jiro 2011 – Queen’s Terrace Café, St John’s Wood
In the evening I was at The Queen’s Terrace Café, which had opened in April 2011. This was no ordinary café, but a cultural café, run by Mireille Galinou, who for some years had run a charity called the London Arts Café, which never quite managed to open a café but did organise a dozen or so exhibitions and numerous other art events in London.
London Arts Café and The Queen’s Terrace Café are no longer with us, but you can still read online about many of the the activities the London Arts Café organised during its existence from 1996-2007. For some of this time I was Treasurer of the organisation and also wrote the web site.
One of the most enjoyable art shows I went to in 2009 was Café Jiro, an installation in the Flowers Gallery in Cork St, London by a friend of mine, the Japanese artist Jiro Osuga who grow up in north London. The 2011 was a smaller and more intimate version of that show, with one of the large wall-size panels from the Flowers show, along with a number of other works specially produced for this space – including three in the smallest room.
The small gallery was packed for the opening – and for me a great opportunity to meet some old friends, and it was good to see Jiro’s work in a real café environment. You can read more about the show on a 2011 post in >Re:PHOTO.
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