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Disabled Protest Remploy Closures and Atos Deaths – 2012

Disabled Protest Remploy Closures and Atos Deaths: On a wet Wednesday 29th August 2012, the opening day of the London 2012 Paralympic Games, I photographed two protests by disabled people. At Stratford, close to the Olympic site, Remploy workers and supporters protested at the closure the previous week of 27 Remploy factories which had employed disabled workers, and in Central London DPAC and other disabled activists took a coffin to the offices of Paralympic sponsor Atos, responsible for carrying out fitness to work tests which have driven many disabled people to suicide.

Remploy Protest at Stratford Station

Disabled Protest Remploy Closures and Atos Deaths - 2012

Remploy, then the Disabled Person’s Employment Corporation, opened its first factory in 1946 to provide jobs for men and women who had been injured fighting for their country in the Second World War – just the kind of ex-servicemen who now make up a significant proportion of our Paralympic Team GB.

Remploy made it possible for disabled people to do useful and productive work including producing printed circuit boards and electrical assemblies, recycling used computers and much more. They gave disabled workers and those with special health conditions who would otherwise be unemployed useful jobs, a decent income and the satisfaction of working with others rather than being isolated in their homes.

The leaflets being handed out had an Olympic theme, with the message ‘We are NOT going for Gold, We are Condemned to Dole’ and the five Olympic rings were labelled ‘Unemployment, Discrimination, Poverty, Ill Health and Death.’

All Remploy factories were closed by the end of 2013, with Remploy continuing only to provide employment placement services for disabled people. In 2015 it was privatised and became owned by US service provider Maximus. They continue to use the Remploy name in Scotland.

Remploy Protest at Stratford

Disabled Pay Respect to Atos Victims – Triton Sq

Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) were holding a national week of protests around the country against Paralympics sponsor Atos, whose computer based ‘fitness for work’ tests have led to stress, hardship deaths and suicides among the disabled.

I photographed their Opening Ceremony for the Atos Games on Monday and also the closing of the week on Friday when they again came to the Atos offices in Triton Square for a closing ceremony and then went on to occupy the foyer at the Work & Pensions ministry.

On the Wednesday 29th August I met the protesters in a café on Triton Square on Euston Road where they were meeting in preparation for a vigil to remember those who have died as a result of the deliberately unfair Work Capability Assessments carried out by Paralympic sponsor Atos, and to deliver a coffin on to them on the day the Paralympic Games was opening.

As we were told, Atos was delivering “a relentless health and disability assessment regime which has been used to slash vital benefits from hundred of thousands of sick and disabled people” with assessors told they have to reach strict targets in failing the great majority of claimants, which led them to often deliberately misinterpret the claimants responses and misrepresent their medical conditions.

“The was a solemn and moving reminder of the scandal of the work capability assessments and the terrible effect they are having on the disabled. Many are losing the allowances that enable them to travel to work, others housing benefits, and are being told they are fit to work when patently they are unable to do so.”

And as I commented in 2012: “It really is a cruel paradox that at a time when the nation is celebrating the great achievements of disabled people in the sporting world, our government is trying to reverse the moves toward equality of treatment of disabled people, and that the company that is trying to take the credit for sponsoring the Paralympics is profiting from contracts to dishonestly deny benefits to the disabled who need them.”

More at Disabled Pay Respect to Atos Victims.

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Who Wants to Evict a Millionaire? 2015

Who Wants to Evict a Millionaire? On Saturday 13th April UK Uncut led a protest against the benefit cuts and new taxes being brought in that will most severely impact many of the poorest and particularly the disabled in our society with a lively peaceful protest against Tory Peer Lord Freud, one of the millionaire architects of the bedroom tax.

David Freud, a grandson of Sigmund, had made a fortune as a merchant banker before retiring in 2006 when he was asked by New Labour’s Prime Minister Tony Blair to review the UK’s welfare-to-work system. His 2008 report ‘Reducing dependency, increasing opportunity: options for the future of welfare‘ included making use of private companies to help lone parents and people on Incapacity Benefit back into work and for a single working-age benefit payment to replace the whole range of those currently being paid.

Many in the Labour Party found his ideas unpalatable, and Gordon Brown refused as prime minister to cut welfare spending. Freud then switched to supporting the Conservatives and in 2009 was made a life peer and became a Tory shadow minister. After the 2010 election Freud became Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Welfare Reform at the Department for Work and Pensions.

Iain Duncan Smith had become Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and took up Freud’s ideas, working on the introduction of Universal Credit, introducing a new Work Programme under which claimants could be sanctioned, losing benefits for up to three years if they were judged to be failing to cooperate and making real terms cuts in benefits.

Damaging to many as these policies were in principle, they were made much harsher by the sheer incompetence Duncan Smith imposed on the Department of Work and Pensions and his failure to realise or empathise with the very different lives of poorer people. For him or Freud a delay of five weeks in receiving payments would be no problem – their resources would seem them over and they could easily borrow from family or friends – or even banks.

But those on benefits had no resources to fall back on. If payments were delayed or they were sanctioned they would have no money to buy food, heat their homes, pay rent.

*Some facts about benefits and the problems caused by cuts*

Famously in April 2103 after a claimant had told the BBC he had £53 per week after paying housing costs, Duncan Smith replied that he could live on £53 per week. And in 2015 he “was criticised after the DWP admitted publishing fake testimonies of claimants enjoying their benefits cuts. Later the same month, publication of statistics showed 2,380 people died in a 3-year period shortly after a work capability assessment declared them fit for work.”

It was the policies of Freud and Duncan Smith that led to the huge increase in the need for food banks. In 2010-11 the Trussell Trust distributed 61,000 food parcels. By 2022-3 that annual figure was “close to 3 million, almost a fiftyfold increase.“

*But the police were not letting them get on with the job*

The protest was particularly directed against the ‘Bedroom Tax’, which penalised tenants in public housing by reducing their Housing Benefit if they were judged to have more rooms than they needed. It was meant to reduce the costs to and encourage council tenants to move to smaller accommodation – but as this was seldom available its result was simply to impoverish them. And it hit some groups particularly the disabled hardest, as they might have to move away from properties that had been suitable and adapted to their needs.

But there were also other measures, including a benefits cap which was being brought in across the country in stages to put a strict limit on the amounts that people may receive. It seemed inevitable that this would lead to many thousands being evicted, particularly in high rent areas such as London, as well as a cut in legal aid and council tax benefits and an end to disability living allowances.

Those benefits which remain will rise by less than inflation – a cut in real terms. And these cuts were taking place at the same time as the 50p tax rate was being abolished, saving the UK’s 13,000 millionaires around £100,000 each.

I went with the largest group of the protesters, who met at King’s Cross to travel to an undisclosed location, which turned out to be the Highgate home of Tory Peer Lord Freud.

Outside his home there were a number of performances and speeches which you can read more about at the link below to My London Diary. And the protesters gave a huge cheer when it was announced that disabled activists from DPAC (Disabled Persons Against Cuts) had visited the home of Ian Duncan Smith and also delivered an eviction notice there.

More about the protest and many more pictures on My London Diary at Who wants to evict a Millionaire?

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Junior Doctors, Uganda & Benefit Sanctions – 2016

Junior Doctors, Uganda & Benefit Sanctions: On Wednesday 9th March 2016 Junior Doctors held a one-day strike over their claims for a better deal from the NHS and I joined a rally outside University College Hospital where health workers and trade unionists showed support and called for an end to the creeping privatisation of the NHS. Later in Trafalgar Square Ugandans were protesting the rigged presidential elections. Finally I went to the Dept of Work & Pensions to cover a National Day of Action against Benefit Sanctions, which often leave people with no means of support for sometimes trivial reasons and were by then known to have led to at least 95 deaths.

UCH rally for Junior Doctors Strike – Euston Rd

Junior Doctors, Uganda & Benefit Sanctions - 2016

Trade unionists, medical staff at all levels and other supporters joined the Junior Doctors picket line outside University College Hospital to show their support.

They then held a rally across the road from the hospital, one of London’s largest on the busy Euston Road.

Junior doctors are fully trained doctors in postgraduate training and gaining clinical experience to become members of the appropriate Royal College of Medicine. They may remain as junior doctors for around 8-20 years and are the largest group of doctors working in our hospitals.

In 2023 the he British Medical Association (BMA) decided it would no longer use the term “junior doctor” as it failed to indicate their high level of skills. In 2024 and as a part of the settlement of their dispute which came finally after the election of a Labour government they were renamed “resident doctors.”

On My London Diary I gave a long list of some of the speakers which indicate the huge range of support for the junior doctors and their fight against a Tory government that was determined to wreck the NHS so that it could be fully privatised for the benefit of largely US-based health care companies in which many of them had a financial interest.

Their aim was move towards a US-style insurance-based system – which would lead to many of us being unable to afford appropriate treatment and to face enormous bills – healthcare is by far the largest cause of bankruptcy in the USA. It seems likely that Labour under Starmer will continue to move in the the same direction.

Personally I would be unable to get insurance for my existing long-term health conditions. The NHS has for over 22 years enabled me to lead a normal life without charge to me and at a relatively low cost to the nation, whereas in the USA my continuing treatment would by now have cost me well over a quarter of a million dollars.

UCH rally for Junior Doctors Strike

Ugandans protest rigged Presidential Election – Uganda High Commission

Many Ugandans believe that February 2016 elections that re-elecated Museeveni as president were rigged and protesters outside the High Commission in Trafalgar Square demanded an independent audit of the results and called for the immediate release of opposition candidate Dr Besigye and other political prisoners, as well as action against those responsible for torture.

The protest was organised by the Uganda Diaspora P10 UK, and FDC UK Chapter and was supported by the African LGBTI Out & Proud Diamond Group and Peter Tatchell Foundation.

Yoweri Museveni has been in power since 1986, but international observers widely reported widespread fraud and irregularities, with many voters being unable to vote and the declared results from many polling stations being very different from the actual votes. Opposition candidates were repeatedly arrested and voters were intimidated.

I arrived almost at the end of an hour-long protest in front of the High Commission and then photographed them marching down Whitehall behind a Nigerian flag towards Downing St where I left them.

Many more pictures at Ugandans protest rigged Presidential Election.

Unite against Benefit Sanctions – DWP, Caxton House

*Didi Rossi from Global Women’s Strike accuses the Tories of deliberately targeting and killing the poor*

Unite Community members had come to hold a protest outside the DWP headquarters in Westminster as a part of their National Day of Action against Benefit Sanctions. There were other protests at job centres in over 70 towns and cities.

Benefit sanctions – periods where claimants lose their benefits – are often imposed for trivial reasons and those beyond the power of claimants. They may be sanctioned for arriving late after buses were cancelled or for not turning up when letters calling them to an appointment have not arrived in time or have been lost in the post.

*Winvisble and Global Womens’s Strike members were there in support*

As I commented, “Despite government denials, at least 95 deaths are known to have been as a result of sanctions which leave people destitute and starving. Some, like David Clapson, have actually starved to death while others have been so desperate that they have killed themselves. Without the efforts of the many food banks the figure would be much higher.“

There was anger when a Unite Community speaker said that the DWP’s policies had failed. Didi Rossi of Global Women’s Strike retorted that the DWP had been extremely successful in their attacks on the unemployed and disabled, and that the deaths were the clear intention behind the policies of Iain Duncan Smith.

Staff working for the DWP were being given incentives and targets for giving sanctions. And the faulty tests administered for “fitness for work” and being stripped of benefits were leading to many deaths. Over 80 people a month were dying shortly after this, most while appealing against the decision. More than 2,500 sick and disabled benefit claimants are known to have died after being found ‘fit for work’ in just 2 years.

More at Unite against Benefit Sanctions.

David Clapson – Sanctioned to Death – DWP, Caxton House

One of those taking part in the protest at the DWP was Gill Thompson, the sister of David Clapson, a diabetic ex-soldier who died starving and destitute because he was penalised by the Job Centre for missing a meeting.

She had come to hand in a petition to the DWP over his death and this was handed to a DWP representative together with another petition with over 200,000 signatures between them calling for an inquest into his death and an end to unfair benefit sanctions that leave claimants without support.

David Clapson – Sanctioned to Death

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Atos Protest & Camden Town 2011

Atos Protest & Camden Town: – Monday 24 January 2011

Disability benefits are now under attack by our Labour government, who have insisted they will implement the Tory plans to cut the amount paid in incapacity benefits by £3 billion by 2028. And the House of Lords economic affairs committee a few days ago published a report calling for a fundamental review of the benefits system to tackle the rising social and fiscal costs of disability benefits.

Also last week the High Court ruled that the previous government’s consultation on changing incapacity benefits was unlawful as “it presented the changes as a way of supporting disabled people into work but failed to make clear that 424,000 vulnerable claimants would see their benefits cut by £416 a month.”

When the Tory coalition government came into power in 2010 it picked on the disabled who it thought would be an easy target for the cuts it was making to support the bankers. Protests such as this on Monday January 24th 2001 showed how wrong they were, with determined opposition to the unfairness of their cost-cutting reforms from disabled groups including Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and the Black Triangle Campaign.

One part of the campaign by successive governments has been to give huge publicity and priority to benefit fraud, which according to the national Audit Office only amounts to 0.6% of the DWP budget and is a “drop in the ocean compared to the losses by tax evasion by the super-rich and the amounts lost by them and major corporations exploiting tax loopholes.“

*Police try rather ineffectually to stop protesters heading for the Atos offices*

In 2011 a major source of unfairness in the system was the attempts to cut costs by the use of computer-based ability to work assessments carried out for the DWP by European IT company Atos. The interviews were administered by ‘healthcare professionals’, often poorly trained and lacking the qualifications and experience to assess many types of disability, particularly mental illness. Almost 70% of those assessed were moved onto the lower benefit rates of the Job Seekers Allowance with some being refused any benefits at all.

An independent review for the DWP made fundamental criticisms of the assessments, and around 40% of those who appealed the decisions eventually had their benefits restored to previous levels – but only after months of hardship, and often just in time for their next review when their benefits would again be axed. Part of the problem was the pressure applied on the assessors to meet targets in cutting benefits by the company so they could justify their costs to the DWP.

And there were plenty of true horror stories. People assessed fit for work who died within days of the assessments, those who committed suicide and some who starved to death. Benefit cuts really do kill.

Atos went on to gain other contracts from the DWP until September 2024 when the contract for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and work capability assessment (WCA) were given to Serco. The DWP had acknowledged there were flaw in the Atos assessments but few believe that Serco will be any fairer.

Monday January 24th was a a National Day of Protest Against Benefit Cuts, with actions around the country, including protests in Leeds, Birmingham, Burnley, Hastings, Crawley, Chesterfield, Livingston, near Edinburgh (Atos’s Scotland HQ) and Glasgow. I began by photographing a local protest at Archway in North London before going on to a protest outside the London HQ of Atos Origin in Triton Square close to the Euston Road.

On My London Diary back in 2011 I wrote much more about the Atos tests and also about the details of the two protests. The protest in Triton Square was heavily policed but the organisers and those taking part, including Disabled People Against Cuts, WinVisible (Women with Visible and Invisible Disabilities) and London Coalition Against Poverty were intent on this being a peaceful protest.

Police have problems in dealing with disabled protesters. Many want to treat them carefully and their officers certainly realise that images of them being roughly handled would be terrible PR. But they were annoyed that the protesters decided to protest close to the actual Atos offices rather than in a pen they had set up a short distance away. And when one elderly man walked through the spread out police line he was roughly pushed to the ground and dragged away, though later he was allowed to rejoin the other hundred or so protesters.

The police then brought more barriers and erected them around the protesters, telling them they could only exit the fenced area when they were dispersing at the end of the protest. There seemed to be no real justification for this and they seemed simply to be a simply a matter of pique that the protesters had not followed their instructions.

More at Atos Tests Unfair to Disabled.

Camden Market – Camden High St/Chalk Farm Rd

I had plenty of time to get from Archway to Triton Square and got off the bus in Camden Town for a walk and to make use of one of London’s rapidly disappearing public toilets in the middle of the busy road junction there (but I think closed a few years ago.)

I’d photographed around Camden High Street and Chalk Farm Road quite often in the 1990s, often on my way home from taking pictures elsewhere in North London, and walking from Camden Town station to Chalk Farm. Then the lemon sorbets from Marine Ices were the best in London if not the world. But that’s gone too now, and in January 2011 it wasn’t the weather for it.

Back in the 1990s the streets would have been pretty empty except at weekends, but by 2011 there were plenty of tourists wandering around even on a cold Monday in January, though business was fairly slack. But mainly I pointed my camera up to the decorations above the shops

More pictures: Camden Market.

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No More Benefit Deaths – 2016

No More Benefit Deaths: On Wednesday 7th September 2016, the day of the opening ceremony for the Rio Paralympics, disablement campaigners demanded human rights for all disabled people and an end to the disastrous sanctions regime which has led to many deaths.

They called on Prime Minister Theresa May, newly appointed in July 2016 to make public the findings of the UN investigation into the UK for violations of Deaf and Disabled people’s rights, to scrap the Work Capability Assessment and commit to preventing future benefit-related deaths.

The UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities published its report in November 2016. It stated that the UK had committed “grave or systematic” violations of UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and in June 2017 the committee clarified the reasons behind their conclusions.

They stated that the breaches of the rights to independent living, work and employment and adequate standard of living under the convention were mainly caused by the policices introduced by Tory ministers at the DWP between 2010 and 2015. Some were grave violations, some systematic and others both grave and systematic.

The UN inquiry had been prompted by the research and lobbying of Disabled People Against Cuts, and the Disability News Service article included this quote from DPAC co-founder Linda Burnip who:

“pointed to actions such as cuts to social care, the impact of the work capability assessment – which has been linked by public health experts from the Universities of Liverpool and Oxford to hundreds of suicides between 2010 and 2013 – the hugely damaging introduction of personal independence payment and consequent cuts to support, the increased use of sanctions and the resulting deaths of benefit claimants, and the introduction of the bedroom tax.”

UN confirms that UK government’s treaty violations were both grave AND systematic

As Burnip stated, the government’s actions were “based on a deliberate intention to cause harm without any regard to the horrendous consequences for disabled people.”

The day on Wednesday 7th September 2016 began with a huge banner with the message ‘NO MORE BENEFITS DEATHS #DPAC” being displayed on the wall of the River Thames facing the riverside terrace of the Houses of Parliament.

After photographing this I hurried to Downing Street were there was a rally in on the opposite side of the street with speakers from DPAC, Winvisible, the Scottish Black Triangle Campaign and others including John Clark from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty who shared news of similar problems facing disabled people in Canada.

Gill Thompson spoke about her brother David Clapson, a diabetic ex-soldier died after his benefit was cut as he could not afford food or electricity to keep his insulin cool was there with a banner covered with the names and some photographs of around a hundred of the many who had died because of the DWP’s sanctions, cuts and scapegoating.

The protesters then lifted up the black coffin with white wreaths they had brought and began a march towards the Houses of Parliament.

As they came to Bridge Street the marchers took the police by surprise by turning towards the bridge. The giant banner which had earlier been displayed facing Parliament was now stretched across the road, blocking the bridge in both directions.

After several minutes police began trying to get people to move off the road warning them they are committing an offence and may be arrested. I was also threatened with arrest, despite showing my Press card. One carer who refused to move away from the wheelchair user he was looking after was arrested and taken to a police van.

Most of those in wheelchairs and mobility scooters refused to move or did so only after a long series of threats by police, who eventually managed to clear one carraigeway to allow traffic to move out of Westminster. But a group remained blocking traffic in the other direction until after almost two hours Paula Peters triumphantly announced the protest was ending and everyone left.

The new Labour government dropped key disablity rights pledges made by the party for its election manifesto, and since becoming the government has sidelined disabled people in its first King’s Speech. It seems unlikely that there will be any significant improvement for disabled people under Starmer, and further cuts now seem to be coming.

Many more pictures on My London Diary:
Giant Banner ‘No More Benefit Deaths
‘No More Benefit Deaths’ rally
DPAC block bridge over benefit deaths

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PIP, NHS, Trident & Cleaners – 2016

PIP, NHS, Trident & Cleaners: Wednesday 13th July 2016 was a busy day for me, covering two protests in the ‘#PIPFightback’ National Day of Action against the Personal Independence Payments, a rally in favour of a parliamentary bill to stop the ongoing privatisation of the NHS, a party against plans to spend huge amounts on new nuclear weapons and ending with a rally supporting cleaners in the longest running industrial dispute in the history of the City of London.

PIP Fightback – Vauxhall & Westminster

On this day there were around 20 actions by disabled protesters and their supporters as a ‘#PIPFightback’ National Day of Action against PIP, the Personal Independence Payments which have been a totally inadequate replacement for the Disabled Living Allowance which had previously provided support to enable disabled people to work and live on more even terms with the rest of the community.

I began at the Vauxhall PIP Consultation Centre in Vauxhall where ATOS carry out sham Personal Independence Payments ‘assessments’ on behalf of the DWP. These are carried out without without proper consideration of medical evidence and with ATOS haing a financial incentive to fail claimants.

Many genuine claimants have lost essential benefits for months before these are restored by tribunals on appeal. The temporary loss of finance has resulted in some being taken into hospitals and some commiting suicide.

Other claimants lose benefits as job centres ‘sanction’ them, often for trivial or unfair reasons such as arriving late for interviews due to bus or train delays – or because they have not received a letter about the appointment.

Among those taking part in this protest was Gill Thompson, whose brother David Clapson, a diabetic ex-soldier died in July 2013 after his benefits were ‘sanctioned’. He was left starving without money for food or electricity to keep the fridge containing his insulin running. She carried a banner with the names and a few pictures of around 100 claimants known to have died because of sanctions. This appears to be a relatively small fraction of the total which runs into thousands.

Later I joined a larger protest with members of the Mental Health Resistance Network (MHRN), Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and Winvisible (Women with Invisible and Visible Disabilities) and others in Westminster outside the Victoria Street offices of Capita who also carry out these shoddy assessments.

There were speeches on the pavement there before the protesters moved onto the busy road blocking traffic in both directions, though they quickly moved aside to let a ambulance through.

After a few minutes Paula Peters of DPAC announced it was time to move on and the protesters marched along the road past the Met Police HQ at New Scotland Yard and on the the DWP offices at Caxton House.

Here they blocked the road for some more speeches before moving on to Parliament where there was another short rally on the road before they moved on to the media village on College Green where politicians were being interviewed on TV over the appointment of a new Prime Minister, Theresa May.

Police blocked them from going onto the Green, but soon some went past them and refused police requests to move; eventually they were allowed to stand on a path in the middle of the area. Although all the TV crews present could see and hear the protest, only one or two bothered to come across and find out what was happening – and I think these were from foreign news agencies.

Disabled PIP Fightback blocks Westminster
PIP Fightback at Vauxhall

NHS Bill protest at Parliament

Protesters from various campaigns to save the NHS held a protest in support as Labour MP for Wirral West Margaret Greenwood presented a ‘Ten Minute Rule Bill’ with cross-party support to stop the privatisation of the NHS and return it to its founding principles. Labour Shadow Health Secretary Diane Abbott came out to speak in support at the protest.

More pictures: NHS Bill protest at Parliament

Trident Mad Hatters Tea Party – Parliament Sq

CND members were lobbying MPs at Parliament against plans to replace Trident at a cost of at least £205 billion.

And on the square facing the Houses of Parliament was a ‘Mad Hatters Tea Party’, as well as Christians with placards stating the opposition by churches of the different denominations to the replacement.

Trident Mad Hatters Tea Party

Solidarity for Wood St cleaners – City of London

The strike by cleaners at the 100 Wood St offices managed by CBRE was now the longest running industrial dispute in the history of the City of London.

The cleaners belong to the United Voices of the World union and are employed by anti-union cleaning contractor Thames Cleaning.

Unite the Resistance, the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, Class War and others had come to support the United Voices of the World. After a rally opposite the Wood Street offices, then marched around the block and then went on hold a rally blocking the street outside the CBRE offices at St Martin’s Court.

Solidarity for Wood St cleaners

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British Gas & Independent Living – 2014

British Gas & Independent Living: Two protests on Monday 12th May 2014 in Westminster. the first about fuel poverty and climate change and the second over plans to end the Independent Living Fund which enabled many disabled people to continue to work and have an independent life.

Bin British Gas – QEII Centre, Westminster

British Gas were holding their AGM in the QEII centre and a protest outside demanded they stop profiteering from high energy prices and end support for fracking.

The protest was called by Fuel Poverty Action who say there were over 10,000 extra deaths last winter because people were unable to heat their homes, while Centrica, the parent company of British Gas, made £2.5 billion in 2013. While they raised gas prices by 10.4% and electricity by 8.4%.

They also called for government and energy companies to end support for fracking which as well as threatening water supplies in the UK would also lead to more climate-wrecking carbon dioxide emissions.

The campaigners called for greater investment in renewable energy, which in the long term will result in cheaper energy and will help us tackle climate change. But this isn’t popular with the big six energy companies (and the government which is led by their lobbyists) as it enables greater local generation and control of energy, threatening their monopoly of energy production and profits.

At the protest were representatives from fuel poverty, pensioner, climate, housing groups and renewable energy co-operatives. After a number of speeches including from Green Party leader Natalie Bennett, Paula Peters of Disabled People Against Cuts, people came together too tear up British Gas energy bills.

A giant bill was torn up and Lambeth pensioner, Ellen Lebethe, brought out a poster-size Fuel Poverty Action ‘Energy Bill of Rights.’

We all have the right to affordable energy to meet our basic needs.
We all have the right to energy that does not harm us, the environment, or the climate.
We all have the right to energy that does not threaten health, safety, water, air, or the local environment of a community.
We all have the right to a fair energy pricing that does not penalise those who use less.
We all have the right not to be cut off from energy supply.
We all have the right not to be forced to have a prepayment meter.
We all have the right to energy that is owned by us and run in our interests.

Inside the Centrica AGM, a member of Reclaim Shakespeare Company had stood up holding a can of beans and a skull to read a version of Hamlet’s iconic monologue, entitled “To Heat or Eat, that is the question”, and this was read out at the protest. Shortly after the actor came out from the building to tell us about what had happened inside.

The protest ended with people planting 100 small windmills made from folded British Gas bills in the grass outside the QEII centre.

More pictures at Bin British Gas.

Save Independent Living Fund – Dept of Work & Pensions

The Independent Living Fund (ILF) was set up in 1988 under the Thatcher government to provided financial support to some of the most severely disabled people in the UK. Its main use was to enable them to have carers and personal assistants so they could live in their communities and for many to continue in useful employment.

The ILF was administered by a separately funded body and was highly cost-effective, providing support at much lower costs than residential care as well as enabling those receiving support to live independent lives Around 18,000 people were being assisted by the fund in 2014.

When the government announced it was scrapping the scheme in England in 2010 it was met with protests by disabled people and in 2013 was taken to court. The government won the case that its decision was lawful, but lost in the Court of Appeal.

A revised proposal was then made by the government to announce once again in March 2014 that ILF would close. A fresh legal challenge failed in December 2014 and the scheme ended in June 2015, with responsibility for supporting disabled people being passed to local authorities who were given funding roughly 12% less than the ILF – and which was not ring-fenced.

Police tried to persuade the protesters to keep to a small area well to one side of the Dept of Work & Pensions but they refused and protested in a larger space in front of the two main doors, which were both locked for the event.

At the centre of the protest was a small cage, with the message ‘NO ILF – NO LIFE‘ across its top, and below the barred window ‘Without Support We Become Prisoners In Our Own Homes – Save the Independent Living Fund’. Squeezed into this was Paula Peters of DPAC, Disabled People Against Cuts, the group who had organised the protest.

A number of people told their ‘ILF stories‘ of how the fund had helped them and how they feared its closure would seriously limit their lives. DPAC tried to deliver a letter to Minister for the Disabled Mike Penning but were refused entry to the building and no one from the department was prepared to come and receive it.

One of the protesters who had travelled from Newcastle phoned her MP from here wheelchair outside the DWP, and Mary Glindon, the Labour MP for North Tyneside came down to support the protest. She failed to get DWP security to let the protesters deliver their letter but offered to deliver it for them. She was let in through a side entrance to do so then came out and spoke briefly giving her support to the protest.

More at Save Independent Living Fund.

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Dolce & Gabbana, Sanctions & Poor Doors 2015

Dolce & Gabbana, Sanctions & Poor Doors Thursday 19th March 2015 -protests at a Mayfair fashion store, the Department of Work and Pensions and another of Class War’s long series of protests at One Commercial St, Aldgate.

Dolce & Gabbana Boycott – Old Bond St

Domenico Dolce and his business partner Stefano Gabbana are apparently well known fashion designers and have a range of over 200 shops in plush areas of cities in 41 countries dedicated exclusively to selling their overpriced clothing. In London I think they have one in Sloane Square as well as the Mayfair store this protest took place outside.

For some reason our media treats anything to do with fashion as important news, and there were more photographers and TV crews packing the narrow pavement than protesters when I arrived making covering the protest difficult, particularly for those of us who prefer to work at close range.

The Peter Tatchell Foundation and the Out and Proud Diamond Group had called the protest in support of the international boycott over homophobic statements by the two designers. Almost certainly a much higher proportion of the shop’s customers are gay than in the general population and Dolce & Gabbana have profited massively from sales to the gay community over the years.

More about the protest at Dolce & Gabbana Boycott.

Unite protest against Benefit Sanctions – Caxton House, Westminster

Unite here and at Job Centres around the country were having a day of action against punitive benefit sanctions on over 2m people which had led to increased poverty, misery and even death. They say the are a ‘grotesque cruelty’ and are often imposed for trivial reasons.

People have been sanctioned because postal delays meant they never got notification of an appointment they missed, or because they were 5 minutes late as a bus was cancelled. Often job centre staff are under pressure to issue sanctions and may be penalised if they do not sanction enough of their clients.

At the protest was Gill Thompson, whose brother, David Clapson, a diabetic ex-soldier, died after being sanctioned. She had brought her 211,822 signature petition calling for an inquiry into benefit sanctions to the protest to present to the DWP.

Among others who spoke was Rev Paul Nicholson of Taxpayers Against Poverty.

More pictures Unite protest against Benefit Sanctions.

Poor Doors Protest Blocks Rich Door – One Commercial St, Aldgate

When Class War read a newspaper article about the separate entrances for rich residents and those in social housing in a new block at One Commercial Street in July 2014 they were disgusted and decided to launch a series of weekly protests outside the block every Thursday evening.

I missed the first of these but you can find reports of almost all of the rest of them, at least 29 in all, on My London Diary. For an overview you can read John Bigger’s article on Freedom in which he gives an insider’s view and assesses the impact of these protests, and the ‘zine’ I published Class War: Rich Door, Poor Door with over 200 photographs from 29 protests is still available. But though this is reasonably priced, postage costs roughly double this – so you really need to buy half a dozen copies or more and give or sell some to your friends. Be warned the print quality in what Blurb calls a MAGAZINE is pretty low.

The protest on 19th March was a lively one and the management at One Commercial Street had locked the rich door and were I think telling the rich residents of that section to enter and leave instead through the hotel at the Commercial Street side of the building. Class War held up banners and posters and some stuck stickers onto the glass of door and large windows. Someone lit a red smoke flare and threw it onto the pavement. There was a lot of loud chanting and some short speeches.

Some younger anarchists present took plastic barriers from the works taking place on the pavement and piled them in front of the locked door. Others took them onto the busy Whitechapel High Street and blocked the traffic.

A man and a woman who had been watching suddenly grabbed one of those present, threw him to the floor and handcuffed him, holding up their warrant cards to show they were plain clothes police. I didn’t recognise the man they arrested who was not one of the regular Class War protesters, and as usual they refused to answer questions about why he was being arrested. But their arrest effectively blocked the only lane of the road which the protesters had not already blocked.

More uniformed police arrived and dragged the arrested man away to a police van, removed the barriers and protesters from the road and the protest continued with Class War holding up flaming torches in front of the rich door.

There were a few more short speeches and then the protesters left as usual after about an hour, leaving their posters attached to the glass on the front of the building by Class War stickers.

More at Poor Doors blocks Rich Door.

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Shaker, Job Centres, Firefighters, Tube, Lambeth

Shaker, Job Centres, Firefighters, Tube, Lambeth – On Wednesday 25th February I photographed a number of protests in London, starting in Westminster with the Free Shaker Aamer campaign, striking firefighters and welfare rights activists, then with tube workers at Edgware Road and finally outside Lambeth Town Hall in Brixton.

Free Shaker Aamer – Parliament Square

A protest opposite Parliament called for the urgent release of London resident Shaker Aamer from Guantanamo, where he has been held and regularly abused for 13 years without charge or trial.

The Free Shaker Aamer Campaign had been holding weekly protests opposite Parliament whenever it was in session to remind government of the need for act over his release. He had long been cleared for release but was still held in the illegal prison camp with both US and UK governments dragging their feet as his testimony would be embarrassing to their security agencies, making clear their involvement in torture.

The protest was longer than usual as an international event was taking place at the nearby QEII centre and they wanted to remind delegates there of Shaker’s torture and imprisonment. Eventually the long campaign of protests by this and other groups led the UK government they needed to back his release in practice and he was finally released on 30th October 2015.

More pictures: Free Shaker Aamer at Parliament

Striking Firefighters block traffic – Westminster

Firefighters in England held a 24 hour strike on 25th Feb 2015 against the unworkable pension scheme the government intended to implement. They say that the devolved governments had recognised the problems in the scheme and made improvements but in England government ministers were refusing to talk with the union, simply ignoring requests for meetings. They accused the government of lies about the union, saying they were being labelled as militants despite them being ready and willing to enter into negotiations at any time.

After a rally in Westminster Central Hall, several thousand striking firefighters protested on the street outside Parliament before marching to Downing St. Their protest brought all traffic in the area to a standstill until they marched away.

They stopped outside Downing Street and refused to move, saying they would wait there until someone came out to talk to them. A senior police officer come to talk with Matt Wrack and the other FBU leaders there and was extrememly politie, taking Wrack’s mobile number before going away to see if anyone could be persuaded to come out from Downing St to meet the protesters.

I left them leaning on the barriers and looking into Downing Street waiting for someone to come and see them, though I doubted if anyone would ever emerge.

The Fire Service has also suffered like other public services from government cuts; in London these led to Mayor Boris Johnson making dangerous reductions, closing some fire stations and reducing equipment and staffing, which left the London Fire Brigade ill-equipped to deal with major disasters such as the Grenfell fire.

The FBU union later won a number of legal cases against the government over the changes that were made to the pensions scheme, leading to significant compensation for some members.

More at Striking Firefighters block traffic.

Welfare Advocacy not a Crime – DWP, Westminster

Welfare activists protested outside the Dept of Work & Pensions in Caxton Street as a part of the national day of action over the arrest of welfare rights activist Tony Cox. He had been arrested when he tried to accompany a vulnerable claimant to her job centre interview to argue for a fairer claimant agreement.

As well as several banners, one man was gagged in protest. By law claimants are allowed to have and adviser present with them at the interview, but when a claimant turned up with Cox, his interview was cancelled.

Cox and the claimant then left the job centre, but later in the day police arrived at his him and arrested him, charging him with threatening behaviour.

Welfare Advocacy not a Crime.

RMT protest Underground Job Cuts – Edgware Road Station (Bakerloo)

Around 20 RMT members handed out fliers at the busy Edgware Road Bakerloo Line station against the proposed 50% cut in station staffing and the closure of the ticket offices which they say will endanger the safety of both passengers and staff.

They got a very positive reception from many of the public going in and out of the station or walking past, although a PCSO came to harass and try to stop their picketing. Most of the public seemed to realise that staff do far more than sell tickets and offer service and protection to the travelling public.

Many promises were made to Underground staff and the public about how they would be protected when cuts were made, but most were later broken.

RMT protest Underground Job Cuts

Lambeth against £90m cuts – Lambeth Town Hall, Brixton

After taking some photographs of the protesting RMT staff I got on the Underground there, changing at Oxford Circus to take me to the end of the Victoria Line at Brixton.

There I walked down to Lambeth Town Hall on the corner of Acre Land to join around a hundred trade unionists, pensioners, library and other council staff, social housing tenants and other residents who were gathering for a lively rally outside Lambeth Town Hall.

A lively rally took place urging councillors who were arriving for the council meeting to reject library closures and other £90 millon cuts which were being passed there by the large Labour majority on the council. Labour then held 59 of the 63 council seats. Among the speakers at the rally was the only Green Party councillor, Scott Ainslie, who was to vote against the cuts. The Green Party gained four more seats in the 2018 council elections but lost three of these in 2022. Right-wing Labour councillors still have an overwheming majority and the council continues its policies which fail the community.

Lambeth’s finances were stretched by the development of a new Town Hall or Civic Centre the cost of which roughly doubled from the original contract of £55 million ot £104 million. Policies such as the closure of libraries and the demolition and sale of popular and well-built council estates like Cressingham Gardens had already produced a great deal of protest in the borough.

The £90 million cuts passed at the council meeting later that evening have had a disproportionate impact on children, old people and the disabled who always rely on local services more than the average person. Council employees at the rally opposed the cuts not only because they feared for their own jobs, but because they knew those that remain in post will not be able to offer the public the same quality of service that they do at present.

Lambeth against £90m cuts

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Roma, Olympic Park and Mind – 2016

Roma, Olympic Park and Mind: After a morning protest by Roma at the Czech Embassy in Kensington I took a walk around the Olympic Park in Stratford before joining the Mental Health Resistance Network (MHRN) and Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) who were holding a Halloween Demo at the national office of Mind.

Roma protest Czech Murder – Czech embassy, Kensington

Ladislav Balaz, Chair of the Roma Labour Group and Europe Roma Network and others had come to hand in a letter calling for the murder of a young Romani man by neo-Nazi skinheads in Žatec to be properly investigated.

The man who had lived in the UK until a year ago was a second cousin of Balaz. He was set upon as he went to buy cigarettes at a pizzeria.

Most cases of murders of Roma in the Czech Republic are dismissed by police as accidents and they have already issued false stories about the victim, claiming he was mentally ill and attacked people. The Roma demand justice and equality for everyone in Czech Republic and the elimination of any double standards of justice. Several of the protesters made speeches in Czech as the letter was presented.

Roma protest Czech Murder

A Walk in the Olympic Park – Stratford

I had several hours between the protest outside the Czech Embassy and a protest in Stratford High Street and decided it was a good occasion to take another walk in the park at Stratford which had been the site of the 2012 London olympic games and to make some more panoramic images.

It was a year since I had been there, and four years since the Olympics and I had hoped to see the park in much better condition than I found it. Considerable progress had been made in the buildings which are shooting up around it and many of the ways into the park are still closed.

I walked around much of the southern area of the park and found it still “largely an arid and alienating space composed mainly of wide empty walkways rather than a park.”

I took rather a lot of pictures, both panoramic and more normal views before it was time to make my way back through the Westfield shopping centre into the centre of Stratford.

Many more pictures at A Walk in the Olympic Park.

Against Mind’s collusion with the DWP – Stratford

*Paul Farmer, Mind’s chief executive came out and spoke to the protesters*

The Mental Health Resistance Network (MHRN) and Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) came for a Halloween Demo at the national office of mental health charity Mind in Stratford.

They complain that Mind failed to mention the effects of welfare reform, sanctions, or benefit-related deaths in its latest five-year strategy and has dropped its support for the long-running court case aimed at forcing the government to make WCA safer for people with mental health conditions.

Mind’s policy and campaigns manager Tom Pollard had been seconded to work as a senior policy adviser to the DWP and was to start the following day and they demanded the resignation of Mind’s chief executive, Paul Farmer.

Farmer came out to meet the protesters on the pavement and told them that Mind was still working for people with mental health problems and not for the DWP, and that Pollard’s decision had been entirely a personal one in order to gain more insight into the workings of government rather than to assist them in the any discrimination against the disabled.

The protesters were unconvinced and after he had finished speaking several spoke about how local Mind groups were working against the interests of those with mental health problems. They claimed the local managers were often more interested in empire building than in the welfare of benefit claimants.

More pictures at Mind’s collusion with the DWP.