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Give Our Kids A Future – 2011

Give Our Kids A Future – Dalston to Tottenham. A week after the police killing of Mark Duggan and the disturbances which followed in Tottenham, across London and in other towns and cities, community groups in North London came together on Saturday 13th August 2011 with around 1500 people marching from Dalston to Tottenham Town Hall pleading “Give Our Kids a Future.”

These disturbances were seen by many without surprise as tensions were rising in the more deprived areas of London and across the country as a result of the cuts to youth services and other support begun under New Labour and continued more savagely by the Coalition government.

Local Authorites were being starved of resources and had little choice but to make cuts where they could, cuts which disproportionately affected young people, the elderly and the disabled who rely more on their services. In particular many youth clbbs and other facilities had been closed.

Young people had also been hit by the announcement that the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA) which enabled many in lower icnome homes to continue their eduction was to end this summer. Many school students had been radicalised and had taken part in sometimes disorderly student protests, joining in the protests over university fee rises and other changes in education.

On these protests they had seen and suffered from heavy-handed policing with kettling, excessive use of batons and charges into crowds by police horses. And on the streets where they lived many had experienced police harassment, with racially discriminatory stop and searches and being moved away from areas where they met with friends.

People in these areas were becoming more aware of unexplained deaths in police custody, with anger and resentment “multiplied by the lies told by police to the press, and the various cover-ups and white-washing by the IPCC, CPS and other authorities that have been used to prevent bringing those responsible to justice. “

Some saw the shooting of Mark Duggan as an execution by police, and the undisguised glee of some of our right-wing media at his death, having taken the police lies and convicted him, clearly raised tempers. It was the total failure of Tottenham police to engage with the family members and others who held a peaceful vigil last Saturday and the police attack and beating of 15 year old girl that sparked the outbreak of rage that spread rapidly.

The march was not organised to condone any illegal behaviour but was an attempt by a long list of local organisations with the support of some wider political groups (a long list on My London Diary) “to bring all sections of local communities together to promote unity and to urge for positive action working together to find solutions to some of the long-standing problems of the area which made it fertile ground for the disturbances.“

“They want an end to the cuts in public services and for investment to be made into regeneration of the communities, with housing, jobs, education and leisure facilities and a restoration of all the youth services that have been cut”.

“More specifically about the riots they want a community led regeneration of the damaged areas and support for those affected, including the immediate rehousing of those made homeless and grants for small businesses.”

“But perhaps the most important of their demands was one for a cultural change, moving away from the demonisation of youth and the unemployed towards a culture of valuing all people.”

Their leaflet ended with the statement:

“Let’s work together for a decent society, based not on greed, inequality and poor conditions, but on justice, freedom, sharing and cooperation.“

More, including many more pictures, on My London Diary at Give Our Kids A Future.

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Tories Out March – 2017

Tories Out March: Around 20,000 met outside the BBC in Portland Place on Saturday 1st July 2017 to march to Parliament Square demanding an end to the Tory government under Theresa May.

Most were supporters of the Labour Party and in particular of the then Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn, who had narrowly failed to win the recent general election, defeated not by the Tories but by sabotage within the party by the Labour right who controlled much of the party mechanism.

The Labour right had been shocked and appalled by Corbyn’s victory in the leadership contest and had done everything they could since then to get rid of him, with orchestrated cabinet resignations and the stoking up of false antisemitism claims combined with behind the scenes actions to ensure the failure of his attempts to improve the way the party tried to deal with such allegations.

We had seen on television the relief felt by some of them as the results came out when after it had begun to look as if Labour had a chance of victory it became clear that the Tories would hang on to a small majority. The last thing they had wanted had been for Corbyn to have won.

Theresa May had scraped in but had then had to bribe the DUP, a deeply bigoted party with links to Loyalist terrorists to give her a working majority.

Her austerity policies had been largely rejected by the electorate and the recent Grenfell Tower disaster had underlined the toxic effects of Tory failure and privatisation of building regulations and inspection and a total lack of concern for the lives of ordinary people.

*A woman poses as Theresa May with a poster ‘We cut 10,000 fire fighter jobs because your lives are worthless’*

The protesters – and much of the nation – knew that the Tories had proved themselves unfit to govern. The marchers and the people wanted a decent health service, education system, housing, jobs and better living standards for all.

But not all were happy with Labour policies either, although the great majority of them joined in with the sycophantic chanting in support of Corbyn. But there were significant groups who were also protesting against the housing polices being pursued by Labour-dominated local authorities, particularly in London Boroughs including Labour Southwark, Lambeth, Haringey and Newham.

Huge areas of council housing had been demolished or were under threat of demolition largely for the benefit of developers, selling off publicly owned land for the profit of the developers and disregarding the needs of the residents and of the huge numbers on council housing lists.

*Class War protest the devastation of the estates where the poor live*

One example was “the Heygate at Elephant & Castle, a well-designed estate deliberately run down by the council over at least a decade, but still in remarkably good condition. It cost Southwark Council over £51m to empty the estate of tenants and leaseholders, and in 2007 had valued the site at £150m, yet they sold it for a third of its market value to developers Lendlease for £50m.”

The estate had been home to over a thousand council tenants and another 189 leaseholders. Around 500 tenants were promised they would be able to return to to homes on the new estate – but there were just 82 social rented homes. The leaseholders were given compensation of around a third of the price of comparable homes in the new Elephant Park – and most had to move miles away to find property they could afford.

In 2017 Haringey was making plans to demolish around 5,000 council homes, roughly a third of its entire stock under what was known as the Haringey Development Vehicle (HDV) with developers Lendlease. Plans here prompted a revolt in the local area led by Labour members in the pro-Corbyn Momentum group who gained control of the council in 2018 and scrapped the HDV.

*A giant-headed Theresa May outside Downing St*

Among those leading protests against Labour’s Housing Policy was Class War who have been active in many of the protests over housing. I photographed them having a little fun with the march stewards, but unfortunately missed the scene at the rally in Parliament Square when Lisa Mckenzie confronted both Len McCluskey, General Secretary of Unite the Union and Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn asking them the simple question ‘When are you going to stop Labour councils socially cleansing people out of London?’.

*Class War lift up their banner in front of a police officer videoing protesters*

Both men ignored her, walking past without pausing to answer and “the small Class War group was surrounded by Labour Party supporters holding up placards to hide them and idiotically chanting ‘Oh, Je-re-my Cor-byn! Oh, Je-re-my Cor-byn!’. But eight years later, now in power led by Starmer and Angela Rayner, Labour seems determined to make much the same mistakes in its housing policy.

More at Tories Out March.

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Teachers March for Education – Westminster 2013

Teachers March for Education: On Tuesday 25th June 2013 teachers from the London area marched through central London today past the Department for Education to a rally. They shouted ‘Gove Must Go!‘ and called for the government to cease attacks on teachers and stop undermining our education system.

I should declare a personal interest. I spent 30 years as a full-time teacher, beginning in secondary education where I worked for almost 10 years in a rather unruly 2000+ comprehensive school before moving to a sixth-form and community college. Over the years I taught a wide range of subjects from science and photography with some computer training, business studies with a little personal and social education thrown in as well as setting up and managing a school computer network and then setting up a Cisco Networking Academy. Add pastoral work as a form teacher or group tutor, some careers advice and exam administration and I had a pretty wide experience of what was still for most of my time, the chalk face.

And of course, as well as teaching photography I also was a photographer, though my activities were then largely restricted to weekends and holidays – and even some of these were taken up by lesson preparation, marking, schemes of work and other administrative tasks.

Various governments had imposed changes on our education system over the years I was involved and few of them had improved our education system but I think all had made teaching as a career more onerous and less attractive. While the National Curriculum was a good idea, its implementation from the start by Kenneth Baker in 1989 was unduly detailed and prescriptive. To a small extent it was updated to make it simpler in 1994, but then under New Labour things got worse.

Education also suffered because of Margaret Thatcher’s determination to cut the power of local authorities with many administrative functions being removed from their grasp leading to schools becoming businesses. Back when I started schools didn’t have managers and there were very few staff who weren’t teachers other than the caretaker and cleaners. New Labour went further in 2000 with the setting up of academies which were totally independent of local authority schools and later the coalition government went further with so-called free schools.

Ofsted inspections had come in in 1993. Before that time school inspections were carried out by Her Majesty’s Inspectors and local authority teams. All involved I think had experience in education and their aim was to enable staff and schools to improve their performance. Ofsted was quite different with many inspectors having little or no experience in education and all were trained in a rigid framework for inspection which allowed no real dialogue with the schools or the teachers who were being inspected.

I was very pleased to be able to leave full-time teaching and move into the photographic area after I was invited to write about photography for a leading US web site as the administrative burden of teaching was becoming simply unbearable. And it certainly wasn’t improving my teaching.

I quoted Peter Glover, Liverpool NUT and NUT National Executive member for Merseyside and Cheshire on the reason for the forthcoming strike action and rallies:

“Pay, pensions, workload, holidays, OFSTED, surveillance…the attacks on teachers have never been as severe. In many schools this Government has created an atmosphere of terror. Managers with no teaching responsibility roam schools armed with clipboards and OFSTED-inspired grids, pouncing on teachers. ‘Drop-ins’ that turn into capability procedures are the vogue.”

*Jolyon Rubinstein and Heydon Prowse of ‘The Revolution Will Be Televised’ start taking the piss out of teachers, not all of whom are amused*

As I commented, “Many teachers feel that Minister Michael Gove is setting out to smash the teaching unions in the way that the Thatcher government took on the miners. Teaching is a highly unionised profession, and thus a prime candidate for attack. But teachers join teaching unions because they see them as working not just for their own interests, but more generally for education and for children, protecting educational standards against the attacks by successive governments. They are not just trade unions but professional bodies.”

The government was attacking the national pay system, allowing schools to employ unqualified teachers and worsening working conditions. Many also felt threatened by the general plans to raise “the retirement age to 68. Teaching is a very stressful career and as they say, ’68 is too late’.”

Gove was also responsible for changing the National Curriculum in ways that showed his unwillingness to “take notice of educational research or the views of experts in the field” relying instead on his own whims and unsuitable advisers. If you have children or grandchildren who can tell you abstruse (and sometimes academically contentious) grammatical terms such as “fronted adverbials” but can’t write an interesting story, then you have Gove to thank for it.

More about the march and more pictures on My London Diary at Teachers March for Education.

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People’s Assembly, English National Alliance, Dykes – 2013

People’s Assembly, English National Alliance, Dykes: Saturday 22nd June 2013 saw a major rally by the Peoples’ Assembly in Methodist Central Hall with smaller protests outside by Class War, Occupy and others and a small march by the English National Alliance march to lay flowers at the Cenotaph and take a letter to David Cameron. My photography ended for the day at the Dyke March London 2013.

People’s Assembly – Methodist Central Hall

People's Assembly, English National Alliance, Dykes - 2013

I didn’t actually go to the People’s Assembly but did take pictures of some of the people and groups outside and people as they come out from the event. It had seemed to me and to others that it had been deliberately organised as a ‘safety valve’ “used by the trade union establishment to “disperse some of the head of steam that had built up among the rank and file” rather like “the huge ‘Stop the War’ protest in Feb 2003, when leaders who were now prominent in the Assembly failed to take any decisive action – simply calling for another (and in the event rather smaller) protest a while after Blair had declared it was war. “

The events inside were “stage managed so that any criticism of the Labour Party and trade unions was banned from the main hall – with for example Ken Loach being told there was no room for him to speak at the plenary.” The groups I photographed outside were also denied any voice. This was clearly as I described it, a “Labour love-in“.

People’s Assembly

Class War – Action Not Talk?

Ian Bone had called for “a f**king big mob outside” (my asterisks) the People’s Assembly, but the mob largely failed to turn up. Around enough for a football team. And in a questionable piece of timing his rally in the pulpit facing Methodist Central Hall started just a few minutes after the faithful had gone inside for another session of the “pointless jamboree“.

So Comrades Bone and Heath and the other speakers called for an end to talk talk, and for action on the streets following the examples of Turkey and Brazil to a largely empty London street. Even the Anonymous masked guys from Occupy couldn’t be bothered to leave their picnic to listen, though I found it amusing. And sad, because much of what was said was just too true.

Action Not Talk?

Anonymous Occupy the Grass

A small group of Occupy London supporters, some wearing ‘Anonymous’ masks handed out leaflets, offered free hugs, and had a picnic on the grass area outside the QEII centre in front of the People’s Assembly Against Austerity. There were also several other groups offering an alternative to the talk-shop going on inside Methodist Central Hall.

Anonymous Occupy the Grass

ENA Meet Left Opposition – Westminster

*English National Alliance leader Bill Baker leads his group away as police hold back anti-racists*

With a major left-wing event taking place in and around Methodist Central Hall it was probably not the best day for the extreme right English National Alliance to hold a march in Westminster, but it would have gone a little more smoothly if the police had not led them into the area filled with more radical small groups in front of the hall.

*The march set off with around ten people*

After the ENA had only gone a few yards into the area, some still shouting slogans including “No Surrender” they were surrounded by people shouting “Fascist scum!”, “Racists!” and some trying to bar their way. Police pushed them (and me) out of the way, but minor scuffles developed, with police making one arrest. A woman taking photographs told me she was hit by the stick one of the ENA was using.

Police rushed the marchers into the area in front of the QEII conference centre and then back onto Broad Sanctuary to Parliament Square, with a few counter-protesters accompanying them and shouting. I went with them to the gates of Downing Street where I declined their request to go with Baker, but did take a copy of the statement they were intending to deliver to David Cameron.

On My London Dairy I wrote more about the ENA and their complaints against the press as well as their policies. The start of the march was delayed as they waited for more to arrive (they didn’t) and we had a long discussion. I argued that accurate reporting was important and had that I tried hard to represent people’s views even when I don’t agree with them.

It was a sensibly conducted discussion but I was unable to convince them that the problems in housing were not caused by immigration by “the failure of successive governments to invest in social housing, exacerbated by the Thatcher’s right to buy policy and the subsidies to landlords through housing benefit.” Or that “Education is in a mess not because our pupils now have to learn about Muslims, or that we don’t teach British history (schools still do) but because of the failure of politicians to listen to those who know anything about it and a target-driven culture that mistakes better test results for better education etc.“

But I did try to present the views they expressed to Cameron in my piece on My London Diary, and I think these include some points the left might find surprising. As I concluded, “It seems to me to reflect a deeply felt dissatisfaction with changes in our society but to fail to see the real causes – largely class and capital – and instead to blame these on immigration and immigrants, who have enriched our society in so many ways through the ages and continue to do so.“

More at ENA Meet Left Opposition.

Dykes March – Berkeley Square to Soho

The previous year had seem the first Dyke March London for many years, but this years march had had less publicity and support and there were less than half as many people in Berkeley Sqaure for the start.

Speakers at the opening rally included the writer, critic, poet and deputy editor of the trans digital magazine META Roz Kaveney who read one of her poems, and founder of the UK’s LGBT History and long-standing LGBT activist Sue Sanders.

*Queer Sluts + Godesses – Empowerment though music Eros + cake’*

Sanders tested the crowd of several hundred women on their knowledge of lesbian icons such as Dame Ethel Smyth, a suffragette who was one of the better British composers of the twentieth century. I think I did better than average on her quiz.

From Berkeley Square the march went down to Piccadilly on its way to a rally in Soho Square, but I left them at Piccadilly Circus.

Dykes March

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Anti-Homeless Spikes & No More Austerity – 2014

Anti-Homeless Spikes & No More Austerity: On Saturday 21st June 2014 I photographed a small protest against anti-homeless spikes outside the Tesco Metro on Lower Regent Street on my way to a much larger protest against austerity meeting at the BBC in Portland Place and marching to a rally in Parliament Square.

Call for Nationwide Homeless Spikes Ban

Public disquiet was mounting against the increasing use of anti-homeless spikes on and around buildings, metal or concrete spikes used to make pavements, ledges and other horizontal surface impossible or very uncomfortable for people to lie down or sometimes even sit on, aimed in particular at stopping homeless people sleeping there.

These spikes and other ‘hostile measures’ are increasingly used to force homeless people out of public spaces – you can read more about it in a 2016 article on the Crisis web site as well as in various newspaper reports. ‘Defensive Architecture’ continues and you can read about a 2024 campaign against spikes by artist Stuart Semple and creative agency TBWA\MCR in Big Issue.

Call for Nationwide Homeless Spikes Ban

No More Austerity – Demand The Alternative

There was huge support for the march and rally by The People’s Assembly, trade unions and campaign groups calling for an end to austerity which gathered outside the BBC to march to a rally in Parliament Square.

Clearly the government cuts since 2010 were causing huge problems across the nation and were stifling economic growth. And while we were still wasting huge amounts on senseless projects such as Trident nuclear missiles, public services were being cut, public sector workers were getting cuts in pay through below inflation increases. Education was suffering, the NHS was being increasingly privatised and generally the interests of the majority were being sacrificed while the wealthy were getting even richer.

Measure such as 2012 bedroom tax and later the two child benefit cap brought in in 2017 plunged many of the poorest even deeper into poverty and there were continued attacks on disability benefits.

I put almost all of the pictures from the march on-line without captions with a promise to add them later but – as so often – later never came. But I think most of the pictures tell their own story,

Among them are a number of pictures of Class War – some of them carrying a banner which later became their manifesto for the 2015 general election – for which they became a political party and stood a handful of candidates – who each only received a handful of votes. But perhaps ‘DOUBLE DOLE – NO BEDROOM TAX – DOUBLE PENSIONS’ was never likely to be an entirely convincing alternative.

In 2017 we did have a real alternative and the Labour vote was up by 9.5% and it was only a deliberate and deceitful campaign by the party right who were in control of the party mechanism diverting resources from key marginals that stopped a Corbyn victory. They out-manoeuvred the left again in 2019 both to ensure defeat and for the key architect of the disastrous policy that lost them the vote as minister for Brexit to become party leader.

But people in 2024 still wanted change, and voted against the hopeless and hapless Tories who had blustered under Boris, wilted faster than lettuce under Truss and submerged under Sunak. But what we got was not chage but Tory-lite, even resurrecting the tired skeletons of Blair and Mandelson. It now seems more than likely that at the next election we may get change – but for the even worse.

I won’t bother to put any of the pictures of speakers at the rally on-line, though I photographed a long list of them – all on My London Diary.

Parliament Square was pretty full and people were still arriving at the square long after I made a picture of the crowd at the start of the rally.

More pictures:
People’s Assembly Rally
No more Austerity – demand the alternative

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Jobs, Services, Education, Yemen, Rev Billy, Police Violence – 2009

Jobs, Services, Education, Yemen, Rev Billy, Police Violence: Saturday 23 May 2009 was another busy day for protests in London. I began with the March to Defend Jobs, Services and Education in North London, moved to Whitehall for a protest by Southern Yemenis calling for independence and met the The Reverend Billy and his ‘Life After Shopping’ Gospel choir for a performance in front of the gates of Downing St. Later I met the Rev again on a march against police violence prompted by the killing of Ian Tomlinson by a police officer at he G20 protest at the start of the month.

March to Defend Jobs, Services and Education – Highbury Fields to Archway

Jobs, Services, Education, Yemen, Rev Billy, Police Violence - 2009

The march by around 500 workers in Islington from Highbury Fields to Archway followed the loss of 1500 jobs in the area, including 550 mainly support workers from London Metropolitan University, 500 civil servants from Archway tower and more at City University, where adult education is under threat.

It was supported by many local groups including the Islington National Union of Teachers, the Public & Commercial Services Union, London Metropolitan University Unison and the University and College Union. Among the speakers at the Archway rally were local MP Jeremy Corbyn and local trade union leaders.

Education in the area has been particularly important in giving people who have missed out in various ways in their schooling a chance to gain qualifications, and the cuts threaten the future of many of these courses as well as the support such as nurseries which enable many mature students to continue education. Islington has the highest population density of any local authority in England and Wales and a third of its residents live in poverty – well above the London average.

March to Defend Jobs, Services & Education

Southern Yemenis Demonstrate For a Separate State – Downing St, Whitehall

Southern Yemenis from the Southern Democratic Assembly (TAJ), based in London came to protest following protests in Aden the previous week on the 15th anniversary of the attempt by Southern Yemen to break away from the North which began the 1994 Civil War, a short but brutal conflict which ended in July 1994 with defeat for the South.

Southern Yemen, until 1967 the British protectorate of Aden, was granted independence and in 1969 became the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen. Although a decision to unite with North Yemen – the Yemen Arab Republic – was made in principle in 1972 this only happened in 1990 when the Republic of Yemen was formed. South Yemen contains most of the reserves of oil and other resources and TAJ accuse the government of grabbing land and property and of human rights abuses.

Since 2004 the rise of the Houthis has dominated politics and armed conflict in Yemen with a full-scale civil war between them and a Saudi-led coalition backed by the US and the west since 2015.

Southern Yemenis Demonstrate

Rev Billy Performs at Downing St

*“Officer, I can see you have a shopping problem”*

The Reverend Billy and his ‘Life After Shopping’ Gospel choir from New York were busy in London today on their 2009 UK Shopocalypse Tour.

Police obviously had no idea of how to handle the Reverend and his green-robed choir when the came and gave a brief performance on the pavement in front of the tall gates with their armed guards.

As I wrote, ‘The Church of Life After Shopping believes that we need to “back away from the product” and resist the way that advertising and the media persuade us to live only thorough consuming corporate products, and get down to experiencing life directly. We can live more by consuming less – and at the same time help save the planet and put an end to climate change, which is a result of our excessive consumption. ‘

Consumerism is at the root of our government’s economic programme with its emphasis on growth but this comes at the expense of both personal fulfilment and the future of the planet, driving catastrophic climate change as we pursue this false God.

“As Billy says, following the G20 summit and the pathetic waste and greed shown in the continuing parliamentary allowances scandal, our government and MPs are clearly in need of the Life After Shopping Gospel.

Amen indeed brother!”

Rev Billy Performs at Downing St

National Demonstration against Police Violence
Trafalgar Square to New Scotland Yard

The United Campaign Against Police Violence was set up after the G20 protest at Bank in London where Ian Tomlinson died following an assault by a police officer as he tried to make his way home from work through the area where the demonstration was taking place.

*Who Killed Ian Tomlinson? And Sean Rigg?*

Thee organisers included trade unionists and activists who had organised the G20 protest and campaigners against police violence, particularly those involved with the United Families and Friends Campaign by friends and the families of people who have died in police custody. Among those taking part were the families of two men who died in Brixton Police Station, Ricky Bishop and Sean Rigg.

In all these killings the police reaction to the deaths was to issue a number of highly misleading statements and to try to protect its officers by failing to make proper and timely investigations. This march attracted far more police attention and resources than any of these deaths where families have had to fight to get any information from police.

Leading the start of the march was a coffin and the red ‘Horse of the Apocalypse’ one of the four which headed the G20 protests – and gave the clear message at that protest that the intention was street theatre rather than the kind of insurrection that the police anticipated and then went on to themselves create.

Sean Rigg’s two sisters were on the march and making their views felt, and the Rev Billy came with his giant non-powered megaphone.

At Scotland Yard the mood became more solemn for a period of silence for those who had died and people linked hands to surround New Scotland Yard in a symbolic “kettle”.

Chis Knight spoke with Sean Rigg’s sisters on each side of him. A police officer stands impassive as people prepared to release black balloons in memory of the dead.

The mood was somber, solemn as we remembered those who have died. Suddenly the whole mood changes as an officer reads out a warning from her chief over the loudspeakers interrupting the ceremony.

For a few moments an angry crowd looks likely to attack the van – and it did seem an incredibly provocative action in what to this point had been a well ordered and restrained – although angry – demonstration against police violence.

Fortunately the moment passes and the release of balloons continues. It’s impossible to understand why police took this action at this time – unless they really wanted to provoke a riot. I can find no other explanation and it remains another of the many actions that has resulted in a loss of public confidence in the police as we drift relentlessly towards a police state.

Many more pictures from the protest on My London Diary at Demonstration against Police Violence.

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Lambeth Protests Massive Council Cuts – 2011

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.

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.

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.

Many more pictures at Lambeth Protests Massive Council Cuts.

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Students march for free education – 2017

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.

Many more pictures at Students march for free education,

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Peckham, Choudary, Vedanta & Gove 2014

Peckham, Choudary, Vedanta & Gove: Ten years ago Friday 30th May 2014 saw me rushing around London to cover four events, my day starting outside the job centre in Peckham and ending with being escorted out of the Department for Education in Westminster.

Peckham Jobcentre Penalises Jobseekers

People had come to protest outside Peckham Jobcentre because it removes benefits from claimants at twice the rate of other London job centres and they demanded to know why this was.

People are sanctioned for many reasons, often for things outside their control such as missing interviews where letters have either not been sent or not been received due to postal delays, or arriving late when trains or buses have been cancelled. Some were also being sanctioned for refusing to work without pay un unfair ‘workfare’ schemes.

Sanctioning leaves many job seekers destitute, without any source of income, often for three months, sometimes longer, removing the ‘safety net’ the welfare state is supposed to provide. There have long been sanctions on benefits, but the major changes introduced by the Coalition Government’s Welfare Reform Act 2012 have hugely increased their use, often for trivial reasons.

The new sanctions regime is yet another example of the failure by the Tories (and in this case the Lib-Dems too) to understand how people outside of the middle and upper classes get by; what it is like to live on benefits or low incomes with no resources to fall back on. And it shows that they just don’t care.

The protest was organised by the Revolutionary Communist Group though others came to support it. Speakers used a megaphone to tell people why they were protesting and people handed out leaflets to those entering and leaving the job centre as well as those walking past. They also gave out an information leaflet about UK Borders Agency raids.

More pictures Peckham Jobcentre penalises jobseekers.

London Mosque Protest For Sunni Extremist

I left Peckham to go to the London Mosque in Regents Park where Anjem Choudary and his followers were protesting on the road outside as the crowds left after Friday prayers.

Choudary had come to call for the release of militant Islamist Omar Bakri Muhammad, held in Lebanon for his support of extremist fighters Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL.) Few in the crowds stopped to listen to him and many crossed the street to avoid him. A few came to argue with him.

Omar Bakri Muhammad claimed asylum in the UK in 1986 and came to Finsbury Park Mosque, where he built up Hizb ut-Tahrir and was one of the founders of Al Muhajiroun, banned in the UK after alleged involvement in the 2005 London bombings. He left the UK for Lebanon and was told by the Home Office he could not return here.

In 2010 he was sentenced in Lebanon to life with hard labour for acts of terrorism, but was released on bail after some retracted their testimony against him. He was arrested again in May 2014 for alleged involvement in attacks carried out by militant Sunnis in Lebanon for his support for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant who he had called to bring their fight to Lebanon.

This was a segregated protest, with around 30 women covered from head to foot in black in a separate group holding up posters and joining in the chanting of slogans.

More pictures London Mosque protest for Sunni extremist.

African Liberation Day protest against Vedanta

African protesters were outside Vedanta’s Mayfair offices for an Afrikan Liberation Day protest over the London listed company owned by Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal which has cheated both Zambia over copper and Liberia over iron ore deals.

Agarwal appears in a video where he ridicules the Zambian government over the small sum he paid to buy the Konkola Copper Mines and boasting that they made him more than US$500 million every year in profit. Other sources show he avoids paying tax on these huge profits. Vedanta were also taken to court in Zambia over massive pollution of the Kafue River and a large fine was imposed, although apparently it had not been paid.

The Liberian government sold the Western Cluster iron ore deposits cheaply to a small company Elenilto in 2009. They immediately sold 51% to Vedanta, transferring the rest in a few months.

People were slow to arrive for the protest and I had to leave before it really got going.

African Liberation Day protest against Vedanta

Gove “Read-In” protest in Department for Education

I met a ‘class’ of protesters outside the Department for Education in Great Smith Street, Westminster and walked with them into the foyer where they sat down for an ‘English lesson’ in protest against Michael Gove’s political interference in the curriculum side-lining modern US books, promoting education for the needs of business rather than people.

We had not been stopped when entering although the protesters expected to be ejected as soon as they began making speeches and displayed their banner.

Unfortunately I was asked to leave before this happened as the department were unhappy with the press taking pictures in a public building where there were surely no security implications – though perhaps a high risk – if not a certainty – of the minister and the government being embarrassed.

Although they were insistent that I leave the security staff were unusually polite and rather apologetic and I got a strong impression that they were not happy at being told to keep the press out. I had already taken a number of pictures and took a few more on my way out.

The DfE had issued a statement denying that Gove had anything to do with the decision to narrow the curriculum and promote a more narrowly nationalist agenda for education – one that will sideline not only modern US literature, but also the great wealth of writers from the Commonwealth who have enriched English literature.

They stated the change was a result of consultation with all interested parties, while teachers, examiners, education and literary professionals have launched a mass campaign against what is clearly a ministerial diktat, political interference in education. For them, the DfE statement was simply an uninspired work of fiction.

Gove “Read-In” protest in DfE

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Circling The City Quiz 2019

Circling The City Quiz: I don’t often now go out camera in hand with no specific aim in mind but Sunday 19th May 2019 was a day without any photographic plan. I was keeping my wife company on a sponsored walk and making sure she didn’t use her powerfully inverse sense of direction to get lost.

The walk was organised by Christian Aid and came at the end of the annual Christian Aid week which always takes place in the second week of May (this years it was 12-18 May.) There are events organised by churches across the country as well as some door-to-door collections (the largest in the UK, though these are becoming increasingly difficult), as well as regional events like this walk. You can add your donation at this link.

Christian Aid was founded at the end of the war in 1945 to give aid to the millions of refugees and displaced people in Europe, but now works with grass roots groups of all faiths (and none) in 24 countries across the world. This year its appeal was focused on Burundi where over 70% of the people face hunger and poverty every single day.

Whatever one feels about the faith that motivates its work, I think it is one of the better large NGOs in various ways. As well as working with local grass roots partners in the countries where it gives support, its activities in fund-raising in the UK are also very important in educating many across the country in development issues and the problems faced by ordinary people across the world.

We were given a very clear map and guide to take us around a series of churches in the city – mainly of course rebuilt by Christopher Wren and his co-workers after the 1666 fire, most of which were open for the event and some were offering refreshments. So our progress was slow and a few were closed by the time we arrived, but I was able to take some photographs inside 8 or 9 of the the dozen on the route we followed, including a couple I don’t recall having been inside before.

Here I’ll mainly post some of the pictures I took on the streets as we made our way around the city, along with a few from the churches.

I’ve deliberately not captioned them so those who know London can have a little fun in trying to work out where they were made. If you can get more than ten out of the fourteen you know London pretty well, and anyone who gets all 14 deserves (and probably already has) a London Green Guide badge. Unfortunately I can’t award these and you will need to take a course to get one.

You can check most of your answers in the post on My London Diary at City Churches Christian Aid Walk.

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People’s Assembly – Methodist Central Hall

Class War – Action Not Talk?

Anonymous Occupy the Grass

ENA Meet Left Opposition – Westminster

Dykes March – Berkeley Square to Soho

Call for Nationwide Homeless Spikes Ban

No More Austerity – Demand The Alternative

March to Defend Jobs, Services and Education – Highbury Fields to Archway

Southern Yemenis Demonstrate For a Separate State – Downing St, Whitehall

Rev Billy Performs at Downing St

National Demonstration against Police Violence Trafalgar Square to New Scotland Yard

Peckham Jobcentre Penalises Jobseekers

London Mosque Protest For Sunni Extremist

African Liberation Day protest against Vedanta

Gove “Read-In” protest in Department for Education

National Demonstration against Police Violence
Trafalgar Square to New Scotland Yard