Friday 7th November 2014 was an unusually long and busy day for me in London.
Brent Housing Sit-in – South Kilburn Housing Office, Friday 7th November 2014
My day began outside the South Kilburn Housing Office where campaigners were calling for Brent to end selling properties to overseas investors while rehousing local residents outside the area. They accuse the Labour council of social cleansing and say people need to be put before profit. Soon they moved into the office and sat with their posters in the lobby.
There is a huge amount of ‘regeneration’ taking place in council estates in Brent, but the new properties are is largely advertised and sold off to people from outside the borough – including to wealthy investors abroad who often will leave the properties empty while London house prices rise, selling them after a few years at a high profit. It’s easier to sell empty properties than to have the bother of sitting tenants, though generally these can be easily evicted.
The campaigners included Isabel Counihan Sanchez and other members of the Housing 4 All campaign which grew out of the Counihan family campaign and Unite Community members. The result of profit-led regeneration process is social cleansing – with people from Brent having to move to outer London or away from London altogether because they cannot afford properties in the area. Often they have to move into private rented accommodation with little or no security of tenure on short-term contracts, where landlords often fail to do repairs and evict tenants who complain.
What residents of Brent (and other boroughs need), as the campaigner’s posters stated is ‘Social Housing Not Social Cleansing’, as in the previous century when philanthropic schemes – such as Peabody – and councils built houses and flats as social housing at rents that are actually affordable to people on low or minimum wage.
Fukushima Nuclear Protest – Japanese Embassy, Friday 7th November 2014
From Brent I travelled to the Japanese Embassy on Piccadilly, where a small group of Japanese and English protesters were handing out bi-lingual Japanese/English fliers about the continuing danger from radioactive leaks from the Fukushima nuclear power station.
Their weekly lunchtime protests here call for an end to the building of nuclear power stations worldwide because of the safety risks that Fukushima has highlighted, and for a proper investigation of the failures of TEPCO, the owners of the Fukushima power plant in running the plant and reporting and tackling the catastrophe. Later they left to protest at the nearby offices of TEPCO in Berkeley Square.
Taiji Dolphin slaughter protest – Japanese Embassy, Friday 7th November 2014
I remained outside the embassy where a crowd of several hundred as calling on Japan to halt the annual slaughter of 20,000 dolphins, porpoises and small whales each year in Taiji Cove, which had been taking place annually for around 40 years.
Those protesting included Ric O’ Barry, founder of the Dolphin Project and the maker of the film ‘The Cove’ which has shown the shocking reality of the dolphin slaughter to audiences around the world. Here he holds a poste ‘Enough Is Enough’.
The protest was remarkable for the number of hand drawn and painted posters and placards, as well as some 3D artworks. Many of those present accepted the offer of having their hands covered in red paint to represent the blood of the dolphins, which turns the water in the bay red during the slaughter.
Most of the protesters remained behind the barriers on the opposite side of the road to the embassy, but there was some tension between the police and a few who crossed the road to protest closer to the embassy doorway.
Taiji Dolphin slaughter protest
Trafalgar Square Poppy Memorial – Friday 7th November 2014
On my way to the next protest I changed buses at Trafalgar Square and stopped to look at Mark Humphrey’s brass ‘Every Man Remembered’ which had been unveiled there earlier in the day. Later I wrote about this bland and idealised image of an unknown soldier in Remembering the Dead on this site. To truly remember and honour the sacrifice our memorials might better show – in Seigfried Sassoon’s words – ‘Young faces bleared with blood, Sucked down into the mud‘. In my article I linked the another by Paul Mason in which he reminds us that the First World War actually ended when German sailors, soldiers and workers refused to fight.
Trafalgar Square Poppy Memorial
IWGB protest at Deloitte, Friday 7th November 2014
Another bus took me in into the City, where the IWGB (Independent Workers of Great Britain trade union) were protesting around Shoe Lane at Deloitte’s City offices. The cleaners in these are outsourced and employed by Serco who have suspended to workers for taking part in earlier protests over working conditions and staff shortages which have led to cleaners suffering from stress and back problems.
The cleaners had hoped to take security by surprise at the first of the offices they arrived at, but they were obviously prepared, and the cleaners could only play their drums, blow their horns and whistles, shout slogans and wave their flags in the courtyard outside, unfurling a large banner with the message ‘Solidarity. We Are Performing a SercoExorcism’.
Security managed to keep ahead of them as they visited and protested outside three nearby Deloitte offices. At the third, two City of London police officers grabbed Alberto Durango as he was speaking and tried to stop him protesting. IWGB members surrounded them, insisting that they had a right to lawful protest and eventually the police backed down. The IWGB marched on to protest at a fourth office, then marched back to Fleet St.
IWGB protest at Royal Opera House, Friday 7th November 2014
By now I was rather hoping to say goodbye and go home, but as we arrived on Fleet St, Alberto Durango announced that the group would be marching on to pay a surprise visit to the Royal Opera House, were outsourced IWGB cleaners are in dispute with cleaning contractor Mitie over victimisation, trade union recognition and working conditions.
The cleaners moved quietly through the streets and rather surprised me as we arrived at the opera house by rushing into the foyer. A security guard grabbed hold of Alberto Durango but he pulled away from here and the rest of the group followed in and I went with them.
There they held a short protest with Alberto making clear their demands and calling on the Royal Opera House to support their cleaners and pressure Mitie who they have given the contract to to treat the cleaners properly. Opera House staff stood and listened and then the IWGB walked out. And at last I could go home.
IWGB protest at Royal Opera House
