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Boycott Workfare Surprise Party – Brixton 2012

*People walk out from the Boycott Workfare Surprise Party in the BHF shop*

Campaigners held a brief ‘Boycott Workfare Surprise Party’ in the British Heart Foundation shop in the centre of Brixton in a protest against the charity using free forced labour by unemployed people in their shops.

Previous governments had introduced various schemes to provide work for the unemployed, particularly for young people which involved training, usually while performing socially useful tasks, such as the Youth Training Scheme. But Workfare, introduced by the coalition government in 2012 meant that those who had been out of work for some years had to work for six months without pay, often at profit-making companies, in order to keep getting their benefits.

There were a number of different workfare schemes brought in under the coalition and Tory governments including ‘Community Work Placements‘, introduced in April 2014 which forced “claimants to work for up to 30 hours a week for 26 weeks in return for Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA)” but was scrapped in 2015.

*Staff challenge the protesters who are putting up some Xmas decorations*

The protesters came from the anti-workfare group Boycott Workfare and met in Windrush Square in Brixton, where two PCSO’s tried with little success to find out what they intended to do.

The small group then walked off down Brixton Road and went into the “British Heart Foundation shop armed with Christmas decorations, Santa hats and crackers as well as a banner and placard. Shop staff argued with them as soon as they started to party and protest.” I went in with them but was soon was told I could not photograph inside the store; I didn’t argue but left and continued to take pictures through the many glass windows to the shop.

After around 15 minutes the group left the BHF shop and posed for photographs outside before packing up and moving to protest outside Poundland, which also uses free workfare labour, abusing the unemployed. They handed out leaflets to those entering and leaving the shop and to passersby by.

The next stop was Superdrug, where a security guard came out and told the protesters they were not allowed to protest on the street outside. They laughed at him and told him he was mistaken – they had every right to protest on the highway.

He saw I was taking pictures and threatened to smash my camera. I moved back behind some of the protesters and told him he would be breaking the law if he touched me and continued taking photographs.

The protest continued, and the protesters explained why they were protesting. The security man wasn’t aware that Superdrug were using free labour of unemployed people who had no choice but to work for nothing or lose their benefits.

He calmed down and after a few minutes went back inside Superdrug. The protest continued, handing out leaflets to those walking past on the busy high street. When they began discussing which shop to go to for their next protest I decided I’d done enough and left for home.

As I commented, “Workfare is supposed to offer a way for the unemployed to get into work, but many employers are using it as a free labour supply, cutting down the number of actual jobs available by getting the work done for nothing by the unemployed… Some employers also seem to be using workfare to attack workers’ terms and conditions and attacking trade union organisation by replacing unionised workers by the unemployed.”

More pictures at Boycott Workfare Surprise Party in Brixton.

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People’s Vote March, Iranians & Veterans – 2018

People’s Vote March, Iranians & Veterans: On Saturday 20th October 2018 I photographed a huge march – newspapers said an estimated 670,000 people – marched in London demanding the Theresa May hold a new referendum now that there was new evidence and people were clearer what Brexit would mean – and how they had been criminally misled into voting leave. Of course the BBC report lost a zero in the numbers taking part. During the march I also took time to photograph a protest by the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, now exiled in Albania, against the Iranian regime, and Veterans United Against Suicide calling for more help for service men after they return home from wars.

People’s Vote March

Hyde Park Corner to Parliament Square

The 2016 referendum over leaving Europe was won by a relatively small majority – 52% to 48% – following a highly misleading ‘Leave’ campaign – remember that bus – but there was much more, hugely funded by people who would make large personal financial gains.

Nine years on from the vote, the Office for Budget Responsibility judges that “Both exports and imports will be around 15 per cent lower in the long run than if the UK had remained in the EU.” Last year a report by Cambridge Econometrics estimated that by then Brexit had cost the UK £140 billion and that would rised to £311 billion by the mid 2030s.

By 2018 it was already clear that Brexit would be a disaster, and it was a disaster that had been caused by David Cameron’s promise as Prime Minister that the result would be binding. It was seen by many as a crazy promise at the time – and we have been proved right. Britain has often prided itself on not having a written constitution – but if we had one it would almost certainly have saved us – as it would surely have required a more significant majority for any major constitutional change such as this.

It isn’t of course sure that a second referendum would have produced a different result – the same dark forces that swung the first would have gone into overdrive, with an added level of opposition to the ‘people’s decision‘ being disregarded, and with the help of the billionaire media might even have led to a second vote to leave.

From the start at Hyde Park Corner the protest looked huge, with people spreading far up Park Lane and across into Hyde Park.

When the march was due to start one group, Movement for Justice was on the road in front of the official banners, along with more than a thousand other protesters and protesting noisily while refusing pleas from the stewards to get behind the main banner.

Although MfJ were protesting about Brexit, they made the point that this was racist and called for an end to the scapegoating of immigrants and an end to the hostile environment which is ripping families apart.

They demanded an amnesty for all people already present in the country and to an extension of freedom of movement in Europe to include the Commonwealth.

The march was delayed for some minutes until they had all moved off to march in front of the main march and after a good gap had opened up the main march began.

After photographing thousands of marchers coming out from Park Lane I left them and took the tube to Westminster meet the marchers at Parliament Square.

Thousands had come directly to the rally rather than march and Whitehall and Parliament Square were already fairly full before the main body of the march arrived. I made my way up Whitehall past Downing Street, but the whole area was jammed with people as I got close to Trafalgar Square.

The top of Whitehall was jammed with people and the last 100 yards took me 15 minutes to get to where people were partying in the roads on the edge of Trafalgar Square.

The press of people had brought the march to a halt, with people still packed along much of its route. Later I heard from people who had only got part way along Piccadilly that many marchers had ended there and crowded into Green Park.

I had taken so many pictures that I decided to divide my report on My London Diary inato three parts:
People’s Vote March – Start
MfJ at People’s Vote March
People’s Vote March – End

People’s Mujahedin of Iran

Downing St

On the paved area opposite Downing Street I found the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI) protesting against the repressive regime in Iran, with gibbets and three women held in a prison cell illustrating their reign of terror and calling for an end to executions – something in which the Iranian regime leads the world.

The PMOI, exiled from Iran and then to Albania, leads the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), based in France which calls for a modern legal system, gender equality and political and social rights in Iran.

The PMOI appears to have little or no support in Iran but receives some support from US agencies and politicians as the preferred future government for the country. Both the USA and Saudi Arabia are said to provide financial support.

As a lengthy article on Wikipedia relates, there are many allegations about human rights abuses against its own members and its fraudulent money laundering and other financial arrangements.

People’s Mujahedin of Iran

Veterans United Against Suicide

Ministry of Defence

A few yards off from the march route outside the Ministry of Defence, Veterans United Against Suicide were holding a rally calling for more to be done to help service men and veterans in the fight against their developing PTSD and eventually committing suicide.

At least 47 current forces personnel and veterans have committed suicide this year, though the actual figure is thought to be considerably higher.

This was clearly a right wing protest and I did not feel welcome. As I wrote “The lorry being used as a platform also displayed a large banner supporting the soldier discharged for standing with Tommy Robinson in a photo used to publicise his extreme right-wing views. While I was listening a speaker was condemning a major forces charity, accusing it of fraud and failure to act over the mental health problems of serving and former members of the armed forces.“

Veterans United Against Suicide.

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Soho Pride – 2004

Soho Pride – 1st August 2004: Soho Pride was a festival celebrated in the streets around Old Compton Street from 2003-2008, a separate event from the annual London Pride parade which now takes over the whole area for after-parties on the day of the parade. You can read a little more about it # on the Historic England web site which has a “Self-Guided Virtual Heritage Walking Tour” 130 Years of Queer Soho (or thereabouts) which includes Soho Pride.

I paid the first Soho Pride a brief visit in 2003 on my way home from a busy 5th July after covering a protest calling for legal recognition of British Sign Language and the Somerstown Festival Of Cultures. There are just a few pictures of Soho and Soho Pride 2003 on My London Diary.

I spent rather longer at Soho Pride 2004, and here is what I wrote it on My London Diary – and all the pictures in this post come from the 2004 festival.

The first Soho Pride held last year was a great success, and this year's event followed the same pattern. Street closures, restaurant tables in the roadway, DJs and loud sounds, people out to eat, drink, dance and generally have a good time.

Even in mid-afternoon, the streets were beginning to get really packed, especially outside the more popular gay bars and around the club DJs.

Really it was one big party, and a party that catered for almost all tastes except in music, which was uniformly relentless club beats. Perhaps a pity that the Jazz On The Streets events had beat a retreat to Carnaby Street (surely forty years behind us with flower power.)

After a while I began to feel my age, and escaped to the Underground and home for a quiet and leisurely alfresco dinner with a few glasses of white wine.

More pictures on My London Diary from Soho Pride 2004.

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Big Lunch Street Party – 2010

Big Lunch Street Party: The Eden project is a visitor attraction built in a disused clay pit near St Austell in Cornwall, its name coming from the Biblical garden and with a mission to celebrate plants and the natural world, reconnect people with them and to regenerate damaged landscapes and give the world a better future.

Big Lunch Street Party: Sunday 18th July 2010

The Eden project launched The Big Lunch in 2009 as “a little experiment: to see what the transformative effect of getting to know our neighbours might be.”

I was invited by a friend to be with him on Sunday 18 July 2010 as the official photographers at the Big Lunch Street Party in Wrayfield Road in North Cheam, part of a typical 1930s surburban development in what was then Surrey and is now a part of the London Borough of Sutton.

The party started with several tugs of war between teams from the odd and even sides of the street

You can find out more about Wrayfield Rd on Streetscan which reports that though in some respects it is close to an average UK postcode, though having rather more married couples than average in these family homes.

People here are healthier than the average and with higher household wealth than 89% of England and Wales with low unemployment and significantly higher levels of self-employment and entrepreneurship. There are low levels of deprivation and it is what I would describe as an affluent outer-London suburb.

*Some of those present could remember last street party for the 1977 Silver Jubilee street shown in the pictures on one garden wall*

And like many such streets, it is visually rather boring. It’s around a thousand feet long, lined mainly by solidly built semidetached houses, with a few detached properties – a little under 60 homes in all, developed by Warner and Watson Ltd, and completed in 1933/4. More details on the estate and the cost of homes back then on my post in My London Diary – now these houses cost around a thousand times as much. Had they just gone up by inflation they would be around £50,000 but in 2025 you are looking at around £750,000. At least one person who had moved in in 1933 was at the party 77 years later.

*Several couples had lived on the street for a very long time*

But the event was an interesting one and I’ve written more about it on My London Diary. Getting to know the people who live around you is a good idea and I’m sure things like this help.

*People look at he original newspaper advert for the houses in the street*

*There was plenty of eating and drinking taking place along the middle of the street*

The event received sponsorship from some local businesses and organisations – and the fire brigade brought a fire engine for kids to take the driving seat. Th local MP came and spoke, there was a fine singer and as I was leaving a local band came to play. The party was expected to keep going into the night.

Text and many more pictures on My London Diary at Big Lunch Street Party.

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LSE Decorated Against Inequality & Corruption – 2017

LSE Decorated Against Inequality & Corruption: On Tuesday 25th April 2017 students and workers in the ‘Life Not Money’ campaign took part in “a colourful nonviolent direct action calling on the LSE to change from what they say is thirty years of growing neglect, cruelty and outright corporate greed towards workers and staff at the school to something beautiful and life affirming.”

The main organiser of the protest was Roger Hallam, currently serving time in jail for conspiracy to cause a public nuisance for organising protests to block the M25 motorway in 2022, sentenced to five years, but marginally reduced on appeal to 4 years. At the time of the protest he was a Ph.D student at nearby King’s College London, “researching how to achieve social change through civil disobedience and radical movements.” I knew him from photographing him carrying out practical work on the subject on a number of occasions, mainly against air pollution from London’s traffic.

At this protest, Hallam was one of a number of people who decorated the wall of the LSE Garrick Building with water-soluble chalk including the slogan ‘CUT DIRECTORS PAY BOOST WORKERS PAY WE ALL KNOWN IT MAKES SENSE’. They also blu-tacked some small posters resembling £50 notes to the wall.

The group then sat around in a small circle on the pavement in front of their work holding a party, talking and joking and eating sandwiches. Four of them had decided they would wait and hope that they were arrested to show up the LSE and its failure to live up to its stated aims.

They pointed out to the police that they had caused no real damage and offered to remove the markings with the damp sponges that they had brought with them for the purpose, but the LSE security manager refused to let them touch the wall.

Police then handcuffed the four and took them away one by one. They offered no resistance, but Hallam went limp and police had to drag him away. I don’t think any of my pictures from the protest were used by the mainstream press at the time, but one of my pictures of the arrest did appear in quite a few newspapers at the time of his trial for the M25 incident and at his earlier trial after he was found with a toy drone without batteries close to Heathrow – in breach of bail conditions.

Earlier when I arrived at the LSE I met Lisa McKenzie who took me to the shop to show me the t-shirt with LSE written in currency symbols, pound, dollar and Euro, £$€.

This was said by the protesters to show the true face of LSE management – an institution which values money above all else and students soon fixed posters and flowers to the shop window. After this protest the t-shirt was removed from display at the shop and is no longer on sale.

This, they said was an example of the ‘Student-Led teaching‘ the LSE prides itself on, condemning the LSE’s attitude to its key low paid workers. The also said that the cleaning contractor Noonan was an exemplar of spectacularly bad management, alleging among other things that “Women have to sleep with management to get extra hours…”

The protest was in support of the campaign launched in September 2016 by the United Voices of the World during the LSE’s 3-day ‘Resist’ Festival organised by McKenzie to bring the outsourced cleaning workers back into direct employment by the LSE.

I left shortly after the arrest, but returned 3 days later to view the alleged criminal damage, finding no trace of it but several security men guarding the wall.

More on My London Diary at LSE decorated against inequality & corruption.

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Grow Heathrow’s 5th Birthday – 2015

Grow Heathrow’s 5th Birthday: Saturday 28th February 2015 was the fifth anniversary of the occupation by local people and campaigners opposed to the building of a third runway at Heathrow of a derelict Berkeley Nursery site in the village of Sipson, one of the local vill,ages that would be lost to airport expansion.

The site, which was only finally evicted in 2021, though half of it was lost two years earlier, had four main aims. It was a symbolic resistance to economic, ecological and democratic crises, developed community and resource autonomy, developed a model for future non-hierarchical, consensus-based communities and aimed to root the grassroots radical values of the Third Runway resistance in the Heathrow villages.

It played an important role in the continuing fight against building a third runway and was an important community resource in the area, as well as inspiring others around the world to see that it was possible to live in different ways. As a National Geographic article stated in 2018 “Grow Heathrow has taken great efforts to open its doors to local villagers, politicians, students, and anyone interested in learning about alternative ways of living.”

I still miss Grow Heathrow and the people and ideas I met there, still occasionally think about getting on my bike and cycling there. I’ll probably take a ride some time through Sipson and on to Harmondsworth in a month or two when the weather is warmer, but of course the community garden is no longer there.

To celebrate its fifth birthday Grow Heathrow held a special day with workshops, guided tours of the site, music, workshops and a party. I’d visited the site a few times previously and it was interesting to see how it had developed, but I was particularly interested in some of the workshops.

A song about the Battle for Heathrow – Locals fought against Terminal 4, were promised it would the last,
then against T5, were promised there would be no more expansion, then defeated the third runway.

In 2015 I wrote about local MP John McDonnell praising them their activities and contribution to the fight by locals against the third runway, and noted that this is “a battle which it looks as if it may need to be taken up by direct action again.” And now we are back at it again eleven years later.

*A speech from local resident and supporter of Grow Heathrow, Tracy*

*Judges at work on the cake competition*

It was inspiring to listen to Tristram Stuart, one of the pioneers of the radical food movement, and to activist Ewa Jasiewicz who I had photographed on many previous occasions, but it was a presentation by the much missed David Graeber that made the greatest impression on me. He “took us through some ideas about democracy and how we need to find new ways to eliminate unnecessary control, with examples from the Spanish civil war and the current revolution in Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan), where the constitution is based on the ideas of the late Murray Bookchin.“

And then it was time for the party. I’ve written much more on My London Diary and of course there are many more pictures from my afternoon at the site.

Grow Heathrow’s 5th Birthday

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Brighton MayDay Protest & Party – 2011

Brighton MayDay Protest & Party – On Saturday 30 April 2011 I had a day out in Brighton, not with my bucket and spade on the beach but photographing an early May Day Protest against the cuts, bankers, tax dodgers and those damaging the environment and the local community.

It was a protest organised deliberately without consultation with the police, essentially a succession of static protests at a number of locations around the city in random order, selected by the throwing of a large dice.

Even the meeting point for the day was a closely kept secret and only revealed as I arrived in Brighton half an hour before the event was due to start, posted on Twitter, Facebook and a mobile number.

I arrived to join around a dozen other photographers and a couple of plain clothes police watching around the same number of protesters, but had passed several police vans and a couple of officers on police horses just a short distance away.

The protesters handed out a map of Brighton marked with 27 possible targets including arms manufacturers EDO MBM/ITT some way out in Moulscomb and Thales, several branches of Barclays, the UK’s largest investor in the arms trade, an armed forces recruitment centre and Marks & Spencer’s who support Israel by buying goods from illegal Israeli settlements. Other shops on the list included notable tax dodgers Vodaphone, Boots and the various Arcadia group brands – Topshop, BHS, Burton, Dorothy Perkins. Accused of damaging the environment were RBS who invest hugely in the area, Shell, particularly for their Rossport pipeline in Ireland, BP for their exploitation of tar sands, E.ON for coal fired power stations and Veolia. Other targets named included Brighton Town Hall, Tescos, Sainsburys and Starbucks, Fox & Sons involved in illegal evictions, Beyond Retro who sell fur and also two properties owned by the notorious Nicholas Van Hoogstraten.

At 12.30, by which time rather more protesters had arrived, a giant dice was thrown and came down on 4 which meant we were heading to Brighton Town Hall and the protesters set off, accompanied by the police and the two horses.

But although the protesters were clearly in carnival mode, the police were not and soon were stopping and harassing them.

They grabbed a few protesters apparently more or less at random and there were some minor scuffles as police kettled the protest in Duke Street for around 40 minutes.

The protesters danced while some tried to negotiate with the police and finally they were allowed to move off to hold a rally outside two banks with speeches about the cuts and handouts to bankers.

The protesters then tried to walk into the Pavillion Gardens, a few managing to do so before police decided to block the gates. There were a few more incidents and a couple of arrests, but after around 20 minutes the officer in charge decided there was really no reason why they should not walk through the gardens – and they did, to the cheers of those sitting on the grass and enjoying a picnic.

Police continued to chase the protesters around Brighton for the next couple of hours, though they seemed to be going around in circles and making occasional sudden changes in direction to leave the police – some of whom were noticeably less fit than the protesters or even the photographers – behind.

Police made at least one more arrest and the protesters eventually returned to the promenade where some sat down on the road. For the first time there was a clear message from the police that they would be kettled unless they got up, and they did, running up the hill again (with another arrest for no clear reason) before returning to party on the beach.

I rather doubt if any of those – at least 8 – arrested on the day ended up being charged, let alone convicted. The police were clearly totally confused by the event, and their response, particularly the use of police horses in some very restricted areas, put both protesters and public at risk. But I think also that the protesters rather failed to convey clearly to the people of Brighton their concerns. Perhaps and more organised series of rallies outside a more selected group of targets would have been more effective.

More detail about the protest and many more pictures on My London Diary at Brighton MayDay Protest.

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St George’s Day 2005

St George’s Day – I’m not sure if I will be doing anything to celebrate St George’s Day today. Most of the celebrations around London seemed to be taking place on Sunday. I was planning to attend an event fairly close to where I live, but I started the day with one of my more impressive nose bleeds and decided to stay home rather than risk dripping blood over the streets.

So instead of pictures from a couple of days ago, today I’m posting some from 23rd April 2005, 19 years ago. I began that day with a visit to Tate Modern and a walk along to Clink Street where I photographed some stencilled graffiti -including one by Banksy – before crossing the river and heading to the celebrations taking place in Covent Garden.

St George's Day — *‘IT HAPPENED ANYWAY’ – Millions on the street failed to stop the Iraq invasion*

With the pictures is the rather tongue in cheek text that accompanied them in 2005 on My London Diary, edited to respect normal use of capital letters and any spelling errors. There are a few more pictures on My London Diary.

St George keeps busy as a patron saint of Canada, Catalonia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Malta, Palestine and Portugal, as well as a number of cities including Moscow and Venice, a whole raft of trades including farmers and soldiers, as well as herpes and syphilis. It’s perhaps surprising he still has time for England, although until recently you would hardly have noticed it in any case.

St George Until recently was left to the nutters, football supporters and racists (three highly overlapping groups.) Those elites who run the country generally found patriotic display about Englishness rather beneath them – only our Celtic fringe and ethnic groups have a ‘culture’, the rest of us are too modern and intelligent for such primitivism.

Its the kind of thinking that led the Arts Council to refuse to support Morris Dancing, while pumping thousands into steel drums (as they should – but there is nothing wrong with supporting our English heritage as well.)

This year, the Royal Society Of St George (posh patriotic nutters with the Queen as their patron, started in our American colony around the 1770s) were organising celebrations in Covent Garden, and after a morning at Tate Modern I went to see.

Although I think Morris ought to be supported, I’m not a great fan of the dancers, though its OK outside the pub on a sunny day for half an hour a couple of times a year so long as I don’t have to take part.

The Moulton Morris, performing as a part of the event were more impressive than most, both for their costume and the dancing, and also for the half a dozen young people taking part. Somehow there seemed to be less beards and sandals than most sides.

More pictures on My London Diary

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Fast Food, Scientology & Reclaim Love

London Saturday 15th February 2014

Hungry for Justice For Fast Food Workers – Oxford St

The Fast Food Rights Campaign to support and unionise workers in fast food outlets was launched by a national day of action, with a ‘Hungry For Justice’ protest on Oxford Street led by John McDonnell MP and Ian Hodson of the Bakers Food Allied Workers Union BFAWU.

The UK campaign followed on from strikes in around a hundred cities across the USA by food workers at the end of 2013, showing that it was possible to organise and unionise workers in an industry where it had been said to be impossible.

The BFAWU in the UK had led the fight against zero hours contracts, wining an important victory against Hovis in Wigan. Companies such as McDonalds are notable for their anti-union policies and generally rates of pay in fast food outlets are abysmal and working conditions often extremely poor.

The fast food chains in this country had sales of £6.9billion in 2012 and were making huge profits at the expense of their employees. In the UK the average wage of food workers in 2014 was only £5 an hour, below the minimum legal wage for adult workers – with many employees being below the age of 21.

In the USA over half the workers in the food industry rely on benefits to top up their incomes, and the situation in the UK is no better. Governments effectively subsidise these low-pay employers.

The campaign and this protest in the UK was supported by the BFAWU, Unite the Resistance, Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), Youth Fight for Jobs, the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) and other campaigning organisations.

I met the protesters outside a Burger King on the Tottenham Court Road where the protest began. As well as protesting outside, people went inside to hand out fliers to the customers and to the staff urging them to join the BWAFU.

The protest then moved on to two branches of McDonald’s on Oxford Street, where security staff prevented the protesters entering, although at the first one man was allowed to go in and give leaflets to the staff. There were were protests and speeches on the pavement outside the shops.

The protesters did walk in to two branches of Costa Coffee, behaving politely and handing out the leaflets, and after a brief discussion leaving quietly when asked to do so.

More at Hungry for Justice For Fast Food Workers.

Anons 6th Anniversary at Scientology – Tottenham Court Road

Few turned up for the 6th anniversary of the Anonymous protest against Scientology against the threat to freedom of speech on the internet from personal and often underhand attacks on critics under Scientology’s so-called ‘fair game’ policy.

That protest in 2008, outside the Church of Scientology’s English HQ in Queen Victoria Street and their recruiting centre on the Tottenham Court Rd had been both the first UK protest to be organised solely over the web and the first time that the now-familiar ‘V for Vendetta’ Guy Fawkes masks, worn to hide identities because of the often savage recriminations against critics of the cult, had been used at a protest in the UK.

Perhaps the real reason for the low turnout was simply that there now appears to be very little interest in the cult which had been so widely exposed both in events such as that 2008 protest and in the media. It was now attracting very few new recruits and perhaps seemed hardly worth protesting about.

Anons 6th Anniversary at Scientology

Reclaim Love Valentine Party – Piccadilly Circus

This was the 12th Reclaim Love Valentine Party at Piccadilly Circus, an event begun in 2003 by Venus CuMara.

This year it had been others who had attended previous events who decided at the last minute to organise the event as Venus had been away from the country. Rather to our surprise she returned and attended, playing her usual role in organising the circle at the centre of the event.

I’ve written about these events recently so won’t write anything new, but here is part of what I posted in 2014 on My London Diary:

“The idea behind the free party on the street was to celebrate love between people as the most important force in the world, and to do so in a way that counteracted the tremendous commercialisation of love in the annual media shopping promotion frenzy that now surrounds St Valentine’s Day. It was to be a free event, people making and having fun, sharing love, taking place in a public area in the centre of London’s West End shops and under the vast neon advertisements of Picadilly Circus.

“Venus also aimed to send a message of peace and love out across the world – and the London event spawned similar parties at the same time elsewhere across the world – by uniting us all in circles of love at the same time around the world. At 3.30pm everyone here – and at other Reclaim Love parties around the world – joined hands to chant many times ‘May All The Beings In All The Worlds Be Happy & At Peace’.”

I finished my post in 2014 with:

There are really very few such spontaneous events in London like this, and this is unique in central London. I’ve photographed most of these events and I hope that they will continue with others taking over the running in future years.

If you are in London on Saturday afternoon, 18th February 2023, some people plan to be there for a Reclaim Love party. And at 3.33pm to join their hands in a circle to chant.

More pictures at Reclaim Love Valentine Party.

Refugees, Animal Cruelty, Syria and International Times

Saturday 16th January 2016 was a busy day for me, ending rather unusually with taking some photographs at a party which I also put on-line.

St Pancras Die-In for Calais refugees

Refugees, Animal Cruelty, Syria and International Times

Saturday 16th January 2016 was an International Day of Action in solidarity with refugees and there were protests in Calais and Dunkirk as well as in many cities. The protests were held at short notice against the clearing the Calais refugee ‘Jungle’ and urged the UK government to give refugees at Calais safe passage into the UK to claim asylum.

Many of those in the camps have family and friends in the UK, which has failed to take a fair share of the migrants. Protesters included people from the London2Calais convoy as well as a Christian contingent with some bible-based placards.

After a brief speech on the wide pavement in front of Kings Cross station the protesters walked to the main entrance of St Pancras International where a large group of police prevented them from entering and they held a short rally.

The protesters then marched off down to Euston Road accompanied by a large group of police. While some continued to march along Euston Road many caught the police unaware by rushing down the steps into the underground entrance and along past the ticket offices before being stopped by more police at the underground entrance to the long shopping mall in St Pancras Station.

They held a protest there with several speakers calling for refugees at Calais and Dunkirk, who include many unaccompanied minors and others with relatives living in the UK, to be allowed to enter the UK and make asylum claims. Actup London then staged a die-in with others sitting down to join them for around ten minutes, ending with a final speech.

Apparently a few protesters had managed to get in and protest with fake body bags at the Eurostar entrance. The protesters had been careful throughout to leave a path for people catching trains to enter the station, but some had been held up by police who mistook them for protesters.

More at St Pancras Die-In for Calais refugees.

March against Taiji Dolphin Slaughter – Regent St

I was late and missed the start of the march against the annual inhumane slaughter of dolphins and small whales at Taiji in Japan. They had met in Cavendish Square but were marching down Regent St when I caught up with them on their way to the Japanese Embassy.

Although there were several hundred taking part, the marchers kept to the pavement rather than take to the road, which seemed rather strange and perhaps reduces their impact, though it did mean that shoppers who often appear to be sleepwalking did have to move out of the way.

Dominic Dyer of the Born Free Foundation, Care for the Wild and CEO of The Badger Trust led the march down the street. As usual many of the marchers had made their own posters and placards and some carried dolphins. This year many of the placards called for a boycott of the Tokyo Olympics for the shame that this inhumane slaughter brings to Japan.

I walked with the marchers taking pictures as far as Oxford Circus, waiting until all of them had passed on their way down Piccadilly to the Japanese Embassy and then left.

More pictures at March against Taiji Dolphin Slaughter.

Vegans ‘Awakening Compassion’ – Piccadilly Circus

Around the statue of Erost were a group of Vegans from ‘Awakening Compassion’, standing and holding posters with large photographs of animals we farm for food – chickens, cows, sheep, goats, pigs- with messages such as ‘I am an animal – Someone not something – I want to stay alive.

Although I’m opposed to the cruel treatment of animals, the animals in these pictures owe their existence to the farmers who over millennia have bred them and now raise them. If we gave up eating meat and dairy products our countryside would be a very different place. We should be eating less meat for various reasons, and I do often have meals without it and pay more for meat and eggs produced with less cruelty, but farm animals form a vital part of the ecosystem and I’d hate to lose them.

Vegans ‘Awakening Compassion’

Drop Food Not Bombs on Syria – Trafalgar Square

The message of the Syrians who had come to protest in Trafalgar Square was clear – Drop Food Not Bombs on Syria. Instead of spending billions on bombs and weapons they want the money to be spent on humanitarian aid for those under siege across Syria, including those in Madaya and the Yarmouk refugee camp.

Many wore or held the Free Syria flag with its green, black and white strips and three red stars, and various posters which made clear they condemnation of ISS, the Russian bombings and the Assad regime.

One poster read ‘Syrians started the Revolution – Assad started the war’ while others made clear what they were calling for; ‘Drop the Food, Not Bombs’ and ‘Medaya is Crying While the World is Denying’

More pictures: Drop Food Not Bombs on Syria

International Times new ‘Issue Zero’ – Mayfair Rooms, Fleet St

*Hot from the press – but long sold out*

Notorious London underground paper International Times, first published in 1966 and closed down in 1973 (with several re-incarnations and a web site since 2009) started again for its 50th anniversary with a launch party for the 36 page ‘Issue Zero’.

Among those writing for the new issue were stalwarts from its early days, including Heathcote Williams, and the issue was edited by Heathcote Ruthven with subediting by Emily McCarthy, Heather Williams, David Graeber and Heathcote Williams, design by Darren Cullen and art by Nick Victor and Claire Palmer.

More about the issue and more pictures at International Times new ‘Issue Zero’.