Junior Doctors and Student Nurse Bursaries: On Wednesday 6th of April 2016 I photographed a picket and rally against the imposition of new contracts on junior doctors – hospital doctors now renamed to resident doctors to better reflect their status and then a march rally and die-in against the axing of NHS Student Bursaries.
The NHS was under attack from the Conservatives in various ways throughout their time in government from 2010 to 2024 and its hard to find any rational explanation of most of their policies other than a desire to bring in increasing privatisation. A desire perhaps largely driven by MPs financial interests in health companies as well as by the donations they receive.
Although the Labour Government quickly solved some of the outstanding pay issues in the NHS, research reveals that “Starmer’s cabinet received more than £500,000 in donations alone from lobbyists, hedge funds and private equity firms connected to the private healthcare sector since 2023.”
The Good Law Project gives more details on some of these donations to Wes Streeting. They say that “60% of the registered donations accepted by the health secretary come from people and companies linked to private health“, amounting to a total of £311,400 since 2015. Streeting has been one of the most vigorous advocates of private health company involvements in the NHS.
Support for Junior Doctor’s Picket – St Thomas’ Hospital
New contracts being imposed by Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Jeremy Hunt were described as sexist, racist and classist, and as aimed at easing the takeover of the NHS by private healthcare companies which is currently taking place. The doctors say the contract will reduce safety in hospitals, removing safeguards on overwork and unsocial hours. They claim the contract will particularly affect the disabled and women in general, both as workers in the NHS and as users of its services.
There were speeches at a rally next to the picket line at St Thomas’ Hospital and supporters, including Sisters Uncut, trade unionists, students, student nurses, medical professionals and DPAC members had come to support the doctors.
As well as some junior doctors, other speakers included Sara Tomlinson of Lambeth Teachers Association who announced that the NUT would be coordinating its strikes with further actions by the doctors, Danielle Tiplady, an organiser of the ‘Bursary or Bust’ campaign against the government’s intention to axe NHS student bursaries, Paula Peters of DPAC and a speaker for Sisters Uncut.
Danielle Tiplady of Bursary Or Bust leads the march in front of Florence Nightingale over Westminster Bridge
As the picket outside St Thomas’ Hospital was about to come to an end most of those who had taken part in the rally marched the short distance across Westminster Bridge to a rally in Whitehall outside Richmond House, then the headquarters of the Department for Health and Social Security.
The march was led by DPAC and student nurses from the ‘Bursaries or Bust’ campaign included Sisters Uncut, trade unionists, students, medical professionals and DPAC members. They were followed a few minutes later by junior doctors at the end of their picket.
Bursary or Bust Die-In & Rally – Dept of Health, Whitehall
It was hard to see the axing of bursaries for student nurses which eventually happened in 2017 as anything more than a direct attack on the NHS, then and now desperately short of nurses. The most recent statistics show 27,000 unfilled nursing positions.
Nurses are required as an integral part of their training to spend long hours working as nurses in hospitals where they are a vital part of the workforce. Along with long hours of study this makes them unable to take the part-time jobs that many students now work.
Axing the bursaries also makes it much for difficult for more mature entrants and those from less affluent backgrounds to train to become nurses and midwives.
Cuts Kill, Turban Traveller & Brexit Bullies – The area outside the Houses of Parliament was busy on Wednesday 19th December 2018 with a protest by Disabled People Against Cuts, a welcome for a driver who had come from Delhi and arguments between remainers and Brexiteers. But the most newsworthy event was when a small group of extreme right Brexiteers spotted MP Anna Soubry walking to Parliament and went to harass her. By then other photographers had drifted off and I was the only photographer on the scene. It made the news headlines and though the the press accounts were laughably inaccurate, some of my pictures did get used even if my story filed with them was ignored.
As usual you can read more about all of these events and see more pictures by following the links to My London Diary below.
Cuts kill disabled people say protesters – Old Palace Yard
‘Tory Cuts Kill’ say DPAC and another banner has the names of a hundred who have died
Disability groups DPAC (Disabled People Against Cuts) and MHRN (Mental Health Resistance Network) together with WOW campaign protested in support of the parliamentary debate due later in the day on the cumulative impact of the cuts on the lives of disabled people.
Laura Pidcock, then Labour MP for North West Durham and Lib-Dem peer Lord Roberts of Llandudno came out to talk with and support the protesters who said the the changes in benefits and inappropriate use of sanctions were resulting in great hardship, denying people their rights and causing many deaths. Labour MP for Ealing Virendra Sharma, there for another event also had a lengthy talk with the protesters.
British-Indian Labour MP for Ealing Southall Virendra Sharma whose constituency includes very many Sikhs and those from other Indian communities had come out to to welcome The ‘Turban Traveller‘, a Sikh with a film crew from Creative Concept Films in Delhi who arrived in London today after driving overland from Delhi.
A right-wing Brexiteer accuses Steve Bray of getting drunk and asks who is funding him
A small group of extreme right-wing pro-Brexit protesters had come to shout and argue with protesters from SODEM (Stand of Defiance European Movement) and to shout personal insults at Steven Bray who had founded SODEM in September 2017.
They accused Bray of being a drunk and asked “Who funds Drunk Steve“, a question that was rather redundant as two large banners were covered with logos of organisations supporting SODEM’s daily pickets.
Police warned the Brexiteers about the language they were using and were accused of taking sides, but the SODEM people were not shouting and using offensive language. Eventually the Brexiteers moved away to continue their protest on the pavement in front of the Houses of Parliament.
A small group of extreme right Brexiteers wearing high-viz vests with Union flags and the message ‘Justice for Our Boys’ protested outside parliament calling for an immediate Brexit and attempted to stop vehicles leaving parliament but were moved away by police.
I recognised many of them; some from the video of an attack on the socialist bookshop Bookmarks earlier in the year and others from protests by the EDL and other extreme right groups.
Some of them then went to try and enter the by the visitors entrance and I went with them and took more pictures. But most soon left, probably to a nearby pub.
I hung around watching the few who remained when all the other photographers had moved away to file their pictures of the protest at the gates to parliament, wondering what they might do next.
One of them shouted to the others as he recognised Conservative MP Anna Soubry walking along the pavement to go into the House of Commons, and they met her and began calling her a traitor and asking her way she was suggesting there might be a second referendum. She clearly knew the man leading the group, addressing him by name.
She tried to walk away along the pavement, but they followed, some standing in her way (and in mine) and after another in the group shouted at her ‘You fucking traitor!’ she turned to one of the several police officers around and complained to him that this was an offence, and remained standing close to him.
Other officers came across to help and quickly escorted her away and into Parliament. There were no immediate arrests, but the incident later became subject to an inquiry by the speaker of the house, who extended his sympathy to Ms Soubry.
In later interviews she complained that she had been compared to the Nazis, but I had not heard this at any point in the exchanges. Though as I wrote. “I was busy moving backwards in a fairly confined space while trying to keep her in shot while she was walking briskly away, with one of the protesters who was filming on his phone in my way.”
It was certainly an unpleasant incident but perhaps one that became rather exaggerated. She was never in any real danger and although the questioning was certainly loud and aggresive she responded to it in a similarly forceful manner. Something that might be described by that old cliché as the “rough and tumble of politics”. I was rather surprised that she had not earlier simply asked one of the many police standing around for assistance or that none of them had seen and heard as I had and come to help.
I rushed away to file my pictures, and while one or two of these were fairly widely used I was never contacted about what happened despite being the only real witness to the event.
Budget, Mugabe & Turkish Gays: Wednesday 22 November 2017 was Budget Day and as usual there were protests around Parliament, and I photographed people protesting about Brexit, housing, student fees and the NHS. Outside the Zibabwe Embassy there were people celebrating the resignation of President Mugabe, while people came to the Turkish Embassy in a protest against a ban on LGBTI cultural events in Ankara.
Budget Day Brexit Protests – Old Palace Yard
The usual Remainers had come to protest with some new Budget Day slogans, ‘What’s the Budget for Brexit’ and the punning ‘Brexit spreads Sheet Everywhere’, a reference to Chancellor Philip Hammond’s nickname ‘Spreadsheet Phil’. New independent analysis published in 2024 tells us that Brexit has cost the British economy almost £140 billion.
They had EU flags and also that curiously discreet sign of distress, the upside-down Union Jack (for pedants Union Flag). The opposing Brexiteers accused them of being unaware of which way up to fly the flag.
Political artist Kaya Mar joined them briefly hold his painting of the Chancellor sitting on a floating mine with his computer holding up a sinking Theresa May as the ship of Britain sinks in the background.
Homes for All Budget and Others – Parliament Square
Housing campaigners from various groups had come to a protest called by ‘Homes For All‘ demanding the government commit to building more homes to be let at social rents. After a long rally in Parliament Square they marched briefly to Downing Street.
The housing crisis is worst for the poorest in society but almost all the schemes brought in by governments this century have been aimed at subsiding those on middle incomes to become home owners. As well as not building social housing there had been a failure to bring in the regulations needed to control the private rental sector to provide greater security of tenure, control rents and ensure properties are kept in habitable condition. Perhaps because many MPs are also landlords.
Only a programme that allows local authorities to borrow money and build home can deliver housing at a cost that those on lower incomes can afford to live in – and that still provide a good return on investments – they point out that by 2010-2011 councils were paying more than £700 million to government in surpluses from council housing.
Piers Corbyn
As well as attacking the government’s record on housing they also blamed the Labour Party for allowing Labour councils to demolish council housing and combining with developers and housing associations to provide new housing at market prices, unaffordable so called “affordable’ properties and and high rents without long-term security of tenure.
Paula Peters
They pointed out the need for government funding for necessary fire safety work to avoid another Grenfell disaster including the replacement of dangerous cladding on all tall blocks, the enforcement of fire regulations and a return to proper fire safety inspections which had been abandoned as unnecessary ‘red tape’.
New Labour and London Labour Councils were blamed for demolishing council housing and combining with developers and housing associations to provide new housing with a great reduction in properties at social rents, with homes for sale at market prices, unaffordable so called “affordable‘ properties and at high market rents without long-term security of tenure.
A speaker from Haringey told us the Labour council is giving away £2 billion of council property to a private developer who will build properties the current council tenants and leaseholders will not be able to afford – with a small amount of high-priced ‘affordable properties‘. Like on previous schemes he was confident the developers will get accountants to arrange the books and get them out of most of their obligations to include low-cost social housing. Opposition to the scheme led to some Labour councillors losing their seats and the plans being stopped, though the future remained unclear.
In College Green there were a few people with placards calling for greater funding for the NHS who would also have been disappointed by the budget. Some of them came to join the housing rally, as also did some who had come to protest against the cuts and student fees.
There was also a man with a bell and placards about public debt, though it wasn’t quite clear exactly why he thought ‘The End Is Nigh’.
Zimbabweans had come to the London embassy where they had been protesting every week for over 15 years to celebrate the resignation of President Mugabe.
But although there was much dancing and singing with joyful delight at his going they had no trust in his likely successor Emmerson Mnangagwa. Regular protests still continue at the Embassy and they have vowed they will continue until there are free and fair elections in Zimbabwe
Protesters met at the Turkish Embassy in Belgrave Square to read a statement in solidarity with Turkish LGBTI+ people after Turkey last Sunday imposed an indefinite ban on all LGBTI+ cultural events in its capital, Ankara.
They say the ban is illegal, homophobic and transphobic and which they say risks criminalising LGBTI existence and endangering public safety and that it is based on an extremist Islamic morality and violates the Turkish constitution.
Homosexuality has been legal in Turkey since the last half of the century under the Ottoman Empire and under the modern Turkish Republic which came into existence in 1923.
No More Benefit Deaths: On Wednesday 7th September 2016, the day of the opening ceremony for the Rio Paralympics, disablement campaigners demanded human rights for all disabled people and an end to the disastrous sanctions regime which has led to many deaths.
They called on Prime Minister Theresa May, newly appointed in July 2016 to make public the findings of the UN investigation into the UK for violations of Deaf and Disabled people’s rights, to scrap the Work Capability Assessment and commit to preventing future benefit-related deaths.
The UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities published its report in November 2016. It stated that the UK had committed “grave or systematic” violations of UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and in June 2017 the committee clarified the reasons behind their conclusions.
They stated that the breaches of the rights to independent living, work and employment and adequate standard of living under the convention were mainly caused by the policices introduced by Tory ministers at the DWP between 2010 and 2015. Some were grave violations, some systematic and others both grave and systematic.
The UN inquiry had been prompted by the research and lobbying of Disabled People Against Cuts, and the Disability News Service article included this quote from DPAC co-founder Linda Burnip who:
“pointed to actions such as cuts to social care, the impact of the work capability assessment – which has been linked by public health experts from the Universities of Liverpool and Oxford to hundreds of suicides between 2010 and 2013 – the hugely damaging introduction of personal independence payment and consequent cuts to support, the increased use of sanctions and the resulting deaths of benefit claimants, and the introduction of the bedroom tax.”
As Burnip stated, the government’s actions were “based on a deliberate intention to cause harm without any regard to the horrendous consequences for disabled people.”
The day on Wednesday 7th September 2016 began with a huge banner with the message ‘NO MORE BENEFITS DEATHS #DPAC” being displayed on the wall of the River Thames facing the riverside terrace of the Houses of Parliament.
After photographing this I hurried to Downing Street were there was a rally in on the opposite side of the street with speakers from DPAC, Winvisible, the Scottish Black Triangle Campaign and others including John Clark from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty who shared news of similar problems facing disabled people in Canada.
Gill Thompson spoke about her brother David Clapson, a diabetic ex-soldier died after his benefit was cut as he could not afford food or electricity to keep his insulin cool was there with a banner covered with the names and some photographs of around a hundred of the many who had died because of the DWP’s sanctions, cuts and scapegoating.
The protesters then lifted up the black coffin with white wreaths they had brought and began a march towards the Houses of Parliament.
As they came to Bridge Street the marchers took the police by surprise by turning towards the bridge. The giant banner which had earlier been displayed facing Parliament was now stretched across the road, blocking the bridge in both directions.
After several minutes police began trying to get people to move off the road warning them they are committing an offence and may be arrested. I was also threatened with arrest, despite showing my Press card. One carer who refused to move away from the wheelchair user he was looking after was arrested and taken to a police van.
Most of those in wheelchairs and mobility scooters refused to move or did so only after a long series of threats by police, who eventually managed to clear one carraigeway to allow traffic to move out of Westminster. But a group remained blocking traffic in the other direction until after almost two hours Paula Peters triumphantly announced the protest was ending and everyone left.
DPAC v Theresa May in Maidenhead: In June 2017 we were also in a General Election campaign after Theresa May called a snap election. Labour would have won back then, but for the deliberate interference by the party right who sabotaged their efforts in some key seats to stop a Corbyn victory. Instead we got another 7 years of Tory blunders and incompetence. May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak…
Even now I wonder when Labour seems to be in a commanding position in the opinion polls whether Labour will somehow manage to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. They are certainly doing their best at the moment to alienate party workers in many constituencies by barring their choice of candidates and imposing often quite unsuitable (and sometimes unspeakable) people in their place.
Theresa May was standing in the safe Tory seat of Maidenhead and was re-elected with a majority of over 26,000 over Labour and in 2019 again with almost 19,000 more votes than the then second place Lib-Dem. This time May has retired but it may well be a close run thing with both Reform UK and the Lib-Dems taking votes from the Tories.
DPAC were not fielding a candidate or supporting one of the other twelve in the 2017 race but were there to protest against the Tory government, the first in the world to be found guilty of the grave and systematic violations of disabled people’s human rights by the UN.
They stated that Tory cuts since 2010 had 9 times the impact on disabled people as on any other group, 19 times more for those with the highest support needs. Tory polices are heartless, starving, isolating and finally killing the disabled who they view as unproductive members of society – and by ending the Independent Living Fund they have has actually stopped many from making a positive contribution.
The Tory Government rejected the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities findings in 2016, which had found failures in the right to live independently and be included in the community, to work and employment, and to an adequate standard of living and social protection across all parts of the UK. A further report by the committee in 2024 found that there had been “no significant progress” since 2016 in improving disabled people’s rights and that there were signs that things were getting worse in some areas.
The 2024 report concluded that the UK has “failed to take all appropriate measures to address grave and systematic violations of the human rights of persons with disabilities and has failed to eliminate the root causes of inequality and discrimination.” Labour has yet to announce anything likely to improve the situation.
A couple of buses took me slowly to Maidenhead where I met the group from DPAC who had come from Paddington in a quarter of the time. They marched to the High Street with a straw effigy of ‘Theresa May – Weak and Wobbly’ and the message ‘Cuts Kill’. After a hour of protest with speeches, chanting and handing out fliers calling on Maidenhead voters to vote for anyone but Theresa May they returned to the station.
Although it looked to the police who had followed them closely as well as to some of the photographers who had travelled down from London that the protest had come to an end I knew that DPAC would not leave without some further action.
They waited on the pavement close to the station until most of the police had left – and most photographers had caught a train – and then moved to occupy one of the busiest roads into the town. The police came running back and began to argue with the protesters to get them to return to the pavement.
Police find it hard to deal with disabled protesters, especially those in wheelchairs and mobility scooters, and they were rather confused (as I was) by the arguments of ‘General William Taggart of the NCA‘ who claimed a military right to block roads. DPAC told the police that they would leave the road after having made their point for a few more minutes, but the police wanted them to move at once.
Eventually having blocked the road for around 15 minutes the protesters were told they would be arrested unless they moved and slowly began to do so. I left rather more quickly as my bus to Windsor was coming and if I missed it I would have to wait two hours for the next one. I arrived at the stop as it was coming in.
My journey home was not an entirely happy one. There was the usual walk between stops and wait for another bus to take me close to home. I got off, walked a short distance down the road, felt in my pocket for my phone and found nothing – I had left it on the bus, which was by then disappearing around the corner. Fortunately the bus driver later found it and handed it in at the depot and two days later I was able to cycle to Slough and retrieve it.
British Gas & Independent Living: Two protests on Monday 12th May 2014 in Westminster. the first about fuel poverty and climate change and the second over plans to end the Independent Living Fund which enabled many disabled people to continue to work and have an independent life.
Bin British Gas – QEII Centre, Westminster
British Gas were holding their AGM in the QEII centre and a protest outside demanded they stop profiteering from high energy prices and end support for fracking.
The protest was called by Fuel Poverty Action who say there were over 10,000 extra deaths last winter because people were unable to heat their homes, while Centrica, the parent company of British Gas, made £2.5 billion in 2013. While they raised gas prices by 10.4% and electricity by 8.4%.
They also called for government and energy companies to end support for fracking which as well as threatening water supplies in the UK would also lead to more climate-wrecking carbon dioxide emissions.
The campaigners called for greater investment in renewable energy, which in the long term will result in cheaper energy and will help us tackle climate change. But this isn’t popular with the big six energy companies (and the government which is led by their lobbyists) as it enables greater local generation and control of energy, threatening their monopoly of energy production and profits.
At the protest were representatives from fuel poverty, pensioner, climate, housing groups and renewable energy co-operatives. After a number of speeches including from Green Party leader Natalie Bennett, Paula Peters of Disabled People Against Cuts, people came together too tear up British Gas energy bills.
A giant bill was torn up and Lambeth pensioner, Ellen Lebethe, brought out a poster-size Fuel Poverty Action ‘Energy Bill of Rights.’
We all have the right to affordable energy to meet our basic needs.
We all have the right to energy that does not harm us, the environment, or the climate.
We all have the right to energy that does not threaten health, safety, water, air, or the local environment of a community.
We all have the right to a fair energy pricing that does not penalise those who use less.
We all have the right not to be cut off from energy supply.
We all have the right not to be forced to have a prepayment meter.
We all have the right to energy that is owned by us and run in our interests.
Inside the Centrica AGM, a member of Reclaim Shakespeare Company had stood up holding a can of beans and a skull to read a version of Hamlet’s iconic monologue, entitled “To Heat or Eat, that is the question”, and this was read out at the protest. Shortly after the actor came out from the building to tell us about what had happened inside.
The protest ended with people planting 100 small windmills made from folded British Gas bills in the grass outside the QEII centre.
Save Independent Living Fund – Dept of Work & Pensions
The Independent Living Fund (ILF) was set up in 1988 under the Thatcher government to provided financial support to some of the most severely disabled people in the UK. Its main use was to enable them to have carers and personal assistants so they could live in their communities and for many to continue in useful employment.
The ILF was administered by a separately funded body and was highly cost-effective, providing support at much lower costs than residential care as well as enabling those receiving support to live independent lives Around 18,000 people were being assisted by the fund in 2014.
When the government announced it was scrapping the scheme in England in 2010 it was met with protests by disabled people and in 2013 was taken to court. The government won the case that its decision was lawful, but lost in the Court of Appeal.
A revised proposal was then made by the government to announce once again in March 2014 that ILF would close. A fresh legal challenge failed in December 2014 and the scheme ended in June 2015, with responsibility for supporting disabled people being passed to local authorities who were given funding roughly 12% less than the ILF – and which was not ring-fenced.
Police tried to persuade the protesters to keep to a small area well to one side of the Dept of Work & Pensions but they refused and protested in a larger space in front of the two main doors, which were both locked for the event.
At the centre of the protest was a small cage, with the message ‘NO ILF – NO LIFE‘ across its top, and below the barred window ‘Without Support We Become Prisoners In Our Own Homes – Save the Independent Living Fund’. Squeezed into this was Paula Peters of DPAC, Disabled People Against Cuts, the group who had organised the protest.
A number of people told their ‘ILF stories‘ of how the fund had helped them and how they feared its closure would seriously limit their lives. DPAC tried to deliver a letter to Minister for the Disabled Mike Penning but were refused entry to the building and no one from the department was prepared to come and receive it.
One of the protesters who had travelled from Newcastle phoned her MP from here wheelchair outside the DWP, and Mary Glindon, the Labour MP for North Tyneside came down to support the protest. She failed to get DWP security to let the protesters deliver their letter but offered to deliver it for them. She was let in through a side entrance to do so then came out and spoke briefly giving her support to the protest.
March 8th – Women Strike And Protest. In 2021 on International Women’s Day I published a long post, 8 March: International Women’s Day with some images from my coverage of the day from 2002 until 2020, and in 2022 I posted International Women’s Day Marches with a little history and more of my pictures from previous years.
This year I look back seven years to Thursday 8th March 2017 when I covered a number of events on International Women’s Day.
From Russia With Love – Parliament Square
When I arrived to photograph a couple of protests about to take place in Parliament Square I found around a dozen young Russian men in white caps andjackers with a strange heart-based logo clutching large bunches of red roses being briefed before they went around the square stopping women an handing them roses.
Apparently this was a stunt for Rusian TV by the ‘Make Her Smile Movement’ and was taking place in various capitals around the world. Some women refused the flowers, but most took them and seemed pleased if rather confused by the gesture.
Global Women’s Strike had come to the square to celebrate the resistance of women worldwide and hold a protest in solidarity with the International Women’s Strike taking place in 46 countries.
They held a rally opposite Parliament as the Budget was being delivered inside, with speakers from a number of groups supporting women including the victims of domestic violence, the disabled and the victims of family courts.
Among the speakers were women from the Scottish Kinship Care Project, Dr Philippa Whitford SNP MP for Central Ayrshire, Denise McKenna, co-founder of Mental Health Resistance Network and Paula Peters of DPAC. Police initially tried to prevent the speakers using a microphone but were persuaded to let them go ahead.
The event ended with a short play by the All African Women’s Group about sexism and racism of the immigration system by the Borders Agency courts and in immigrations detention centres such as Yarl’s Wood Detention Centre.
A few yards away in Old Palace Yard Women Against State Pension Inequality – WASPI – were holding a rally against the changes in the state pension scheme which are unfair to women born in the 1950s.
The 1995 Pensions Act included plans to increase the pension age for women to 65 but it was only 14 years later that letters were sent to many women born in 1951-3 Their situation was worsened by the accelerated raising of women’s pension age under the 2011 Pension Act, also made without properly informing those affected, with the age for both men and women increasing to 66 by 2020. Many got as little as one year’s warning of the up to a six-year increase to their State Pension age and it was not possible for them to make alternative plans. For men and women born in 1959 the state pension age is now 66 years.
The women affected are still awaiting the result of an independent investigation by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman which was started in 2019.
Global Women’s Strike went on to hold a silent vigil on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields in solidarity with the farmers of Thailand. Many of them are women in the Southern Peasant Federation of Thailand and the vigil was also in support of others all around the world risking their lives to defend land and water from corporate land grabs.
Fourth Wave London Feminist Activists held a protest at Downing St on International Women’s Day, drawing attention to the impact that cuts have had on women.
The unjust, ideologically-driven cuts to public services are disproportionately felt by women. Their protest contrasted to the more highly publicised corporate events on the day which are given a high degree of coverage in the media and concentrate on getting more women in boardrooms and other highly paid jobs. Though important issues, these are clearly irrelevant to the huge majority of women who have to deal with the realities of low pay, expensive housing, and caring for children and other family members.
International Women’s Strike Flash Mob – St Pancras International
Finally I went to St Pancras International station where London Polish Feminists were joined by Global Women’s Strike in a flash mob celebrating the struggles of women around the world .
Wearing black and red clothing, after practising their routine with umbrellas with messages on them and a large banner at the entrance to St Pancras International they went down to the main concourse to perform it there.
Police came to see what was happening and made sure they did not block the concourse but remained friendly, and the waiting passengers applauded and took photographs.
Goodbye & Good Riddance 2023 – October began as just another month, but the world changed with the Hamas attack across the Gaza border with Israel on October 7th. I missed the first emergency protests against the Israeli response but the rest of my year was dominated by protests against the killing of civilians and children in Gaza by Israeli forces.
‘Stop Starmer’ Meeting Warns Us All. Camden London, 7 Oct 2023. A day before the Labour conference people meet in Keir Starmer’s constituency to warn everyone how dangerous a Starmer-led government would be. Those present included many former Labour Party members who say he has no principles and list almost 30 pledges he has so far reneged on, including green jobs, NHS outsourcing, Lords reform, free school meals, workers rights, oil contracts, PR, childcare. Paula Peters of DPAC speaking. Peter MarshallCancel the Debt of the Global South. Bank, London, 12 Oct 2023. 65 bags for Climate Debt against 1 for debt repayments. While the World Bank/IMF meet in Marrakesh campaigners at the Bank of England from Debt for Climate, War on Want and others join in worldwide protests for the cancellation of debts of the Global South. They are owed Climate debt for damage caused by fossil fuels 65 times as much as their debt repayments. Peter MarshallBarclays Told Drop Polluter Drax. Canary Wharf, London. 19 Oct 2023. Axe Drax. XR and other campaigners at Barclays Canary Wharf HQ demand they end support for Drax, the world’s biggest burner of trees which now gets around £2m a day of UK climate subsidies intended for renewable energy for its highly polluting power station, and is seeking extra subsidies for an unproven and unworkable carbon capture climate scam. Drax burns wood pellets mainly made by clear felling mature trees in the USA. Peter MarshallStand with the Palestinian Resistance! Oxford St, London. 21 Oct 2023. Members of Fight Racism Fight Imperialism and the Revolutionary Communist Group support Palestinians resisting the Zionist state of Israel which for many years has oppressed Palestinians. They protested on Oxford Street outside British businesses, banks and institutions including Marks & Spencer which have long supported the Israeli apartheid state. Peter MarshallNational March for Palestine – Stop the War on Gaza. London. 21 Oct 2023. Well over 100,000 march calling for a ceasefire and an end to the violence, for a lifting of Israel’s siege and for full humanitarian aid to be sent into Gaza immediately. They called for a just peace in the Middle East and freedom for Palestine. I was too tired after standing watching the march go past for around two and a half hours that I went home rather than photograph the rally. Peter MarshallUFFC Annual Rally & Procession 2023. London, 28th October 2023. The annual remembrance procession by the United Families and Friends Campaign (UFFC) marching from Trafalgar Square to Downing St for a rally with speakers from the families whose relatives were killed by police and in penal, mental health and immigration detention. They call for justice and proper investigations of the officers involved suspected of crimes. Peter MarshallNational March for Gaza – Ceasefire Now, London, UK. 28 Oct 2023. Many thousands march through London called for an immediate ceasefire as Israeli forces bombarded the country and cut off all communications. Thousands of children and other civilians including 110 medical staff have already been killed and supplies of water, food, medicines and fuel are running out with a with Israel denying access to all but a tiny trickle of humanitarian aid and ignoring the UN General Assembly vote. Peter MarshallMore Pictures – Gaza Ceasefire Now! London, UK. 28 Oct 2023. Peter MarshallGaza Ceasefire Now! Protest At Waterloo Station, London. 28 Oct 2023. Several hundred protesters sat down in Waterloo Station concourse in a protest calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as Israeli forces bombarded the country and cut off all communications. Thousands of children and other civilians including 110 medical staff have already been killed and supplies of water, food, medicines and fuel are running out with a with Israel denying access to all but a tiny trickle of humanitarian aid and ignoring the UN General Assembly vote. Peter Marshall
Roma, Olympic Park and Mind: After a morning protest by Roma at the Czech Embassy in Kensington I took a walk around the Olympic Park in Stratford before joining the Mental Health Resistance Network (MHRN) and Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) who were holding a Halloween Demo at the national office of Mind.
Roma protest Czech Murder – Czech embassy, Kensington
Ladislav Balaz, Chair of the Roma Labour Group and Europe Roma Network and others had come to hand in a letter calling for the murder of a young Romani man by neo-Nazi skinheads in Žatec to be properly investigated.
The man who had lived in the UK until a year ago was a second cousin of Balaz. He was set upon as he went to buy cigarettes at a pizzeria.
Most cases of murders of Roma in the Czech Republic are dismissed by police as accidents and they have already issued false stories about the victim, claiming he was mentally ill and attacked people. The Roma demand justice and equality for everyone in Czech Republic and the elimination of any double standards of justice. Several of the protesters made speeches in Czech as the letter was presented.
I had several hours between the protest outside the Czech Embassy and a protest in Stratford High Street and decided it was a good occasion to take another walk in the park at Stratford which had been the site of the 2012 London olympic games and to make some more panoramic images.
It was a year since I had been there, and four years since the Olympics and I had hoped to see the park in much better condition than I found it. Considerable progress had been made in the buildings which are shooting up around it and many of the ways into the park are still closed.
I walked around much of the southern area of the park and found it still “largely an arid and alienating space composed mainly of wide empty walkways rather than a park.”
I took rather a lot of pictures, both panoramic and more normal views before it was time to make my way back through the Westfield shopping centre into the centre of Stratford.
Paul Farmer, Mind’s chief executive came out and spoke to the protesters
The Mental Health Resistance Network (MHRN) and Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) came for a Halloween Demo at the national office of mental health charity Mind in Stratford.
They complain that Mind failed to mention the effects of welfare reform, sanctions, or benefit-related deaths in its latest five-year strategy and has dropped its support for the long-running court case aimed at forcing the government to make WCA safer for people with mental health conditions.
Mind’s policy and campaigns manager Tom Pollard had been seconded to work as a senior policy adviser to the DWP and was to start the following day and they demanded the resignation of Mind’s chief executive, Paul Farmer.
Farmer came out to meet the protesters on the pavement and told them that Mind was still working for people with mental health problems and not for the DWP, and that Pollard’s decision had been entirely a personal one in order to gain more insight into the workings of government rather than to assist them in the any discrimination against the disabled.
The protesters were unconvinced and after he had finished speaking several spoke about how local Mind groups were working against the interests of those with mental health problems. They claimed the local managers were often more interested in empire building than in the welfare of benefit claimants.
Budget Day, Shaker and Sotheby’s: Wednesday 8th July 2015 was budget day, and campaigners were out in Whitehall to protest. For the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign it was just another Wednesday and they lined up to remind MPs of the need for action. Later United Voices of the World were back at Sotheby’s who had sacked four workers for taking part in the previous week’s protest.
Disabled People Against Cuts supporters, some in wheelchairs and mobility scooters, were protesting against the changes to benefits which will hit the disabled hardest. Their supporters included Global Women’s Strike, Winvisible, Women Against Rape, Unite Community and Class War.
They began at Downing St with a ‘Balls to the Budget’ protest, arriving with footballs and balloons and and after some speeches on the pavement opposite Paula Peters led protesters across the road towards the gates, which were protected by two lines of police.
From there they tried to throw balls carrying messages such as ‘If the Tories had a soul they’d sell it’, ‘Cuts Kill‘ and ‘Blood on your hands‘ over the gates, but most fell short.
They then moved off down Whitehall and Parliament Street on their way to Westminster Bridge. Police who had largely stood back and watched earlier tried to persuade them to go on to the pavement but were ignored.
They moved to the middle of Westminster Bridge as a small group on the Embankment in front of St Thomas’s Hospital facing the Houses of Parliament displayed a huge banner with the message ‘#Balls2TheBudget #DPAC’ with ahand making an appropriate two-finger sign.
This was then brought up onto the bridge and stretched across its full width, and along with the protesters it completely blocked traffic in both directions.
After some minutes Paula Peters called for the protesters to move to Parliament, leading the protesters and the huge banner on her own chariot past Boadicea.
Here they made use of the banner to completely block all traffic moving through the busy road junction.
They held a short rally on the street and were joined by strikers marching down from the National Gallery led by the sacked PCS rep Candy Udwin, victimised for her trade union activities.
By now police patience had grown thin, and reinforcements arrived to try to clear the protesters from the streets. They tried to grab the large banner and began to push protesters and press onto the pavements.
The press as usual obeyed the police instructions more or less, though that didn’t stop some being pushed rather too violently. Most of the protesters let themselves be pushed to the pavement, but many of those in wheelchairs refused to move. Eventually police made some arrests, including Andy Greene of DPAC who was on his mobility scooter.
Eventually police brought a specially adapted van they had hired into which they could put Andy, still on his mobility scooter and the others arrested and take them safely to the police station. Unlike normal police vans it had large windows through which I was able to take pictures.
Public sector workers striking against the privatisation of the council services in Barnet and Bromley came to join the PCS strikers and held a rally in Parliament Square, along with various trade union speakers, including one of the four cleaners sacked by Sotheby’s.
The Save Shaker Aamer Campaign was also in Parliament Square, holding its regular Wednesday weekly vigil calling for the immediate release and return to the UK of Londoner Shaker Aamer and for the closure of the illegal torture prison at Guantanamo.
Later I met the United Voices of the World and their supporters at Oxford Circus, marching with them to Sotheby’s.- in Old Bond Street. As well as their original demands for proper sick pay, holidays and pensions they were now demanding the reinstatement of the ‘Sotheby’s 4’, cleaners sacked for taking place in the protest a week earlier.
At Sotheby’s police tried to move them away to the other side of the road, but the protesters, including a group from Class War and supporters from Lewisham People Against Profit, SOAS Unison, the National Gallery strikers and others ignored their requests. They left the entrance clear but wanted to make their presence clearly felt, protesting on the road outside.
Eventually two vans of police reinforcements arrived and started to push the protesters away, leading to a number of arguments. Eventually protesters were pushed to the pavement opposite, making it easier for taxis to drop clients directly in front of the entrance to Sotheby’s rather than having to walk past the noisy protest.
The protest was continuing when I had to leave after around an hour later.
