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Labour Party Conference 2009

Labour Party Conference: I’ve almost completely avoided political party conferences, which I find intensely boring. Perhaps if I had been commissioned to cover them I would have done so but I think I’ve never really needed the money that much, and I don’t have one of those long heavy and often white lenses that seem to be de rigeur.

So, while I went to Brighton on 27th September 2009 for the Labour Party Conference it wasn’t to photograph the actual conference but for the protest taking place outside the conference centre, and I also photographed a few other things happening around its edges.

Gordon on the Gravy Train etc

Labour Party Conference, Brighton

Labour Party Conference 2009 — *The ‘Vote for a Change’ campaign’s Westminster Gravy Train – and David Cameron in a blue tie at the back*

Sunday was a splendid day with a clear bright blue sky that contrasted with the mood inside Fortress Brighton, surrounded by armed police and anti-tank obstacles where the conference was taking place.

Labour in 2009 was in a state of political turmoil following the financial crash and had come in third place in the European elections in June behind the Tories and UKIP. Local elections had been disastrous with many seats lost and the Tories taking control of many authorities. Labour had been badly hit by the MPs expenses scandal and some Labour MPs were openly calling on Gordon Brown to resign.

The ‘Westminster Gravy Train’ by the Vote for a Change campaign was offering free transport to conference delegates. They called for a break with the “voting system that has left parliament unaccountable and unrepresentative” and for a referendum on electoral reform. Unfortunately the change we got in 2010 was to a disastrous coalition between Tory and Lib-Dems with a brutal and damaging programme of cuts.

Others protesting outside the centre included the Shaker Aamer campaign calling for the release of this UK resident from the US illegal prison camp at Guantanamo Bay where he was still held despite having been cleared for release, people calling for a boycott of Israeli goods, a protest against the Kafkaesque anti-terrorist control orders which allowed the government to impose severe restrictions on people relying on secret evidence in violation of their human rights.

And there were other protests about climate change, housing and more, with many people han ding out leaflets to conference delegates as they made their way into the centre, as well as the main demonstration I had travelled to Brighton to cover.

More on My London Diary at Gordon on the Gravy Train etc.

Jobs, Education, Peace Protest March & Rally

Labour Party Conference, Brighton

*Three orange marine distress flares were set off opposite the Labour Party Conference*

The protest had been called by trade unions and pressure groups – the UCU, NUJ, PCS, NUT, CWU and RMT, Right to Work, Stop the War and Unite Against Fascism – to demand a change in direction over proposals to cut public expenditure – and they had chartered a train to take people from London to the event, while others had come from around the country to join around two thousand on the seafront. I’d got up early to make my own way there by normal rail services.

*Tower Hamlets College “We Fought & We Won”*

For once there was some good news – a month-long strike at Tower Hamlets College had ended in talks at the arbitration service ACAS the previous day with agreement to avoid 25 compulsory redundancies.

But there was no such relief for the workers at wind power company Vestas Blades on the Isle of White who were at the front of the march, inexplicably abandoned by the government when the management decided to close this vital green industry down in the Isle of White and move production to the USA. As I commented then, “the government seems committed to gamble on the unlikely pipe-dream that the dirtiest of power-generation technologies – coal-fired power stations – can be tamed by 100% carbon capture and storage.”

Before the march started there were short speeches, including from a woman from the campaign waged by cleaners and other low paid workers in London for a living wage, another from Youth Fight For Jobs and a final speech from Brighton and Hove District Trades Council welcoming us to Brighton.

*Two rows of barriers a roadway, two rows of police and a hedge between protesters and the conference centre*

Despite this being a predictably peaceful event there was a very large police presence, not always helpful. They routed the march some distance away from the conference centre on the promenade rather than on the road outside and then for its return on the lower promenade more or less out of sight of the centre for the final rally.

On the march was an autonomous group of mainly students with the banner ‘STUFF THE MARKET – TAX THE RICH’ who periodically halted to allow a gap to develop in front of them, working up their chanting to a crescendo before rushing forwards scattering the photographers and videographers in front of them.

*Taken over my shoulder at left as I rushed forward in front of the marchers*

On My London Diary you can read a list of the speakers and an account of the final rally where many speakers expressed their dissatisfaction with the policies of New Labour which had abandoned its working class base. There are also many more pictures both from the march and the rally.

Jobs, Education, Peace March & Rally

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Budget Day – 2010

Budget Day: Tuesday 22nd June 2010 came after the May general election which had resulted in a hung Parliament, with the Tories winning 306 votes, 20 short of the number needed to for a majority. It had been a defeat for New Labour, in power since 1997, who only achieved 258 MPs. The Lib-Dems were the third party with 57 seats. Theoretically an anti-Tory coalition might have achieved a small but workable majority, but instead Nick Clegg decided to join a coalition government with the Tories which would have a clear majority – and lasted until the 2015 General Election.

Their decision resulted in a programme of austerity and cuts along with increases in tax which began with George Osborne’s budget on 22nd June. This included a rise in VAT from 17.5% to 20%, cuts in public services and a 2 year pay freeze for workers in the public sector, freezing of child benefit for 3 years, pegging state benefits and public service pensions to a lower price index, capping of housing benefit , cutting research and development and more.

Most of these changes had been widely signposted before the budget speech and opponents had made clear that they were likely to stifle growth and to have a disproportionate effect on the poor, women, disabled people and ethnic minorities. It was the most controversial budget in recent history and so it was unsurprising that so many came out to protest. And later the changes it introduced were probably a major factor in both the disastrous Brexit vote and the succession of hopeless Tory governments that led to the 2024 Labour landslide.

Brian Haw’s Parliament Square Peace Campaign was also still in Parliament Square, although Brian himself was in court on the morning of the budget. But they had been joined there at the start of the previous month by the Democracy Village who were still camping there, and though relations between the two groups were not positive, both were still protesting, and on Budget Day others including the PCS union, ‘Can’t Pay Won’t Pay’, Stop the War and CND also came to protest at Westminster too.

I missed what was probably the largest protest of the day opposite Downing Street, having been held up photographing the Democracy Camp calling for an end to the war in Afghanistan.

The PCS were protesting outside the Treasury. Democracy campers went with their banner to the media village. ‘Can’t Pay Won’t Pay’ campaigners arrived with a coffin and a little street theatre (it even got them a short mention on the BBC) and I followed them back to Parliament Square, missing two attempts to make citizens arrests on Labour politicians.

You can read more about the events on My London Diary, as well as a police incident involving gun violence campaigner ‘King David’ who was holding a brass ornamental pistol – clearly not a weapon – but was stopped and searched under terrorist legislation.

*King David was searched under the Terrorism act for holding this brass ornament*

More protesters arrived with placards and masks protesting about the housing crisis and the lack of affordable homes, and there was a man with a megaphone lampooning the whole thing and getting some attention from the police who today seemed clearly did not want to make arrests.

The final event I photographed before leaving Parliament Square was by Stop the War and CND, pointing out that the war in Afghanistan had cost more than £20 billion, and that a large saving could be made by deferring or cancelling the replacement of our Trident nuclear deterrent, for which there was no longer any possible military justification.

More on My London Diary: Budget Day in Westminster

Admiral of the Port’s Challenge

*The race starts in several waves from outside the Houses of Parliament*

As I walked back across Westminster Bridge towards Waterloo Station I noticed a number of boats being rowed upriver in what appeared to be a race.

The Admiral of the Port’s Challenge, a “historic tradition”, appears to have started around 2008 by the London livery companies, liverymen rowing “traditional” Thames Waterman’s Cutters, 34 feet long and 4 feet 6 inches wide, with fixed seats for 4 rowers and a canopy over 2 passengers, to the rear of which the cox sits. The boats start in waves from outside the Hoses of Parliament and row around a mile and a third to a boat club in Pimlico.

These boats, though based on those shown in 18th century paintings, are actually a modern design, adapted and built to be fast and stable for modern use for the Thames ‘Great River Race’ which started in the 1980s. Unlike modern racing craft they can cope with choppy waters on the river or even in coastal waters. And at the end of the race there is a champagne reception for those taking part.

More about this race at Admiral of the Port’s Challenge.

And more about the budget protests at Budget Day in Westminster.

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Custody Deaths, Gurkhas & John Lewis – 2013

Custody Deaths, Gurkhas & John Lewis: On Saturday 26th October I went to the annual procession to Downing Street by the United Families and Friends Campaign in memory of all those who have died in the custody of police or prison officers, in immigration detention or psychiatric hospitals. Sitting opposite Downing Street were Gurkhas on hunger strike demanding justice. I rushed away to join the IWGB protesting inside John Lewis’s flagship store in Oxford St demanding that the workers that clean John Lewis stores be paid a living wage and share in the benefits and profits enjoyed by other workers in the stores.

United Families & Friends Remember the Killed

Whitehall

Custody Deaths, Gurkhas & John Lewis - 2013

Many from the families of people who have died in police custody, prisons, immigration detention or psychiatric hospitals had gathered in Trafalgar Square along with supporters for the annual procession calling for justice.

Although there have been several thousand who have died in the last twenty or thirty years, some clearly killed by police and others in highly suspicious circumstances, inquests and other investigations have failed to provide any justice. Instead there has been a long history of lies, failures to properly investigate, cover-ups, and perjury.

On My London Diary I quoted the description by the UFFC:

The United Families and Friends Campaign (UFFC) is a coalition of families and friends of those that have died in the custody of police and prison officers as well as those who are killed in immigration detention and secure psychiatric hospitals. It includes the families of Roger Sylvester, Leon Patterson, Rocky Bennett, Alton Manning, Christopher Alder, Brian Douglas, Joy Gardner, Aseta Simms, Ricky Bishop, Paul Jemmott, Harry Stanley, Glenn Howard, Mikey Powell, Jason McPherson, Lloyd Butler, Azelle Rodney, Sean Rigg, Habib Ullah, Olaseni Lewis, David Emmanuel (aka Smiley Culture), Kingsley Burrell, Demetre Fraser, Mark Duggan and Anthony Grainger to name but a few. Together we have built a network for collective action to end deaths in custody.

Among those holding the main banner as the march went at a funereal pace down Whitehall were Stephanie Lightfoot-Bennet, twin sister of Leon Patterson, murdered by Manchester police in 1992, Marcia Rigg, one of the sisters of Sean Rigg, killed by police in Brixton in 2008 and Carole Duggan, the aunt of Mark Duggan whose shooting by police sparked riots in August 2011.

At the rally opposite Downing Street many family members spoke in turn in a shameful exposition of injustice perpetrated by police, prison officers and mental health workers. You can read more and see most of them in the captions and pictures on My London Dairy at United Families & Friends Remember Killed.

Gurkhas Hunger Strike for Justice

Downing St

Gurkhas were sitting opposite Downing Stree on a serial hunger strike after failing to receive any action from Prime Minister David Cameron to their petition calling for fair treatment for elderly Gurkha veterans who are living in extreme poverty.

On 24th October 2013 they had begun a programme of nonviolent resistance (Satyagraha) with hunger strikes, at first with a “13 days relay hunger strike in the name of the 13 Ghurka VCs followed by a fast-unto-death.“

Gurkhas Hunger Strike for Justice

Cleaners Invade John Lewis Oxford Street

I met the cleaners and their supporters in the café on the top floor of John Lewis’s flagship store on Oxford Street for a protest by their union, the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB.)

*Organiser Alberto Durango and IWGB Secretary Chris Ford lead the protesters*

All the other people who work for John Lewis in their stores are directly employed by the John Lewis Partnership (JLP) and are ‘partners’ in the business with good conditions of service and decent pay, including an annual share in the company’s profits, which can amount to as much as an extra two months pay.

But JLP outsources the cleaning of its stores to a sub-contractor, who were paying them ‘poverty wages’, only around 80% of the London Living Wage, and employ them under far worse conditions of sickness, holidays and pensions than JLP staff.

By hiving off the cleaners to another company, JLP can still claim it is a ‘different sort of company’ with a strong ethical basis, but leave its cleaners – a vital part of its workforce – in poverty with minimal conditions of service.

*They stop and let everyone know why they were protesting. The security staff watch but don’t interfere*

In 2013, the cleaning contractor was a part of the Compass Group which had recently declared pre-tax profits for the year of £575 million. And JLP had made £50 million profit from its department stores. Despite their huge profits both were happy to shaft the cleaners.

*A short rally inside the main entrance to the store*

The cleaners were demanding to become employed by JLP, the owners of their workplace, and also to be paid the London Living Wage. JLP told them that this was not appropriate.

*Raph Ashley, a JLP ‘partner’ sacked for supported the cleaners*

Among those taking part in the protest were members of the RMT and PCS trade unions and former John Lewis ‘partner’ Raph Ashley, who like many other partners had supported the cleaners’ claim. He was sacked after he gave a newspaper interview raising concerns about the ethnic diversity at John Lewis and was told that ‘partners’ discussing pay and urging them to join a trade union was a disciplinary offence. The protest also demanded justice for Raph.

*A manager asks the protesters to leave – and they slowly went out*

In the café the protesters got out banners, flags, flyers, drums, horns, whistles and a megaphone and walked noisily around the fifth floor before going down the escalator. At each floor they had to walk around to reach the down escalator, and stopped on the way to explain to the shoppers why they were protesting. Many customers took their leaflets and expressed their support for the cleaners, with some applauding the protest.

They continued down to the basement and then came back up to the ground floor where they held a short rally just inside the main entrance with short speeches from RMT Assistant General Secretary Steve Hedley, IWGB Secretary Chris Ford and Chris Baugh, Assistant General Secretary of PCS.

*The protest continues on Oxford Street in front of the store*

By then the police had arrived and they told the JLP managers to o ask the protesters to leave the store, and they did so, continuing their protest on the crowded street outside for another half hour.

More about the protest and many more pictures on My London Diary at Cleaners Invade John Lewis Oxford Street.

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March Against Cuts & Bloomsbury Festival – 2010

March Against Cuts & Bloomsbury Festival: On Saturday 23rd October 2010 striking London firefighters led a march with other trade unionists against government cuts on spending on public services announced a few days earlier. After photographing the march I walked around Bloomsbury where Bloomsbury Festival was taking place over a week or so.

Trade Union March Against Cuts

Euston Rd to Bedford Square

March Against Cuts & Bloomsbury Festival - 2010

London’s firefighters were taking part in an 8-hour strike from 10am, called after the London Fire Brigade had in August begun firing 5,600 of them to bully them into agreeing a new contract. 79% of firefighters had voted in a ballot over strike action with 79% supporting the strike.

The Fire Brigade Union had been negotiating with the LFB over a new contract, but say that the Conservative chair of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority had pushed the LFB to adopt a more aggressive stance, firing the workers and then offering re-employment on a less favourable contract imposed without negotiation. Birmingham City Council were also attempting this for their 26,000 workers and Sheffield had also sent similar letters to their employees.

Many of us were astonished that any reputable employer could even consider this ‘fire and rehire’ approach, and doubted its legality. Surely every worker treated in this way must have a cast-iron case for unfair dismissal – or certainly should have. Though as usual the main thrust of our laws is to protect the interests of the rich and powerful against the rest of us, so perhaps they could get away with it despite the clear injustice.

If they could do it for firefighters, councils and other employers could do it for other workers and many other trade unionists had come out in support of the FBU, with the London march being called by the RMT, FBU, NUT, PCS and the National Shop Stewards Network.

The cuts announced by Chancellor George Osborne in the previous Wednesday’s Comprehensive Spending Review had been anticipated but still shocked. We – the country’s workers – were being made to pay for the greed of the wealthy bankers who had caused the crisis but were being given handouts. The London march and rally was just one of others across the country including in Cardiff, Manchester, Bristol, Lincoln and Wigan.

At the rally in a corner of Bedford Square there were calls for a much more positive approach from the TUC, and a demand that they bring forword the national demonstration which was planned for Spring 2011 but the TUC kept to its planned date of March 26th.

Some of those taking part in the march and rally went on to a TUC organised rally against the cuts in the nearby TUC HQ Congress House, organised by the South-East Region TUC, but I left to take a walk around the Bloomsbury Festival.

More pictures at Trade Union March Against Cuts.

Bloomsbury Festival

*Modern cloth strips at the Foundling Museum, where ‘Threads of Feeling’ was showing.*

The annual Bloomsbury Festival began in 2006, but this was the first year I had noticed it, and although there had been some events earlier in the week that sounded interesting I hadn’t had time to attend them.

*Paper birds in Russell Square where the main stage and stalls were*

On Saturday there were free events taking place across the area, in museums and galleries, parks and gardens, as well as various dance and film performances, exhibitions, walks and tours and workshops. I walked through the area, visiting most of the squares and parks in which there were artworks as well as some of the museums and exhibitions.

But much of what interested me on my walk were things I saw or found in the area itself, with some of the ‘found art‘ rather more interesting than the actual festival pieces. I was pleased to be able to go into the the charming private garden in Malet St – and the trees, leaves and the grass roller excited me considerably more than the work of photographic art strapped to a couple of trees.

It was good to go into the Foundling Museum for my first visit there, both to see its permanent exhibition with its incredibly moving special display the pieces of 18th century cloth, textile tokens left by mothers with the babies taken to the Foundling Hospital in the hope they could later be identified and reclaimed, along with a show Threads of Feeling, based on this.

More pictures at Bloomsbury Festival.

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Tories Out March – 2017

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*A giant-headed Theresa May outside Downing St*

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

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

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

More at Tories Out March.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

March to Defend Jobs, Services & Education

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

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

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

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

Southern Yemenis Demonstrate

Rev Billy Performs at Downing St

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen indeed brother!”

Rev Billy Performs at Downing St

National Demonstration against Police Violence
Trafalgar Square to New Scotland Yard

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

*Who Killed Ian Tomlinson? And Sean Rigg?*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Outsourcing, North Woolwich & Rees-Mogg Freakshow – 2019

Outsourcing, North Woolwich & Rees-Mogg Freakshow: Tuesday 26th February 2019 was a long day for me, beginning with a day of action over the outsourcing of workers on the day of a High Court challenge to extend the legal rights of the 3.3 million outsourced workers. In the afternoon I went to complete a walk I’d begun several months earlier in North Woolwich, returning to cover a protest by Class War outside a performance by Jacob Rees-Mogg at the London Palladium.

Rally for an end to Outsourcing – Parliament Square

Outsourcing, North Woolwich & Rees-Mogg Freakshow - 2019

The day of action by outsourced workers had actually begun several hours earlier at 8.00am at the University of London from where they had marched to protest outside the High Court before I met them for a rally against outsourcing in Parliament Square.

The day was a part of a coordinated strike action by outsourced workers, mainly migrants, working at the Ministry of Justice, Dept for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy and the University of London, organised by the grass roots unions United Voices of the World (UVW), the Independent Workers’ union of Great Britain (IWGB) with the BEIS PCS branch .

The unions argued that outsourced workers should be able to collectively bargain with the management of their actual workplace as well as the outsourced employer and that not being allowed to do so was in breach of article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. You can read more about the case which the High Court dismissed in an insightful article by Tom Long for Personnel Today.

Had the legal challenge been successful it would have greatly extended the legal rights of the UK’s 3.3 million outsourced workers and have led to a great improvement in their working lives.

Several Labour MPs came to speak at the rally and support the demand to end outsourcing which creates insecurity, discrimination and low pay.

Rally for an end to Outsourcing

Outsourced Workers protest at BEIS

After the rally the the protesters marched around Parliament Square and then along Victoria Street to protest outside the Dept for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.

Strikers at BEIS included catering and security staff who are members of the PCS and are demanding the London Living Wage as well as end to outsourcing.

Among the speakers at the rally here was then Labour MP for Derby North Chris Williamson who was under investigation for his comments about the party’s response to allegations of antisemitism in the party – and was eventually barred from standing for Labour in the 2019 election.

Outsourced Workers protest at BEIS

Outsourced Workers at Justice ministry

The protesters marched on to the Justice Ministry in Petty France.

Low paid workers belonging to the United Voices of the World union at the Ministry of Justice have been campaigning for some time to get the London Living wage, but the Justice Minister has been unwilling to talk with them. They call it the Ministry of Injustice.

They are also calling for an end to outsourcing and the insecurity, discrimination and low pay it causes. A number of trade unionists came to speak in support of outlawing outsourcing and to support the strikers in their claims.

This was a loud and boisterous protest with drumming, music and dancing on the pavement and street outside the ministry.

During the protest some of those who had already been on strike for 24 hours went back into the ministry to resume work, to cheers and hugs from those outside.

Outsourced Workers at Justice ministry

North Woolwich Walk

My attempt to go for a walk along the Capital Ring in North Woolwich was made difficult by the DLR having a temporary shut-down and I arrived an hour later than intended and was unable to finish the walk – I came back several months later to do so.

It wasn’t ideal weather particularly for the panoramas I was trying to make with a clear blue sky. And finally I failed to put all the pictures I had intended onto the web page – including these two

North Woolwich

Class War protest Rees-Mogg freak show – London Palladium

Class War protest outside the London Palladium as fans who had paid £38 for a ticket entered to listen to Jacob Rees-Mogg.

With Jane Nicholl dressed as a nun, Mother Hysteria, and Adam Clifford as Jacob Rees Mogg they loudly asked why people had come to listen to him “spout homophobic, transphobic, racist, pro-hunting, misogynist, classist, privileged” nonsense.

It was certainly a better show than anything that would take place later inside the venue, and all for free. You can read an excellent account of it on Inside Croydon.

Later Police searched Jane Nicholl and threatened to arrest her for carrying offensive weapons after it emerged she had brought some novelty stink bombs to the protest.
Class War protest Rees-Mogg freak show

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Youth March For Jobs – 2009

Youth March For Jobs: Searching this morning for what to post I came across a piece I had written at the time about the Youth March for Jobs in London on Saturday 28th November 2009 and had forgotten about – and thought it worth sharing with you again.

This march was a national demonstration called by’Youth Fight For Jobs‘, an organisation founded earlier in that year “backed by 7 national British trade unions, the PCS, RMT, the CWU, Unite, UCU, TSSA and BECTU, as well as individual trade union branches, student unions and labour movement figures” to raise awareness and campaign for action over youth unemployment. I reproduce the text here (with just a few spelling corrections) along with a few of the many pictures I took at the event – you can find more on My London Diary.

Youth March For Jobs

Central London. Saturday November 28, 2009

I walked away from the Youth March for Jobs with a Polish man of around my age who had been watching the march as it came over Lambeth Bridge. “These people“, he told me, “do not understand what they are asking for.” I disagreed and we walked along the road talking. “I grew up under socialism, and there was no freedom. I couldn’t travel, couldn’t say what I thought…” he continued. We talked some more. He told me: “You weren’t allowed not to work; if a policeman saw you on the street not working he would order you top go to the job centre the following morning, and they would send you to a job.” We agreed that although we were against such compulsion, at least there was work for everyone, unlike here.

We talked more. About how terrible it was that there were so many young people that wanted to work, that were leaving school and university with qualifications but could not find a job. That the system here was all determined by money with no thought of the social consequences. That under socialism, culture had flourished, with arts centres and music supported by the state at a local level in a way that has never happened here, where Arts Council funding is directed at elites.

We went our different ways before I had a chance to tell him that the free education that these young people were demanding was something that my generation, born after the war, had taken for granted – along with the rest of the then new welfare state that our governments over the last 30 or more years have been cutting back on. Coming from a background that was economically scraping the barrel in a way perhaps hard to imagine today (but rich in some other respects) I would never have been able to attend university unless the state had paid for my fees and living expenses.

What we needed, we agreed before parting, was a system that combined both the freedom of thought and action we enjoy with full employment and a state that shows a real responsibility to support everyone, particular its poorest members. Actually something that many of the slogans chanted on the march were calling for.

A little under a thousand came to the start of the march outside the University of London Union in Malet St. Some were from around London, but there were also banners from Hull, Huddersfield, Birmingham and elsewhere. Many were students and most but not all were young. Many of the slogans chanted as they made their way through the crowded streets of Central London represented a disillusion with both the Government and politics generally:

Labour Cronies
Tory Snobs
Fight their cuts
Fight for jobs

but others were aimed specifically at Labour

Mandelson's a Tory
He wears a Tory Hat
And when he saw our top up fees
He said I'll double that!

Some contrasted the billions made available to rescue the failed bankers with the stringencies being imposed on students and the poor:

Gordon Brown, stop the rot
Give us what the bankers got,

Bail out the workers
Not the bankers!

The billions wasted on ill-conceived and probably illegal wars – currently the subject of yet another enquiry expected to state the clearly obvious – also came in for noisy and enthusIastic criticism.

What the marchers want is the right to education rather than it becoming a privilege for the wealthy, and for decent jobs. They oppose privatisation, which has so often led to lower standards, replacing a pride in work and a social responsibility by cost-cutting, minimum standards (often not achieved) and a loss of security for the workers with part-time working, short term employment and loss of rights and pensions.

The march halted for a few minutes outside Downing St, where, after a speech that only a few could hear as restrictive laws prohibit the use of megaphones in the area, a small delegation went to take a large petition to the Prime Minister, before continuing past the Houses of Parliament. I left the marchers as they crossed over the Thames on Lambeth Bridge on their way to their final rally.

More pictures at Youth March For Jobs.

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Ministry of Justice cleaners protest – 2018

Ministry of Justice cleaners protest: On Thursday 9th August 2018 United Voices of the World (UVW) cleaners and supporters celebrated the end of their 3-day strike with a rally outside the Ministry of Justice in Petty France with a lively protest despite pouring rain.

Cleaners from the UVW had also been taking part in the 3-day strike at Kensington & Chelsea Council and hospitals and outpatient clinics in London run by Health Care America. They were all demanding the London living wage and better conditions of employment.

I’d been with them a couple of days earlier at Kensington Town Hall where, after the council had withdrawn a promise made to the cleaners earlier in the day to take them into direct employment, they interrupted a council planning committee public meeting to state their case.

The cleaners and supporters left the council offices then after they had been promised further talks the following morning, but their strike continued.

All these cleaners – like many others across the country – are not employed by the companies and organisations whose premises they clean. Instead the cleaning is outsourced to contracting companies who generally pay the minimum wage and fail to provide the kind of sick pay, pensions and other conditions of service that directly employed workers normally get. Often they are bullied by management and not treated with the dignity and respect we all deserve.

It was raining as the protesters gathered outside the Ministry of Justice, but there was a yard or so of shelter at the front of the overhanging building where people lined up with banners. But soon it was really pouring down and everybody was getting wet.

Among those coming to support the UVW were another union which fights for low-paid workers, the Independent Workers Union, IWGB, Class War and other trade unionists.

Austin Hearney of the PCS came out to give support from his members working in the Ministry of Justice, and Shadow Justice minister Richard Burgon arrived to give the Labour Party’s support.

Workers were entering and leaving the building for lunch, and most took the flyers the protesters were offering with some expressing support, though a few seemed to be angered by the protest.

At one point when people were getting really wet, Petros Elia, co-founder and General Secretary of the UVW tried to lead the protesters into the building, but was stopped by security and police officers and the protest continued in driving rain.

I was getting very wet, and my cameras too. One of the protesters kindly held an umbrella over me for some minutes so I could continue to work. While there was space for some protesters to keep out of the worst of the rain, I had to stand in it to photograph them.

The rain eased off a little towards the end of the protest and people moved further out into the street – most of them were pretty wet already.

The had brought a pink pinata, a pig labelled with the initials of employers RBKC and MoJ and began hitting it with folded umbrellas and fists until it burst open releasing its multi-coloured contents onto the pavement.

There were celebrations and several coloured flares were set off, though the effect was rather dampened by the rain. There were more speeches and more flares and poetry from one of the Poetry on the Picket Line.

By no the rain had stopped and the protesters were dancing on the pavement and in the road as the protest came to an end.

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Ministry of Justice cleaners protest.

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Police, Public Sector & Peace Campaign – 2012

Police, Public Sector & Peace Campaign – Thursday 10th May 2012 saw two rather different marches by workers taking place in London, with a large protest by police and a day of public sector strikes with trade unionists marching to a rally. I also visited the Parliament Square Peace Campaign.

Police March Against Cuts and Winsor

An estimated 20,000 police from all 43 forces in England & Wales marched through central London in protest at 20% cuts in police budget and proposed restructuring following the Winsor review. Other groups including Occupy and Right To Protest and others joined in call for justice in the policing of protest.

Police are not allowed to strike or belong to a proper trade union but can join the Police Federation, a staff association that can represent and support their interests. Although it cannot call for strike action it can organise demonstrations such as this one, attended by off-duty police and some family members.

It was an impressively large march, but rather dull as it marched past the Home Office, the Houses of Parliament and Downing St, most wearing black caps. The Police Federation had provided 16,000 black caps to represent the number of warranted officers expected to be lost over the next four years due to the cut in the police budget of 20-30%.

My pictures concentrate too much on the relatively few officers from some areas who had come with placards. Most simply marched and mainly in silence. A few carried carried small posters with the names of officers who had been unable to attend due to being at work – and there were some police who were policing the police protest, on rather better behaviour than at some other protests.

Some people also came to protest against the police, with the Space Hijackers setting up a ‘professional protest stall‘ at the side of the march offering advice on making placards and chanting. Most of the police marchers were amused by their chants such as ‘One Solution – Institution’ and some of the mock placards, although there were a few jeers.

Those Police policing the protest were less amused, and threatened the Space Hijackers with arrest unless they removed one of their placards with the well-known acronym ACAB. They also stood in front to try and hide them and other protesters including those with a ‘Defend the Right to Protest’ who were shouting slogans against police violence and over deaths in custody for which there is seldom if any justice.

Some from Occupy London had come with plastic police helmets to join in the march, saying they were not against the police but called for a force that worked for the 99% rather than the 1%, or as one long-winded placard put it, “A fully, Publicly funded, democratically accountable Police force who’s aims and objectives enshrine the right to peaceful Protest in some sort of People’s Charter!”

Others taking part on the march included Ian Puddick who got intimidated, attacked and prosecuted by City of London Terrorism Police and Counter Terrorism Directorate in an operation costing millions carried out on behalf of a giant US security corporation after he discovered his wife had been having an affair with one of her bosses. He marched with a sign ‘Police Corruption‘ and unfortunately there is still a great deal of that as well as racism in forces around the country.

More on My London Diary at Police March Against Cuts and Winsor.

Public Sector Pensions Strike and March

Unite, PCS and UCU were holding a one day strike against public sector cuts in pensions, jobs and services. Many had been up in the early hours picketing at their workplaces long before I arrived in London, but there were still pickets in place when I visited Tate Britain and walked past the House of Commons on my way to a rally outside St Thomas’ Hospital on the opposite bank of the Thames.

I arrived late for the rally there and people were just getting ready to march to a larger rally at Methodist Central Hall.

Workers are incensed by increases in their pension contributions and plans to increase them further. They are also worried by the increasing state retirement age which also applies to their pensions. Now in 2024 it is 66 and will increase to 67 between 2026 and 2028. A further rise to 68 is planned and the date for that is likely to be brought forward – as the rise to 67 was.

As they marched, people were chanting “Sixty-eight – is TOO Late“. Pensioners also feel they are being cheated by the government’s decision to index them to the CPI inflation rather than the higher RPI inflation figures, which will mean them receiving some 15-20% less. Over 94% of Unite’s NHS members voted to reject the government’s proposals and take strike action today along with members from the Ministry of Defence and government departments as well as others from the PCS and UCU.

I left the marchers as they went into the rally at Central Hall and returned to photograph the police march and visit the peace camp in Parliament Square.

More pictures at Public Sector Pensions Strike and March.

4000 Days in Parliament Square

I went to talk with Barbara Tucker who was continuing the Parliament Square Peace Campaign begun by Brian Haw on the 2nd June 2001. The protest, continued by her and other supporters was about to reach a total of 4000 days of 24 hour protest in the square, with others in the group maintaining the presence on those various occasions when Brian or Barbara was arrested and held overnight.

They had then continued for almost 11 years despite constant harassment years by police, who have been pressured by politicians – as well as passing two Acts of Parliament intended to end the protest.

As I wrote in 2012:

A few hours before I arrived, police had come and spent 90 minutes “searching” the few square meters of their display in the early morning, and three days later, at 2.30am on Sunday 13 May, police and Westminster Council came and took away the two blankets that Barbara Tucker, no longer allowed to have any “structure designed solely or mainly to sleep in” by law was using to survive in the open. This was apparently one of two visits over the weekend by police and council in which they illegally removed property from the site.
4000 Days in Parliament Square.

Despite an increase in harassment as a great attempt was made to clean up the capital for the Olympics, the peace protest continued in the square for another year, with Barbara Tucker starting a hunger strike in January 2013. Eventually she became too ill to continue and the protest came to an end in May 2013.

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Gordon on the Gravy Train etc

Jobs, Education, Peace Protest March & Rally

Admiral of the Port’s Challenge

United Families & Friends Remember the Killed

Gurkhas Hunger Strike for Justice

Cleaners Invade John Lewis Oxford Street

Trade Union March Against Cuts

Bloomsbury Festival

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

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

Rev Billy Performs at Downing St

National Demonstration against Police Violence Trafalgar Square to New Scotland Yard

Rally for an end to Outsourcing – Parliament Square

Outsourced Workers protest at BEIS

Outsourced Workers at Justice ministry

North Woolwich Walk

Class War protest Rees-Mogg freak show – London Palladium

Youth March For Jobs

Central London. Saturday November 28, 2009

Police March Against Cuts and Winsor

Public Sector Pensions Strike and March

4000 Days in Parliament Square

National Demonstration against Police Violence
Trafalgar Square to New Scotland Yard