Tag: phone hacking

Leveson & Cold Homes – 2012

Leveson & Cold Homes: On Thursday 29th November press and protesters were outside the QEII centre waiting for the publication of the Leveson inquiry report, and were joined briefly by people who had been protesting outside the treasury over George Osborne’s cuts and energy policies and later moved to protest outside parliament where Energy Secretary, Ed Davey was to introduce the Energy Bill.

Leveson Comes Out

QEII Centre

Leveson & Cold Homes - 2012

Lord Justice Leveson had been appointed in 2011 to lead an inquiry into the culture, practices, and ethics of the British press after the News of the World had been found to have illegally hacked into the phones of celebrities, politicians, royals and others since the 1990s.

Of course the News of the World which had been closed down by Murdoch’s News International in 2011 over this was not the only newspaper to have used illegal hacking. As well as other papers in the Murdoch Press it was said to be fairly widespread across the tabloid papers.

Leveson & Cold Homes - 2012

The Leveson Inquiry was to be in two parts and the report on Part 1 was due to be released on 29th November 2012. Part 2 which was to examine the extent of phone hacking in News International and other media as well as the complicity of the police in receiving bribes and other ways was shelved in 2015 and then scrapped in 2018.

Leveson & Cold Homes - 2012

Leveson found that the Press Complaints Commission was toothless and ineffective and recommended that a new voluntary independent body be set up. There are now two press regulators; Impress, which largely follows Leveson’s proposals and IPSO, the Independent Press Standards Organisation which as its name says remains independent, and which more publications have signed up to, while others, including The Guardian belong to neither.

This was a small but visually interesting protest, and ss I wrote in 2012:

Leveson & Cold Homes - 2012

Avaaz had brought large puppet heads of Murdoch and a gagged Cameron with placards ‘End the Murdoch Mafia’ and a flaming dustbin into which Murdoch lowered the Leveson report.

Political artist Kaya Mar had brought one of his paintings with the judge and a cart-load of people, though I couldn’t recognise them all.

And a protester from Kick Nuclear was walking up and down with his dog which was wearing a poster about Fukushima warning of the dangers of nuclear power.

More pictures at Leveson Comes Out.

Cold Homes Kill Treasury Protest

Westminster

Fuel Poverty Action along with others including Disabled People Against Cuts, the Greater London Pensioners’ Association, Single Mothers’ Self-Defence, Southwark Pensioners’ Action Group and WinVisible (women with visible and invisible disabilities) had come to protest against the cuts to come from George Osborne’s energy bill which they say will cause 24,000 extra winter deaths.

The protest which began outside the Treasury and then moved on pausing briefly at the Leveson protest outside the QEII centre to Parliament Square in front of the House of Commons where Secretary, Ed Davey, was to introduce the Energy Bill later that day.

“The protesters had brought plastic silver reflective coated ‘space blankets’ to wear and had three ‘tombstones’ with the messages ‘George Osborne Your Cuts KILL’, ‘Gas Power = Killer Bills’ and ‘24,000 Winter Deaths – Big Six Profits up 700%’.”

They say that already because of the government cuts many people were going hungry, with food banks being set up and kept busy even in the more prosperous areas of the country, and now with winter coming many have to chose between ‘eating or heating’.

A protester with a hot water bottle tries to walk into the Treasury but is stopped by the police

Cuts will mean more people suffering from “hypothermia, and the disabled in particular are hard hit, both because of the ruthless removal of benefits by poorly designed tests adminstered by poorly qualified testers with targets to meet and also because they often have special needs for heating.”

The protesters ignored police requests to leave the steps up to the Treasury and police then pushed them down, “usually with minimum force, but just occasionally rather more than necessary, but both protesters and police generally remained calm.” The rally continued on the pavement with speakers including Green Party leader Natalie Bennett.

After this the group of 50 or so protesters moved to the pavement in front of the Houses of Parliament, pausing briefly on the way for photographs in front of those waiting for the Leveson report.

Police again tried to get them to move on when they stopped in front of the Houses of Parliament, at first telling them they had to move as “a Royal movement” was about to take place, an announcement that cause much hilarity and comment but no movement. A little later they were told they could stay, but decided instead to cross onto the grass in Parliament Square for some final photographs.

More pictures at Cold Homes Kill Treasury Protest.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

Murdoch, Tower Bridge and Poor Doors

I came up to London on the afternoon of Thursday 26th March 2015 and began my work by going to News International opposite the main entrance to London Bridge Station where te week of Occupy Rupert Murdoch was on its fourth day. Not much was happening there, so after taking a few pictures I went for a short walk to Tower Bridge and back. Things were only just beginning to start for an evening of events there when I needed to leave and cross the river for another weekly protest by Class War at One Commercial Street.

Occupy Rupert Murdoch – News International, London Bridge

Thursday 26th March 2015

I’d been at News International three days earlier on Monday 23 March 2015 when campaigners against the scandal of the UK’s media monopoly, with 5 billionaires owning 80% of the media, had marched there the short distance from London Bridge to present an arrest warrant for Rupert Murdoch, charging him with for war crimes, phone hacking, political blackmail, tax avoidance and environmental destruction.

Thursday 26th March 2015

Someone from News International had come and taken the warrant, and the campaigners had then set up camp on the pavement outside for a week of activities, Occupy Rupert Murdoch Week. I’d been busy for a few days and this was my first opportunity to return and see what was happening.

Thursday 26th March 2015

The answer when I arrived late on Thursday afternoon was not very much, though the camp and some of its supporters were still there, and still putting up posters and telling people going into London Bridge Station opposite the camp why they were protesting.

Thursday 26th March 2015

I went for a short walk along the riverside to Tower Bridge and came back later when more people were beginning to arrive for the evening session. But unfortunately I needed to leave to walk across the river and join Class War in Aldgate before things really got going.

Occupy Rupert Murdoch

Around Tower Bridge

I’d thought that Tower Bridge was probably the most photographed building in London but a survey of Instagram tags in 2022 showed that Big Ben had inched ahead with 3.2 million posts to Tower Bridge’s 2.6 million.

I don’t often feel a great need to add to the number of pictures of London’s most famous bridge, which I think I first photographed 50 years ago, though I’d gone under it on a school trip almost 20 years earlier, back before primary children had cameras. Most of the pictures which I’ve taken including it in the last 25 or so years have a group of protesters outside nearby City Hall in the foreground.

London’s City Hall is now no longer within sight of Tower Bridge, hidden out beside the ROyal Victoria Dock in Canning Town, though it was still in its rented home, bought back by the Kuwaiti state a couple of years earlier. Tower Bridge is still owned by Bridge House Estates, a charity set up in 1282, its only trustee THE MAYOR AND COMMONALTY AND CITIZENS OF THE CITY OF LONDON.

But mostly my attention was on the north bank of the river now rather dominated by a cluster of ugly and idiosyncratic towers in the centre of the City of London, until close to Tower Bridge where the Tower of London, actually outside the City in Tower Hamlets, still stands out despite its relatively low height.

Around Tower Bridge

A Quiet Night at Poor Doors – One Commercial St, Aldgate.

Eight months earlier in July 2014 Class War had started a series of weekly protest outside the massive largely residential block of One Commercial Street on the corner of that street and Whitechapel High St. The block includes flats for both private owners and a smaller number of socially rented flats, with the two groups having separate entrances.

The ‘rich door’ is on the main road, next to the Underground station entrance, while the ‘poor door’ is down a side alley. When the protests began the alley was dark, with dumped rubbish and a strong and persistent smell of urine, but one positive result of the protests has been that the alley has been cleaned up and new lighting installed.

As the protesters were getting ready at the rich door, I went after Ian Bone of Class down the alley to look at the poor door. We returned to the front of the building and the rich door, followed by two police officers who had come to watch us.

It was good to see again among the banners the ‘Epiphany’ banner based on the Fifth Monarchists who led a short-lived rebellion in London which began on 6th January 1660. Class War had taken part in the filming of a re-enactment of this event in 2013.

It began as a fairly quiet protest with speeches and some chanting, and at some point a yellow smoke flare rolled across the pavement.

There was a small confrontation when one resident entering the rich door pushed rather roughly past the protesters, but very few came in or out of the rich door. The ground floor also includes shops and a hotel, and I think residents could probably use the hotel entrance. We had also found that they were able to exit via the ‘poor door’.

At the end of the protest some of the protesters who had brought a Hello! magazine Queen’s Diamond Jubilee flag attempted to burn it. But this turned out to be difficult and it melted a bit but didn’t catch fire. Some then when down the alley to look at the poor door before everyone left.

More pictures on My London Diary at Quiet Night at Poor Doors.