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Southwark Housing, Bermondsey Panoramas & Rembrandt Against Shell – 2014

Southwark Housing, Bermondsey Panoramas & Rembrandt Against Shell: On Thursday October 16th 2014 I went with housing campaigners on a march to Southwark Council Offices. They claimed that the council leader and other councillors and officers have accepted gifts and jobs from developers and were selling off council estates at knockdown prices. I had some time free after that and took a short walk along the Thames making some panoramas before rushing to the National Gallery where the Art Not Oil coalition were protesting outside a gala evening for special guests including unethical sponsors such as Shell.

CPOs for Southwark Councillors

Elephant to Southwark Council Offices

Southwark Housing, Bermondsey Panoramas & Rembrandt Against Shell

Housing campaigners from Southwark were joined by members of the Focus E15 Mums ‘Housing for All’ campaign at the base of the Strata Tower at Elephant and Castle, a tower nicknamed ‘The Razor’ for its three entirely decorative ‘greenwash’ rooftop wind turbines – which cannot be used as they generate unacceptable vibration for the upper floor flats.

Facing them was One The Elephant, then under construction, a 44 storey block of luxury flats with no social housing, being sold abroad, with ‘studio flats’ starting at around £320,000 or 640,000 Singapore dollars.

They marched to protest briefly at the Elephant Park Sales Office on the Walworth Rd before walking on through the Heygate council estate where over 1200 homes were demolished and the site sold to developers for a knock-down cost – apparently less than the costs of ‘decanting’ the tenants and far below its proper valuation. Despite this leaseholders were only given compensation of around half the true market value of property in the area, forcing them to move out into the suburbs to buy property in far less convenient areas giving them long and expensive work journeys.

The replacement by Elephant Park means a loss of over a thousand social housing units, with a small number of so-called affordable units at 80% of market rates, still well above what most Londoners can actually afford. The new flats were being sold to overseas buyers in Singapore and elsewhere as second homes, investment properties, homes for wealthy overseas students studying here, buy-to-let etc.

From there they walked through some of Southwark’s 1930’s and postwar council estates, now seen as prime targets for demolition of social housing. Its replacement with higher density high price ‘luxury’ flats would generate huge profits for the developers (and lucrative rewards for councillors and council officers.)

The march carried on to a similar area of council properties around Long Lane and Tennis Street where again similar changes – gentrification labelled as regeneration – seem likely, before going through Guy’s Hospital and London Bridge Station to Tooley St and the Southwark Council Offices.

There they held a short rally after which security stopped them entering to hand in letters for Southwark Council Leader Peter John and two other councillors containing ‘People’s Compulsory Purchase Orders‘ for their homes, but after much argument and the presence of police Liliana Dmitrovic of the ‘People’s Republic of Southwark’ and another protester were allowed in. As Southwark residents they argues they had a right to enter the council offices.

They went to reception and asked to see the three councillors and were told to take a seat and wait. They sat there for some time but eventually Stephen Douglas from Southwark Council came to tell them that all three named on the letters were in meetings and unavailable, but promised he would personally deliver the letters. They handed them in to him and left.

More on My London Diary at CPOs for Southwark Councillors.

Bermondsey Thames Panoramas

City Hall to Angel Wharf

I crosssed the road from the council offices and went through the gardens by City Hall to walk by the Thames, going briefly down Horselydown steps just downriver from Tower Bridge onto the foreshore.

I came back up to Shad Thames, a painful pastiche of its former industrial past. Quickly I made my way to the riverside path and walked on, stopping as usual at the footbridge across St Saviour’s Dock to take more pictures.

I walked on in some interesting lighting and got very involved in taking pictures, rather losing track of time. At West Lane I realised I was in danger of arriving late at Trafalgar Square and ran down to the bus stop on Jamaica Road.

Many more pictures – not all panoramic – at Bermondsey Thames Panoramas.

Art Not Oil – Rembrandt Against Shell

National Gallery

The Art Not Oil coalition had earlier gate-crashed the press launch of the Rembrandt exhibition at the National Gallery in a protest against oil company sponsorship of the arts and the privatisation of gallery staffing.

*Protesters with banners in front of the Sainsbury wing*

I arrived in time to meet them on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields just before they marched the few yards to the National Gallery where a gala evening was being held for special guests – including from the sponsors – and highly ranked staff.

They turned down a protest pen the police had set up some distance from the entrance the guests would be using where their protest would not be noticed (what the police call ‘facilitating’ but campaigners know is minimising) and instead protested close to the entrance. Here there were some speeches and a repeat performance of their earlier performance which included a short playlet as well as some specially written songs.

Some of those who appeared at the press launch were professional actors now on stage elsewhere and so there were some changes in the cast. But it was still a very professional performance.

Here is the Art Not Oil statement:

The presence of unethical sponsors like Shell and the contracting of external security firms shows the growing influence the private sector is having over our arts and culture. With its meagre contribution to the gallery, Shell is buying social legitimacy for its dodgy deeds worldwide, including:
- its failure to clean up its multiple spills in the Niger Delta
- its reckless plans to drill in the Arctic for yet more oil
- its tar sands projects in Canada that are undermining Indigenous people's      rights

More at Art Not Oil Rembrandt Against Shell.

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Bring All the Troops Home NOW – 2007

Bring All the Troops Home NOW: CND and Stop The War had called for a march to Parliament on 8th October 2007 to arrive when Gordon Brown was making his statement to Parliament on Iraq where British troops were still present having taken part in the US-led invasion in 2003.

They wanted to march to make clear that all UK troops should come back here now. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 had led to the fall of Saddam Hussein but had been made without any real thought for the future of Iraq – except for the profits which US companies hoped to make. Saddam’s civil and military administration which had united the country were simply removed rather than being put to use to keep the country running and chaos reigned. Iraq didn’t need foreign armies but needed real support to set up a new civil society and that had not been forthcoming.

Gordon Brown tried to ban the protest, using “Sessional Orders” to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police for him to prevent the march under section 52 of the Metropolitan Police Act 1839. But CND and Stop The War made clear it would go ahead despite this.

On the morning of the march Prime Minister Gordon Brown – probably reacting both to huge public pressure and legal advice – lifted the ban, thus avoiding a huge burden on both police and courts. They might otherwise have ended with thousands of arrests – and cases which the courts would probably throw out.

Around ten years later the powers that the Brown government had attempted to use were officially recognised to no longer have any legal effect – something I suspect had been part of legal advice given to Brown in 2007.

Last Saturday, October 4th 2025, I again watched a protest by Defend Our Juries in defiance of the government’s proscription of Palestine Action under terrorist laws, with police arresting almost 500 people for sitting holding a piece of cardboard with a message supporting the banned group. Many of those arrested seemed to be elderly and some also disabled, though there were also younger people.

The protestersy presented no danger to public order – other than challenging the legally doubtful ban on the group who few outside the government and those making arms for sale to Israel who had been heavily lobbying for a ban – believe could be described as terrorists. And this is something to be shortly tested in the courts. And the arrests made the police look unfeeling and stooges of the government rather than a force acting with the consent of the people.

Perhaps our current Labour government should have learnt from the example of George Brown in 2007. Supposedly we are a nation where the police operate by consent – which was clearly not the case here – and the police should have made this clear to the government and simply ignored this and earlier protests by ‘Defend Our Juries’. Which would of course have made the action – with people coming on purpose to be arrested and waiting patiently for hours for it to happen – totally ineffectual. And we do after all we have many laws which people – especially motorists – break every day and the police ignore.

Defend Our Juries also protests against the practice by some judges in some courts to prevent those charged from making a defence of their actions and instructing juries that they cannot use their consciences in coming to decisions – both vital protections essential to a fair legal system. Actions introduced into our legal system because successive governments have been angered by the decisions reached by juries in some cases. But it should not be the job of our legal system to serve the government but to serve the people and these developments endanger the whole basis of trial by jury which protects us and our democracy.

Here’s what I wrote in 2007 about the march and rally on 8th October 2007. All the pictures in this post come the event and there are many more on My London Diary.

Brian Haw’s t-shirt summed up the disaster: “Iraq 2,000,000 dead 4,000,000 fled genocide theft torture cholera starvation” though there were a number of other crimes to mention, in particular the poisoning of so much the area for generations to come through the dumping there of so much of our nuclear waste in the form of ‘depleted uranium’ weapons.

I was surprised at the level of support for Monday’s demonstration, a day when many of the supporters of the campaign would have been at work, and I had expected hundreds rather than the three thousand or so who actually turned up. The government’s clumsy ban on the event, using 1839 legislation passed against the Chartists, drummed up support, and to such an extent that on the morning of the rally they had to climb down and allow the march and the lobby of parliament to proceed.

Later in the day, the success of the demonstration even became rather an embarrassment for Stop The War, who when I left around 4.30pm, two hours after the start of the march, were trying to help police in clearing the large crowd who were still blocking Parliament Street, Parliament Square and St Margaret St, urging them to move along to College Green. Later in the day a small group of protestors took down the barriers on the grassed area of parliament square, piling them up.

But the real embarrassment was for Gordon Brown, forced to climb down and allow democratic protest. Unfortunately he didn’t do the decent and sensible thing (and surely now inescapably the logical thing in the interests of both Iraq and Britain) and announce a speedy withdrawal of troops to be replaced by a real programme of support for the Iraqi people.

Although doubtless pressure from the police at the highest level was obviously vital in the decision to allow the march to go ahead, there were clearly a few officers in charge on the ground who weren’t happy.

As we went down Whitehall, they obstructed photographers trying to photograph the event quite unnecessarily – so obviously so that some of the officers actually carrying out the orders were apologising to me as they did so. And later in the day a few tempers flared and there were a few fairly random assaults on demonstrators.

It did seem an unnecessarily provocative move to bring back Inspector Terry, apparently the man responsible for much of the harassment of Brian Haw and the officer in charge at the 2006 ‘Sack Parliament’ demo last year (photographer Marc Vallée who was injured is now taking legal action against the Met, with the support of the NUJ.)

British troops remained in Iraq in a combat role until 2009, with smaller numbers there mainly involved in training until the final withdrawal in 2011. You can read more about my NUJ colleague Marc Vallée being thrown to the ground by police and his eventually reaching a settlement on the EPUK web site.

Many more pictures from the march and rally on My London Diary at
Bring All the Troops Home NOW.

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Battle of Cable St – 75 Years On

Battle of Cable St: On Sunday 2 October 2011 well over a thousand trade unionists and anti-fascists celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street when Mosley’s fascists were prevented from marching into London’s largely Jewish East End.

Since 2011 we have seen other celebrations of this famous event and the people of the East End have also come together to stop other racist organisations marching into the East End, notably the EDL.

In 1936 Oswald Mosley led the ‘British Union of Fascists’, an organisation modelled on Mussolilni’s Italian fascist paramilitary groups on a march designed to intimidate the large Jewish community in the East End.

Although various groups tried to get the march banned the Home Secretary sided with the fascists insisting their democratic right to march had to be upheld by the police. The fascists were also supported by the right wing press, particularly the Daily Mail, while more liberal newspapers urged people to stay away from the counter demonstration.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews had condemned the march as anti-Semitic, and they had advised people to stay away from the march as did the Labour Party. The opposition to Mosley was led by local members of the Communist Party of Great Britain including Phil Piratin who nine ears later became Communist MP for Mile End. They eventually persuaded the party to back the counter-demonstration.

Somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000 people turned out to stop the fascists. Many were Jewish, and many were members or supporters of the Communist Party but the call brought out many others from the East End, including “Irish Catholics, Jews, Orthodox Jews, dockers and Somali seamen” in a huge mobilisation across the community.

There are three routes leading into the East End from the City of London where Mosely and people gathered at key points on them, particularly at Aldgate, where most of the fighting between police and protesters took place, particularly around Gardiner’s Corner – where a ten years ago Class War carried out their long series of Poor Doors protests against social apartheid in housing.

Police decided to try and force a way through at Cable Street a little to the south and tried to force a way through the crowds and remove the barricades they had set up.

According to Wikipedia, police managed to take and dismantle the first barrier but the anti-fascists set up another a few yards down the road.

“The police attempts to take and remove the barricades were resisted in hand-to-hand fighting and also by missiles, including rubbish, rotten vegetables and the contents of chamber pots thrown at the police by women in houses along the street … children’s marbles were also used to counter charges by mounted police.”

Eventually the police gave up and told Mosley to march with his followers back to the West End, where they held a rally in Hyde Park rather than those they had intended in Limehouse, Bow, Bethnal Green and Hoxton.

Seventy five years after the battle the crowd was rather smaller, but the well over a thousand who met at Aldgate included several veterans of the 1936 battle, among them 96 year old Max Levitas who led the march and spoke at the rally. He was also there and spoke at the 80th anniversary event in 2016.

The oldest person on the march was 106 year old lifelong political activist and suffragette Hetty Bower who had also been at the 1936 demonstration and was later one of the founder members of CND. I photographed her on several occasions at CND and other protests, the last at the Hiroshima Day commemoration in 2013 where she spoke briefly, a few months before her death.

*Beattie Orwell, 94, was another of the veterans of 1936*

You can read more about the Cable Street 75 event on My London Diary, where there are also many more pictures.
Battle of Cable St – 75 Years

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EDL Protest Opposed by Unite Against Fascism – 2014

EDL Protest Opposed by Unite Against Fascism: Eleven years ago on Saturday 20th September 2014 Unite Against Fascism held a protest against a march and rally by the English Defence League in Whitehall. The whole event was on a very much smaller scale than last Saturday and I was able to move fairly freely between the two groups and photograph both groups.

In 2014 there were only a few hundred people in each of the two groups, with probably twice as many EDL as UAF, and more police who kept them apart, although the two protest pens on Richmond Terrace opposite Downing Street where they gathered were less than a hundred yards apart.

The EDL were protesting “against government inaction on child sexual exploitation, immigration, returning jihadis, FGM, Halal food, Imams, Islamic Schools, Shariah courts, the burkha etc” and in my account on My London Diary I gave more detail on their complaints.

The EDL then marched to to Trafalgar Square for a rally. As I commented, “The atmosphere here was rather friendlier than at some previous EDL protests, and the press were able to walk freely among the gathering crowd, many of whom posed for photographs.”

I also reported accurately on the behaviour of the protesters – including a chant of “Allah, Allah, who the f*** is Allah”. As often at EDL protests some did point and shout at me, mistaking me for ‘Searchlight’ photographer David Hoffman – and I was able to correct some of them and we had a polite conversation.

After waiting for a couple of coaches that had been stopped by police on their way into London the EDL lined up for a march down Whitehall back the the pen opposite Downing Street where they held a rally.

Taking photographs at the rally became much more difficult, with people objecting to being photographed – and some complaining to the police, who told them we had a right to take photographs on the public street. There was a lot of angry shouting of insults at photographers and people trying to block our view, turning their backs and moving in our way, though police prevented any actual violence. But some clearly posed for the photographers.

The organisers then made our job more difficult, moving large banners to try and block our view of the speakers. After a while I got fed up and returned to photograph at the counter-protest. Here, although people were shouting angrily at the EDL, there was a very different atmosphere, with none of the hate towards photographers of the EDL, people welcoming being photographed showing their opposition.

Probably last Saturday there were probably not that many more hardcore Nazis, racists and Islamophobes among the many thousands marching in the ‘Defend The Kingdom’ march. Unfortunately many more have been mobilised by years of anti-immigrant propaganda by both major parties as well as by the incessant publicity given to Farage by our mass media, particularly the BBC, as well as the social media lies of Tommy Robinson and others.

We’ve seen the consistent abuse of language – there are no ‘illegal immigrants’ arriving our beaches, they are asylum seekers, refugees and migrants – some of whom may later become illegal, but the great majority are found to have a legal claim.

*An EDL steward holds his hands up in front of a camera lens*

There is no ‘flood’ of migrants – Britain takes far fewer than many other European countries – and certainly a very small number compared to countries closer to the conflicts which are driving migration.

*I went back to photographing the UAF counter-protest*

And so on. Both Tory and Labour governments have stirred up hatred with hostile policies trying to outflank the right, while neither has provided humane and efficient systems for dealing with migration. Labour does at least say they are trying to shake up the Home Office, though so far with little apparent effect.

And Labour doesn’t look good. In the recent legal case a temporary injunction was granted against extradition of a man to France, when Home Office officials admitted his case had not been sufficiently considered. Presumably the decision to try and deport him immediately was simply taken on political grounds by the new Home Secretary.

More about the 2014 protest and counter-protest with many more pictures on My London Diary at EDL London March & Rally.

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Defend Our Juries Protest Palestine Action Ban – 6th Sept 2025

Defend Our Juries Protest Palestine Action Ban: Last Saturday, 6th September, 2025 around a thousand people came to sit calmly and peacefully in Parliament Square holding signs with the message ‘I OPPOSE GENOCIDE – I SUPPORT PALESTINE ACTION’.

The protest was against the ban on Palestine Action imposed in July by then Home Secretary Yvette Cooper who designated the direct action group as a ‘terrorist organisation’ following extensive and dishonest lobbying from arms manufacturers and the Israeli government. Yvette Cooper is said to have received £215,000 from the Israel lobby last year.

The protest was the second mass protest in Parliament Square organised by Defend Our Jories, (DOJ) an organisation set up to defend the jury system against attempts by the government to “violate the most basic principles of natural justice and the right to a fair trial.“

The jury system is designed to “put the moral intuitions of ordinary people at the heart of the criminal justice system“. As DOJ says, “when juries have heard evidence of why people have taken direct action to advance climate or racial justice, or to stop genocide in Gaza, they have repeatedly reached not guilty verdicts.”

“These verdicts are deeply embarrassing to the government and the arms and oil industries, contradicting the narrative that the public supports the ‘crackdown on protest’. Lobbyists for the arms and oil industries, such as Policy Exchange, embedded within government, have been working to put a stop to them.”

As they say “extraordinary measures have been taken that violate the most basic principles of natural justice and the right to a fair trial“, with judges telling juries that they cannot acquit a defendant as a matter of conscience, and in at least one case threating the jury with criminal proceedings if they did so.

Defendants have been banned from mentioning climate change in court and two Insulate Britain members were jailed for 7 weeks for doing so. Giovanna Lewis, a town councillor from Dorset told judge Silas Reid why she had defied his ruling, “I continue to be astonished that today in a British court of law, a judge can or would even want to ban and criminalise the mention of the words ‘fuel poverty’ and ‘climate crisis’. I wanted to bring public attention to the scandal of thousands of deaths in the UK due to fuel poverty and thousands of deaths around the world due to climate change. There is no choice but to give voice to the truth.”

The UN have declared that this violates international law, and carried out a mass protest after Trudy Warner was prosecuted for holding a sign “Jurors you have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to your conscience” outside the trial of Insulate Britain activists, re-stating the principle of ‘jury equity’. This had been enshrined in a English law since 1670 as a memorial at the Old Bailey states. Eventually the High Court rejected the government’s application to send her to prison.

The protests by DOJ against the ban on Palestine Action in August and last Saturday were both entirely peaceful. Those taking part had come to be arrested and sat waiting for the police to do so. But a crowd of supporters in the square were appalled at the way in which the police did so, with snatch squads going into the protest and picking on individuals seemingly at random.

The squads were soon surrounded by crowds, many intent on recording the arrests on cameras and mobile phones, many shouting ‘Shame on You‘ at the police for their actions. While other police simply stood around the perimeter of the square and watched in silence, some clearly uneasy about what was happening, those making the arrests sometimes reacted violently to the crowds around them. I saw one officer lashing out with his baton, though his colleagues soon stopped him.

London, UK. 6 Sep2025. A man is arrested.

It was difficult to understand the police tactics. Rather than go about making arrests in an organised and systematic manner by using the very large forces present to surround an area of the protest and carry out the arrests within that cordon, they appeared to have decided to do their job in the most provocative manner possible. Perhaps it was to put on a display for their political masters – and our now Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood was impressed as she watched the screens in the police control room.

I think they had decided to arrest first some particular individuals in the crowd – perhaps those who were in breach of bail conditions from the previous month’s protest. But nobody present was trying to evade arrest – the 1500 (according to DOJ) had all come to be arrested, although I think almost half got fed up with waiting and left. Others were still being arrested seven hours after the protest began.

*London, UK. 6 Sep 2025. Neil Goodwin as Charlie X was later arrested*

I left after watching for almost an hour to photograph the Palestine march, with around 200,000 people slowly marching towards the rally in Whitehall. Later that afternoon I uploaded around thirty images of this protest to Alamy and these together with a few more to a Facebook album.

One of the founders of Palestine Action has been granted an appeal against the ban – although the government is appealing against her right to appeal – almost certainly because they fear it will succeed. I hope for the future of our legal system and country it does.

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DSEI March and a Tank – 2007

DSEI March and a Tank: On Tuesday 11th September 2007 I marched with protesters from Plaistow Park to Custom House were the largest arms fair in the world was being held, – it is still held every two years and is again taking place now. Then I went to the main entrance by the side of the Royal Victoria Dock to welcome the Space Hijackers, “an international band of anarchitects” who had promised to come with a tank to sell it at the fair as a protest.

Here, with some minor corrections, is what I wrote about the day’s events back in 2007, along with some of the pictures I took and links to where you can see more of my pictures on My London Diary.

CAAT March Against DSEi East London Arms Fair

One of the more scandalous events to take place in London is the DSEI (Defence Systems & Equipment International Exhibition) arms fair, held every two years since 2001 at the Excel Centre on the side of the Royal Victoria Dock in Newham.

Even if you are not a pacifist (and I’m not) it is a trade that has its sickening side, with arms sales to corrupt regimes who use them to kill, torture and deny human rights to their own people, as well as endless shady deals by arms dealers that end up with weapons traded there in the hands of criminals around the world – including some used on the streets of this country.

Britain also has a thriving business in implements of torture, which have been exposed as on sale in earlier shows here. The show also features all the other kinds of nasty devices used by police forces around the world to keep corrupt governments in power.

Of course our government claims to have an ethical policy so far as arms sales are concerned, but in reality it is more about making deals look clean on paper than really worrying about where the arms will end up and what they will be used for. DSEI isn’t just a UK show, it is the world’s largest arms fair – the 2005 show had over 1200 exhibitors from 35 countries present.

The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) organised a peaceful protest against the fair with a march through Newham from Plaistow Park to a rally outside Custom House Station, as close as they were allowed to get to the Excel Centre. Around 150 people walked the 2 miles to the rally where they met around 50 others who had travelled there directly, and later they were joined by a group of ‘Critical Mass’ cyclists.

Unfortunately the police set up a long thin pen along the side of the road opposite the station, and would not allow speakers to use the small cycle-towed sound system. So the demonstrators were too spread out for many to hear the speeches, by local residents Len Aldis and Bill Perry, local councillor Alan Craig, Green Party Mayoral Candidate Sian Berry, CAAT’s Ian Prichard and comedian Mark Thomas.

The DSEI causes major disruption to the area, with millions spent on extra policing and a number of roads and paths being closed – including the very useful high-level bridge across the dock itself. But the very minor inconvenience of a slightly louder amplification for a few minutes was apparently out of the question. It was a decision that clearly indicated police priorities.

Normally the Royal Victoria dockside is open to the public, but this week the whole northern side was off limits as I found. I took a walk past the eastern end of the dock and then around to the dockside at Brittania Village to get a view of the Excel Centre and the military vessels moored alongside, including a Swedish Stealth Corvette, with odd profiles and jagged camouflage designed to reduce its visibility and radar and other profiles.

More pictures at CAAT March Against the Arms Fair

Space Hijackers Auction Tank at Arms Fair

*The ‘tank’ makes its way down Tidal Basin Road to the ExCeL entrance*

I was slowly making my way around the the Tidal Dock Basin Road which leads to the main vehicle entrance to Excel. The Space Hijackers had announced they would be bringing a tank to the fair, and this seemed to be the likely route they would take.

Police had earlier stopped their actual tank almost as soon as it hit the road for some so-called ‘road safety checks’, but the Space Hijackers had tank number 2 in reserve. I think it was strictly a converted Armoured Personnel Carrier, but still a very impressive vehicle. I was pleased to find my guess was right when it made its way down the road, led by someone on a bicycle.

No surprise, the police wouldn’t let it into the arms fair, but it was allowed to park by the side of the entrance and a party and auction took place.

When people began to leave the arms fair, the protesters were able to make a very visible and audible protest as they drove slowly by. At one stage the police helped by blocking the traffic for a while so they could get a better view of the protest.

Generally the police were unnecessarily restrictive, penning the protesters to one side of the road, and harassing press. That isn’t a genuine press pass one said when I showed my NUJ issued press card [from the UK Press Card Authority Ltd and recognised by the National Police Chiefs’ Council as showing me “a bona fide newsgatherer” who were trying to stop me doing my job], threatening me with arrest unless I got back behind the line of police.

The police FIT team did its usual best to stoke up the atmosphere with their intimidatory tactics – certainly something that gives photographers a bad name. It is hard to believe that those hundreds (probably by now thousands) of pictures they have of me – mainly with a camera obscuring my face – are of any great use in protection national security. [Later when I made a ‘Freedom of Information’ request they denied having a single image of me.]

*Communications centre inside the ‘tank’*

I’m not worried about being photographed – my appearance is pretty much public property since until recently a picture of me was viewed around a million times a month on the commercial site I used to write for.

I stayed until the tank had been auctioned, with some interesting bids but then had to leave to attend a meeting where my presence was vital. I was rather annoyed at having to walk an extra half mile or so to the station when police refused to let anyone use the direct route. There was really no reason or logic for this kind of minor harassment.

You can see much more about the event and also read more comments on the police harassment of journalists on My London Diary at space hijackers auction tank at dsei.

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Isle of Dogs and Poor Doors – 2014

Isle of Dogs and Poor Doors: On Wednesday 3rd September 2014 the weather was fine with blue skies and clouds and I decided to spend the afternoon photographing in the Isle of Dogs before meeting with Class War for one of their ongoing series of protests against separate entrances for the wealthy and social housing residents of a tower block in Aldgate.

Isle of Dogs Panoramas – Island Gardens to South Quay

The main purpose of my visit to the Isle of Dogs was to make panoramas of scenes which I had photographed more conventionally over the years, including the black and white images that I included in my book ‘City to Blackwall‘ and more of them are now in my albums on Flickr.

I had gone back so make some panoramas in the area in the 1990s and early 2000s, using various panoramic film cameras, but the switch to digital had made creating panoramic images much simpler for me.

Perhaps the most important change was in accurate viewfinding – with my first panoramic film camera the most accurate way to see the extent of my pictures was by viewing along two arrows on the top of the body – much more reliable than its viewfinder. But of course digital also gave a wider range of shutter speeds and ISO.

And to do this, the camera needed to be firmly mounted on a tripod – and I carried a rather heavy Manfrotto around with me. This also enabled me – with the aid of a spirit level – to ensure that the camera was level. The Nikon I used for these panoramas had level indicators in the viewfinder and was easy to use handheld.

However to make these on digital I needed to use a fisheye lens – the 16mm Nikon fisheye. Not the kind that gives a circular image, but a full-frame fisheye where the image circle goes through the corners of the frame. This gives a 180 degree image across the frame diagonal, but rather less horizontally and vertical, with considerable curvature of straight lines.

Software – I then used PTGUi for these – than comes to the rescue, converting the spherical perspective into a cylindrical one which rendered verticals upright (there are several ways this can be done with slightly different results.) Later I moved to simpler software.

With the 36Mp Nikon D800E there were far more pixels than necessary even after this stretching and this was no longer a problem. I could work with single exposures rather than stitching together several images as I had done earlier with digital cameras.

Many more pictures at Isle of Dogs Panoramas.

Isle of Dogs – Wideangle Images

Although I had mainly gone to make panoramas I also took a Nikon D700 body and made pictures with a 16-35mm Nikon zoom. Not everything is best suited by the panoramic treatment.

Again there are many more pictures at Isle of Dogs.

Class War ‘Poor Doors’ picket Week 6 – Aldgate

*A police officer watches as people walk down the alley leading to the ‘poor door’ of the luxury development*

Class War and friends held their sixth weekly protest outside 1 Commercial St in Aldgate and it was a relatively uneventful one.

As the protesters arrived, two police officers came out from the building and talked with the protesters making clear that they expected the protesters not to block the doorway for people entering or leaving the building. More officers soon arrived to police the event.

There were a few heated arguments between protesters and police but nothing of any consequence. The protesters held their banner well in front of the door.

They talked and handed out leaflets to people leaving and entering the ‘rich door’ as well as to people walking past – and to at least one cyclist stopped at the traffic lights.

After keeping up the picket for an hour as intended, Class War packed up and left – until the next week.

More pictures – Class War ‘Poor Doors’ picket Week 6.

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The Battle of Walthamstow – 2012

The Battle of Walthamstow: On Saturday 1st of September the extreme right English Defence League attempted to march into Walthamstow and hold a rally outside the Waltham Forest Civic Centre on Forest Road. Several thousand people from all of Walthamstow’s communities came together as ‘We are Waltham Forest’ determined to oppose them.

From a long rally in Walthamstow’s main square with speeches by many community leaders and performances by local drummers and singers, the people of Walthamstow marched to Forest Road, arriving an hour or so before the EDL march was due.

As they made their way along Hoe Street there was no doubt of their wide support from the community, with people coming out from virtually every shop and building, many waving and cheering in support.

When the march reached Forest Road many of the marchers sat down on the road at the key junction on the EDL march route. I left them there and walked back towards where the EDL march was to start.

When I saw the EDL march coming towards me, it looked more like a police march as the EDL were probably surrounded by more officers than there were supporters on the march. None of the main EDL leaders was on the march as they had gone separately to where they intended to hold a rally and were setting up the PA system.

It was hard to get a clear view of the marchers through the lines of police around them, and I only had a short telephoto when a much longer lens would have been useful.

But I managed to take some pictures of the marchers and many of them saw me and shouted abuse or made offensive gestures. Others tried to hold up hands in front of their faces – in one case making a woman look as if she was giving a Nazi salute. One man even rushed through a gap between police officers and put his hand over my lens before police dragged him back into the march. Although they got in my way I was rather glad the police were there.

A few people had come out onto the side of the streets to watch the marchers. Most did so in silence, but some held posters against the marchers or shouted at them. I saw only one supporter, an elderly man who came out of his house to greet them and was greeted with cheers from the marchers. As I commented, “Clearly here the silent majority they claim to represent was overwhelmingly against them.”

As the crucial road junction was blocked, police diverted the march down a side road shortly before it. Some of the EDL were angry at leaving the route and wanted to get at those blocking the road and there were some minor scuffles between the EDL stewards and police.

I went to the junction where the EDL march was led across the Chingford Rd and joined other photographers who were photographing the march and residents who had come to oppose them. Here EDL stewards dragged back marchers who tried to attack us and police and managed to keep their march more or less in order.

Police halted the march in Farnan Avenue at the side of the Civic Centre, but it was now clearly impossible for them to continue to the planned rally location because of the mass of protesters opposed to the EDL who were mainly held by police behind barriers on the opposite side of the road.

I went to where Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll had come with a few others to set up for the rally and took a few pictures before I was stopped by an EDL steward who insisted I was a Unite Against Fascism photographer and called over a police officer. I showed the officer my press card, but he still insisted I leave the area. I unhitched a barrier and went across to the other side of the road.

*Facing them were hundreds of people from Waltham Forest with the message ‘EDL not welcome’*

‘We Are Waltham Forest’ organisers had asked that the protest remain a peaceful one, but some had other ideas and a few sticks and other objects were begining to be thrown towards the EDL. A small brick landed a few yards from Robinson, and was picked up by him and handed to a police officer as evidence.

I moved to one side to avoid being hit as more objects began to be thrown – unlike many other photographers I wear no protective headgear. The situation appeared to be a stalemate, and although many of the counter-protesters had left it seemed unlikely that the EDL rally would be possible. When I left the EDL marchers were still surrounded by police in the side road.

Police later told the EDL that the rally could not go ahead, and the EDL leaders left. Police then kept the marchers surrounded for several hours for their own protection and after RMT members told police they would not allow hooligans to endanger the public by boarding trains, police decide to arrest them all and take them in vans to various police stations. They were apparently de-arrested and released in the early hours of Sunday morning.

This defeat was important in the demise of the EDL and you can see many more pictures at Waltham Forest Defeats the EDL.

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Notting Hill Carnival – Children’s Day – 2012

Notting Hill Carnival – Children’s Day: Lurid and largely untrue media reports had put me off from attending carnival until 1990, but after I had gone and seen for myself the two days at August Bank Holiday each year became one of my unmissable events of the year.

Each year from then on I went to photograph the revels, trying to capture the spirit of the event in my pictures, and I had some success, with publications and some small exhibitions of the work.

I saw and experience little of the criminality reports of which still often dominate press coverage, with many still trying to get carnival banned or to emasculate it as a static event in Hyde Park or something similar. Opposition to carnival, a great community event, seems at least in part driven by the same kind of racist and classist attitudes that led to Grenfell. I only once in over 20 years came close to it when I caught a pickpocket with his hand in one of my trouser pockets in a densely packed crowd. I grabbed it and pulled it out, to find it clutching an empty wallet – not mine.

Of course I took some sensible precautions, taking only the equipment I needed and keeping a close eye and hold on it. I used a small bag which in crowded areas at least was always around my neck and in front of me rather than on my shoulder, and left my wallet and credit cards at home, carrying enough cash for travel, food and drink in a zipped pocket.

Most of what mayhem there was – and given the huge number of people in the area there was relatively little of it – took place later in the day, after a day of dancing and drinking and after I had gone home, always before the light began to fade.

While I was there the streets were full of people having a good time and happy to be photographed while they were doing so. Mostly they were Londoners, and particularly black Londoners, though some people came from far away for the event. When we were in St Denis at the north of Paris one year I photographed posters advertising trips for the event.

The only real problem I had over the years was with my ears. At carnival you don’t just hear the music, you feel it as the tarmac on the streets vibrates and your internal organs jump around to the beat. For several days afterwards my ears would hurt , my hearing would be dull and my head would still be ringing. Some years when carnival came late in the month I was back teaching within a couple of days and it was hard.

Professional media crews covering the event mainly wear ear protectors, and I did try using earplugs, but found it unsatisfactory. They stopped me experiencing carnival fully and made communication with those I was photographing difficult. It was like eating wearing boxing gloves. So I just put up with being deafened and taking a day or to for recovery.

But by 2012 things were different for me. As I wrote then: “But either I’m getting too old for it, or perhaps carnival is changing, and this year I found it a little difficult. So I went on the Sunday, stayed around three hours and didn’t really want to return for the big day. So I didn’t.“

And this was the last time I went to Carnival. The next year I was away from London and in years since then I’ve thought about it, but not gone. I feel I’ve taken enough pictures of it.

You can see more of the pictures from the 1990s in two albums – Notting Hill Carnivals and Panoramas on Flickr though I’ve still to add some from later years. Many of those from this century are on My London Diary, including many more from 2012 at Notting Hill – Children’s Day.

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Divided Families, Gaza, Ghouta & Sri Lanka – 2014

Divided Families, Gaza, Ghouta & Sri Lanka: Saturday 23rd August 2014 was a busy day for protests around Whitehall. I began at Downing Street with a protest by family members kept apart from their loved ones by Teresa May’s cruel and unfair immigration rules in a deliberate breach of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, then photographed a protest against arms sales to Israel and an end to Israeli war crimes. Then in Trafalgar Square Syrians marked the first anniversary of The chemical massacre at Ghouta before marching to Downing Street, where Tamils were protesting the rapes and killing in Sri Lanka.

Divided Families protest over cruelty – Downing St

Divided Families, Gaza, Ghouta & Sri Lanka - 2014

The Universal Declaration on Human Rights states:

'No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.'

But British citizens who are married to foreign nationals from outside the EU and may have children with them can only bring their partners to the UK if they are in well-paid jobs. And even then the visas needed are expensive and there are tough English Language tests, a need to prove greater attachment to the UK than of any other country and a five year probationary period.

The rules are complex and hard to understand and have changed since 2014, particularly by Brexit. Then those earning less than £18,600 a year were unable to bring on-EU spouses to join them – and couples with two children needed an annual income of £24,800. Visa application was also (and still is) very expensive.

More at Divided Families protest over cruelty

Gaza Protest – Stop Arming Israel – Downing St

Back in 2014 as now people were calling for an end to UK arms sales to Israel and for an end to Israeli war crimes.

The 2014 conflict in Gaza resulted in over 2000 Palestinians being killed including almost 1500 civilians and many more injured, leaving around a thousand children with life-changing disabilities.

Fighting lasted 50 days with many schools and health centres being damaged and over 12,600 homes being destroyed and around a further 6,500 seriously damaged. At the time of this protest UNRWA was housing around 300,000 internally displaced people in the roughly half of its school buildings which had not been destroyed or seriously damaged.

Among the protesters were several groups of Jews, including ‘Jews for Justice for Palestinians’. Also there were Neturei Karta Orthodox Jews with banners opposing Zionism and the idea of a Jewish political state; they call for all to live peacefully together in Palestine – as Jews and Arabs did before the partition and formation of Israel.

A small group of pro-Israel protesters, one dressed as Superman, tried to disrupt the protest but after a short while were led away by police.

More pictures at Gaza Protest – Stop Arming Israel.

Syria Chemical Massacre Anniversary – Trafalgar Square

The chemical attack using the nerve gas Sarin by the Assad regime on Ghouta on 21st August killed 1,477 residents including over 400 children in this Damascus suburb.

Leaders in countries around the world expressed outrage at the attack, called for action to be taken. Pressure did lead to Syria agreeing to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention and the US and Russia agreed on a framework to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons, and much of Syria’s stock was destroyed in the year following the massacre.

‘I am Chemical Bashar Al Assad and one year on I am still gassing Syrian children.
Thank you for UN veto’

But Assad continued to use chemical weapons, including many attacks with chlorine gas which was not covered by the framework because of its widespread chemical uses, as well as some attacks involving Sarin or a similar nerve gas. In 2023 the UN Security council declared that Syria’s chemical weapons declaration was incomplete and demanded full disclosure and cooperation with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Syria Chemical Massacre Anniversary

Tamils protest Sri Lankan rapes & killing – Downing St

Following the Sri Lankan military defeat of the Tamil Tigers in 2009, Tamils allege that the Tamils who make up around 11% of the population of Sri Lankan have been the subject of a continuing genocide by the government and the Sinhalese majority.

The protest called for the UN to conduct a referendum over setting up a Tamil state and investigate Sri Lankan genocide of Tamils. The Sri Lankan government had not kept the promises it made to the international community at the time of the Tamil defeat and has subjected the Tamil region to military occupation, rapes and killing.

Tamils protest Sri Lankan rapes & killing

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