Tibet, Syria, Fukushima, EVF & Lions – Protests in London on Saturday 15th March covered a wide range of issues across the world. Another varied day for me in town.
London March for Freedom for Tibet – Downing St
Around a thousand Tibetans and supporters of the Free Tibet campaign met at Downing Street to march to a rally at the Chinese Embassy on the 55th anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising against oppressive Chinese rule.
Before the start of the march they sang the Tibetan national anthem then marched up Whitehall. I left the marchers at Trafalgar Square to cover another event.
It was a colourful march, with many carrying the Tibetan National Flag or wearing items in its colours. In my post on My London Diary I wrote more about Tibet and the brutal Chinese regime there along with many more pictures. London March for Freedom for Tibet
Syrians March for International Action
Before going to Downing Street I had gone to Hyde Park Corner where Syrians were gathering at the start of their march to Downing St on the third anniversary of the start of their fight for freedom to show their commitment to the cause and their solidarity with fellow Syrians inside and outside Syria.
They were calling for the international community to help them get rid of the Assad regime which had murdered over 150,000, seriously injured 500,000 and imprisoned 250,000 people in Syria. 1.5 million refugees had fled Syria and over 4.5 million were internally displaced and recently Assads forces had started using chemical weapons.
I left Piccadilly as the march was about to leave and met them again as they turned into Whitehall and began their protest opposite Downing Street. Unfortunately the west was not prepared to stand fully behind the Syrian revolution, with Turkey very much opposed to the autonomy it was providing for the Kurds and supporting ISIS and Russia stepping in to support Assad.
Also at Hyde Park Corner were protesters on the third anniversary of the nuclear melt-down at Fukushima, including many Japanese, marching to remind the world of the dangers of nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
They were led by a group dress as flurescent barrels of roadioactive waste, while others were dressed up in various ways and some carried giant sunflowers. It was a fairly small group but made a colourful impression as it made its way first to the Japanese Embassy.I left them as they arrived there.
I met the group again as it arrived at Downing Street where they stopped for a short protest and photographs in front of the gates before moving on to a rally in Parliament Square. But I had other things to do.
I met the English Volunteer Force, combining a number of right wing ‘patriotic’ groups outside the Lord Moon of the Mall at the top of Whitehall just a minute or two before their march to Parliament Square began from there.
I had a little trouble getting there through a loose line of police who were there to ensure that the anti-fascist opposition to the march were kept well away. The around a hundred EVF supporters were accompanied by rather more police as they marched down Whitehall, but I was able to walk with the and to talk to a few of the protesters who knew me from earlier right-wing events.
They seemed pleased that I was covering the event, but as I reported in 2014, “one man came over and shouted at me, pushing my camera into my face. I complained to police at this assault but they simply pushed me away. Later the same individual came and threatened me, and a police officer did ask him to stop, though it seemed rather half-hearted given that he was clearly breaking the law.“
The major police effort was directed against the larger number of anti-facists and was largely successful in keeping the two groups apart and enabling the EVF to hold their rally as planned in Old Palace Yard. I saw several arrests of EVF supporters who tried to attack the anti-fascists. Police had kettled some of these briefly but they were soon allowed to leave so long as they went away from Parliament.
Save Our Lions – Ban Canned Hunting – Trafalgar Square
I walked up to Trafalgar Square where several marches from different starting points in London were combining for a protest calling for a ban on the ‘canned’ hunting of captive lions by wealthy trophy tourists.
‘Canned hunting’ is big business in South Africa, with more than 8,000 lions in captivity, bred on lion farms and over 160 lion killing camps. These lions are raised without fear of humans and are often drugged to make them easy kills.
The tourists kill male lions and buy the lions heads stuffed and mounted as trophies. The bones fetch high prices in the Far East for use in ‘medicines’ or ‘aphrodisiacs’ though they have no testable beneficial effects.
Most female cubs are killed at birth with just a few being kept for breeding. The cubs are kept and tourists pay to ‘pet’ and play with them and when they are a little larger pay for the experience of ‘walking with lions’. Once they outgrow this, they are crammed into overcrowded cages in poor conditions until they are mature and can be shot.
Canned hunting also threatens the wild lion population as some are captured to combat the inbreeding in captive lion populations.
Extremists and Mob Rule: Last Saturday I walked along with around 450,000 others from Hyde Park to the US Embassy in Nine Elms calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an end to Israeli genocide. The IDF has now killed over 30,000 people, mainly women and children and many more are threatened with starvation and disease as Israel continues only allow a trickle of the food and medicines needed into Gaza.
Humanitarian agencies including UNRWA are ready to distribute aid, but far too little is coming across the borders and the Israeli army are disrupting their activities, while Israeli spokesmen continue to produce lies which even the BBC now feels it has to challenge. The pictures here all come from this march.
Of course it wasn’t a mob, but a peaceful protest. It wasn’t Islamists taking over the streets of London, though there may well have been a few taking part among the more than 99% of us who were protesting because of the terrible scenes we have seen on even the limited reporting which has been allowed to come from Gaza – where Israel still prevents the international press from reporting. And because many of us believe that we should have a peaceful solution which gives freedom to both Palestine and Israel.
It wasn’t one of of my better days. I was feeling a little weak and walked twice as far as I should have done. The march may only have been around two and a half miles, but photographing it I walked at least twice that, going back and forth. And after collapsing for a short rest beside the Thames opposite the US Embassy I walked back to the middle of Vauxhall Bridge. From there I could see almost the length of Vauxhall Bridge Road, around three quarters of a mile still packed with marchers and no end in sight. But I was tired and turned back and took the train home from Vauxhall station.
Later today the UK Government is expected to announce its new definition of extremism, which is expected to be something along the lines of:
“promotion or advancement of ideology based on hatred, intolerance or violence or undermining or overturning the rights or freedoms of others, or of undermining democracy itself“
The point behind this re-definition is to enable the government to list organisations which it considers extremist and to ban these from meetings with ministers and elected officials or receiving public money and ban individuals who belong to them from serving on government boards.
It is clear that it will be used by the current government to list a wide range of organisations that are seen as left-wing in an attempt to embarrass the Labour Party, including those that support the Palestinian opposition to Israeli occupation, and with Sunak’s crazed accusations of “mob rule” could be applied to any organisation that supports large protests on any issue, but particularly calling for freedom for Palestine. And I expect to see Stop The War and CND on that list along with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Muslim Association of Britain and the Palestinian Forum in Britain.
Reports suggest that the largest Muslim group in the UK, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), as well as Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND) and Palestine Action will be on the list and any other groups opposed to the UK’s Prevent programme. Government departments have boycotted the MCB since 2009.
Listing will not ban these groups, though it might deny funding to some organisations which many might feel important in maintaining effective democracy. And if this wretched government remains in power much longer we will certainly see further powers given to the police particularly over the policing of protests, probably giving them much greater control over the activities of listed groups.
It will almost certainly be used to stigmatise groups which campaign against the monarchy, and perhaps also those calling for changes to our parliamentary system such as the abolition or reform of the House of Lords or proportional voting systems. And groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil will surely be there.
Michael Gove has apparently rejected suggestions that trans rights activists will be among those listed, but suspicions remain that these and some gay rights groups might also be targeted.
Perhaps too, human rights organisations that launch legal cases against government legislation might feature, and when we have had government ministers in recent years labelling the Supreme Court as anti-democratic it is hard to see where this definition might end.
Like many recent statements from the government, this one from Gove seems dangerous and divisive. It might even itself be seen as “undermining democracy itself.“
March 8th – Women Strike And Protest. In 2021 on International Women’s Day I published a long post, 8 March: International Women’s Day with some images from my coverage of the day from 2002 until 2020, and in 2022 I posted International Women’s Day Marches with a little history and more of my pictures from previous years.
This year I look back seven years to Thursday 8th March 2017 when I covered a number of events on International Women’s Day.
From Russia With Love – Parliament Square
When I arrived to photograph a couple of protests about to take place in Parliament Square I found around a dozen young Russian men in white caps andjackers with a strange heart-based logo clutching large bunches of red roses being briefed before they went around the square stopping women an handing them roses.
Apparently this was a stunt for Rusian TV by the ‘Make Her Smile Movement’ and was taking place in various capitals around the world. Some women refused the flowers, but most took them and seemed pleased if rather confused by the gesture.
Global Women’s Strike had come to the square to celebrate the resistance of women worldwide and hold a protest in solidarity with the International Women’s Strike taking place in 46 countries.
They held a rally opposite Parliament as the Budget was being delivered inside, with speakers from a number of groups supporting women including the victims of domestic violence, the disabled and the victims of family courts.
Among the speakers were women from the Scottish Kinship Care Project, Dr Philippa Whitford SNP MP for Central Ayrshire, Denise McKenna, co-founder of Mental Health Resistance Network and Paula Peters of DPAC. Police initially tried to prevent the speakers using a microphone but were persuaded to let them go ahead.
The event ended with a short play by the All African Women’s Group about sexism and racism of the immigration system by the Borders Agency courts and in immigrations detention centres such as Yarl’s Wood Detention Centre.
A few yards away in Old Palace Yard Women Against State Pension Inequality – WASPI – were holding a rally against the changes in the state pension scheme which are unfair to women born in the 1950s.
The 1995 Pensions Act included plans to increase the pension age for women to 65 but it was only 14 years later that letters were sent to many women born in 1951-3 Their situation was worsened by the accelerated raising of women’s pension age under the 2011 Pension Act, also made without properly informing those affected, with the age for both men and women increasing to 66 by 2020. Many got as little as one year’s warning of the up to a six-year increase to their State Pension age and it was not possible for them to make alternative plans. For men and women born in 1959 the state pension age is now 66 years.
The women affected are still awaiting the result of an independent investigation by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman which was started in 2019.
Global Women’s Strike went on to hold a silent vigil on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields in solidarity with the farmers of Thailand. Many of them are women in the Southern Peasant Federation of Thailand and the vigil was also in support of others all around the world risking their lives to defend land and water from corporate land grabs.
Fourth Wave London Feminist Activists held a protest at Downing St on International Women’s Day, drawing attention to the impact that cuts have had on women.
The unjust, ideologically-driven cuts to public services are disproportionately felt by women. Their protest contrasted to the more highly publicised corporate events on the day which are given a high degree of coverage in the media and concentrate on getting more women in boardrooms and other highly paid jobs. Though important issues, these are clearly irrelevant to the huge majority of women who have to deal with the realities of low pay, expensive housing, and caring for children and other family members.
International Women’s Strike Flash Mob – St Pancras International
Finally I went to St Pancras International station where London Polish Feminists were joined by Global Women’s Strike in a flash mob celebrating the struggles of women around the world .
Wearing black and red clothing, after practising their routine with umbrellas with messages on them and a large banner at the entrance to St Pancras International they went down to the main concourse to perform it there.
Police came to see what was happening and made sure they did not block the concourse but remained friendly, and the waiting passengers applauded and took photographs.
Extinction Rebellion Tries to Persuade Insurers – From 26th February to 3rd March 2024, Extinction Rebellion have been holding an ‘Insurance Week of Action’ with large peaceful protests and some non-violent direct actions directed at the insurance industry, particularly in the City of London,
“At the same time as Coal Action Network, Mothers Rise Up, Quakers UK, StopEACOP and Tipping Point, we will be targeting the global insurance industry – the people who could stop the fossil fuel crooks in their tracks overnight if they wanted to.
Because no insurance = no more drilling for oil and gas.”
The City of London is still the world capital for the global insurance industry, with one company, Lloyds of London insuring 40% of the world’s fossil fuel production and it is also home to many other major global insurers.
Monday was a training day for XR, with lectures about the lessons which could be learnt from the West Cumbria coal mine campaign and the importance of the insurance industry in maintaining the fossil fuel industry and why it was important to try to convert them away from this and towards supporting a future for human life on our planet. There were also a workshop on non-violent direct action, examining the theories behind it and how to create support systems and keep safe.
Nothing could be further from the comments made by the Prime Minister and other cabinet members about ‘mobs’. The protests are well organised and take considerable trouble to remain within the increasinly restrictive laws on freedom to protest. In contrast they make our government speakers seem a rabid mob, making hate speeches about hate protests and disruption. XR are trying to save our planet for future human life.
I was unable to go to the events on Monday or Tuesday when as well as some highly targeted actions including small groups of protesters protesting peacfully inside the foyers of some city offices there was a large rally on Tuesday followed by a Community Assembly on the subject “How do we Insure our Future?
But last Wednesday I joined the XR supporters in Trinity Square Gardens at 10.30 for the start of the advertised “Insurance Mayhem – Wednesday Showstopper“. Some of them had followed the suggested dress code for the event, “business attire. Black suits with white shirts, preferably!” A group carried special and rather glossy small briefcases and there were banners and a few placards. Some in city dress had come with grey masks and labels as ‘Faceless Financiers’
Little happened for the first hour or so, though there was a strong police presence in the area, and some officers came to talk with and warn protesters who told them they were not intending to break any laws.Finally at 12.15 the march moved off for a short march through city streets to the streets around the main Lloyds Building on Leadenhall Street and Lime Street. One man was arrested on the march, I think for setting off a smoke flare, which police left smoking on the ground.
Protesters joined hands to surround the Lloyds Building on three sides, some holding banners and flags. They let people in and out of the building and tried to engage them in conversation about the urgent need to end fossil fuels. A few stopped to say they agreed but most simply walked past and there were a few angry remarks. It was lunchtime and quite a few city workers were out on the streets and stopped to watch what was happening and were clearly entertained, taking pictures on their phones of the speakers and the various events.
These included protests by ‘workers’ in red boiler suits against the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, a 900 mile long heated pipeline from Ugandan oil fields to the Indian Ocean in Tanzania which would cause “large scale displacement of communities and wildlife“, threaten water resources and contribution massively to global warming. 24 banks have already distanced themselves from financing the project, with only two remaining involved, and it will certainly not go ahead if insurers can be persuaded not to insure it.
The ‘Faceless Financiers’ now all had their dull grey masks on and were standing together in a row in front of the building on Lime Street where most of the event was taking place, its closure causing little or no disruption to traffic. In front of them came a large troupe of dancers for their spirited performance and on the other side of the road was a washing line hung with items of children’s clothing letters on the garments spelling out the message ‘THEIR FUTURE’.
The “Insurance Mayhem – Wednesday Showstopper” was still continuing as I left for home. I was back for the next day’s very wet protest which I’ll perhaps write about in a later post.
Hands Off Iraq, George Galloway & Tony Benn – Saturday 2nd March 2002 saw a huge protest against Britain becoming involved in the US plans to invade Iraq and depose Sadam Hussein.
It’s hard to know how many marched that day, though I think there may have been around half a million of us on the streets of London,but it was certainly a very large march though not quite on the scale of that on 16th February 2003. Unfortunately I had to miss that one as I had only come out of hospital the previous day and could only walk a few yards.
George Galloway, then Labour MP for Glasgow Kelvin, has come back into the news recently by winning the Rochdale by-election. He along with Tony Benn and others was one of the founders of Stop The War following the US invasion of Afghanisatan and the coalition organised this and other protests against the invasions of Iraq then being prepared by the US Miitary. Galloway was and still is a flamboyant figure and a powerful speaker, though I was rather more attracted to others in the movement such as Tony Benn, who appears in more of my pictures.
But then as now, I wasn’t at the protest to photograph celebrities, but to tell the story of the event, mainly through photographs of the ordinary people taking part. Of course my pictures concentrate on those who caught my attention, sometimes by their expressions and actions, but more often through their banners and placards which link them to the cause they were marching for.
Although I’d been photographing protests for some years – occasionally since the 1970s and more intensively since the 1990s, my pictures had simply gone into picture libraries and a few exhibitions and few had been used in the mass media.
Shortly after Indymedia, a global network of independent news media was set up in 1999 I began publishing work on the UK site – and some of it may be still be available on the now archived site. This was of course entirely non-commercial, and had a very limited readership on the left, among anarchists and the security services.
But I also set up a new web site of my own, My London Diary, which is still available online, though its now several years since I have added new work. Although I have unlimited web space there is a limit to the number of files my web server can handle, and I was very close to this. Covid also played its part in various ways.
In the early years of My London Diary I was still working with film and only had a black and white flatbed scanner. So the pictures for Hands Off Iraq online were all in black and white, though I will also have taken some in colour, but so far I’ve digitised few colour images from these years. The 24 black and white images on My London Diary will have been made from 8×10″ black and white press prints submitted to a picture library and scanned on a flatbed scanner. In 2002 although many magazines were printed in colour the main sales for news images were still black and white, though things were rapidly changing, and I was soon to begin moving to working mainly in digital colour.
Here, with a few corrections is the text I put on line back in 2022 with these pictures:
The Stop the War, Hands off Iraq demonstration on 2 march was a large sign of public opinion. people were still leaving Hyde Park at the start of the march when Trafalgar Square was full to overflowing two and a half hours later.
Police estimates of the number were risible as usual – and can only reflect an attempt to marginalise the significant body of opinion opposed to the war or a complete mathematical inability on behalf of the police.
Tony Benn told me and other photographers it wasn’t worth taking his picture – “it won’t get in the papers unless I go and kick a policeman” but he didn’t and he was quite right.
Against Worldwide Government Corruption – Saturday 1st March 2014, ten years ago, saw a small but lively protest “organised, attended and led by people who are appalled at the present state of the UK and the world, and who are convinced that a better world is possible if we got rid of the greedy and corrupt who currently are in change – the party politicians and their governments, the bankers and the corporations, the warmongers and the spies.“
Of course the world is dominated by the rich and powerful and the organisations they have set up and the laws they have established to maintain there domination, though these at least in some places also offer some protection for the poor and powerless. But I don’t really believe that protests like this offer any real hope of changing the situation.
But they perhaps do show us that another world is possible one with “justice and a fairer society, one that doesn’t oppress the poor and disabled, that doesn’t spy on everyone and doesn’t use the media and the whole cultural apparatus as a way of keeping blind to what is really happening.“
It’s the kind of spirit that led to the emergence of the Labour Party and inspired many of its leaders even into my youth – and was in part rekindled by the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, propelled into the leadership of the Labour Party in 2015 by huge support from the ordinary membership. But Labour had long lost its way, its organisation and many MPs sponsored and supported by companies and wealthy individuals inherently opposed to its ideals and dedicated to the maintenance of the status quo.
The protest was a wide-ranging one, and on My London Diary I quoted at some length from the speech before the march by one of the organisers, Mitch Antony of Aspire Worldwide (Accountable System Project for International Redevelopment and Evolution.) At the end of it he gave a long list of things the march was against:
We march against Global Government Corruption We march against ideological austerity We march against privatisation for profit We march against the bedroom tax We march against bankers bonuses We march against the corrupt MPs We march against state spying on the people We march against state controlled media We march against government misrepresentation We march against warmongering We march against global tyranny We march against state sponsored terrorism We march against the military industrial complex We march against the militarisation of the police We march against the suppression of alternative energies
The march got off to a poor start, as the advertised meeting point in Trafalgar Square was closed to the public that day, being got ready for a commercial event the following day. Not everybody who came found the new location – and there were aggrieved posts on Facebook from some who failed, though I think they cannot have tried very hard.
Police often find reasons to delay the start of marches, but these protesters were definitely not taking advice from them and set off on the dot at 2pm to march west to the Ecuadorian Embassy where Julian Assange was still confined despite being given political asylum.
On the way the several hundred marchers caused no problems and aroused some interest among those on the streets, mainly tourists. A misguided attempt by officers to stop the march on Piccadilly led to a sit down and was soon abandoned.
When they came to Harvey Nicholls in Knightsbridge some joined in the protest against the store by the Campaign Against the Fur Trade for a few minutes, and a crowd gathered around the main door shouting at this company that still deals in fur and fur-trimmed garments.
But soon people moved on to the Ecuadorian Embassy where Assange was still trapped. Police filled the steps to the building, guarding the door and stopping anyone from entering.
There were far too many people to fit inside the small penned area for protesters on the pavement opposite the Embassy. The protest here in support of of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden and other whistle blowers and over the continued refusal to grant Assange safe passage to Ecuador, continued for around an hour. Many of the protesters then saw the refusal as a personal vendetta against him by then home secretary Theresa May, but it is driven by a continual British failure to stand up to the USA.
Since then we have seen the continued persecution of Assange by successive Tory governments and his arrest and incarceration in the maximum security Belmarsh prison after a changed Ecuadorian government withdrew its protection. Attempts to extradite him to the US where he could be executed or given a 170 year prison sentence are continuing, and it seems likely he will die in prison either here or in the US for publishing material that made clear to the world the war crimes being committed by the US.
At the end of their protest in front of the Ecuadorian Embassy (it occupies only a few rooms on an upper floor of the building) marchers were leaving to go back to Westminster for another rally in Parliament Square, but I’d had enough and took the tube to make my way home.
Shaker, Job Centres, Firefighters, Tube, Lambeth – On Wednesday 25th February I photographed a number of protests in London, starting in Westminster with the Free Shaker Aamer campaign, striking firefighters and welfare rights activists, then with tube workers at Edgware Road and finally outside Lambeth Town Hall in Brixton.
Free Shaker Aamer – Parliament Square
A protest opposite Parliament called for the urgent release of London resident Shaker Aamer from Guantanamo, where he has been held and regularly abused for 13 years without charge or trial.
The Free Shaker Aamer Campaign had been holding weekly protests opposite Parliament whenever it was in session to remind government of the need for act over his release. He had long been cleared for release but was still held in the illegal prison camp with both US and UK governments dragging their feet as his testimony would be embarrassing to their security agencies, making clear their involvement in torture.
The protest was longer than usual as an international event was taking place at the nearby QEII centre and they wanted to remind delegates there of Shaker’s torture and imprisonment. Eventually the long campaign of protests by this and other groups led the UK government they needed to back his release in practice and he was finally released on 30th October 2015.
Firefighters in England held a 24 hour strike on 25th Feb 2015 against the unworkable pension scheme the government intended to implement. They say that the devolved governments had recognised the problems in the scheme and made improvements but in England government ministers were refusing to talk with the union, simply ignoring requests for meetings. They accused the government of lies about the union, saying they were being labelled as militants despite them being ready and willing to enter into negotiations at any time.
After a rally in Westminster Central Hall, several thousand striking firefighters protested on the street outside Parliament before marching to Downing St. Their protest brought all traffic in the area to a standstill until they marched away.
They stopped outside Downing Street and refused to move, saying they would wait there until someone came out to talk to them. A senior police officer come to talk with Matt Wrack and the other FBU leaders there and was extrememly politie, taking Wrack’s mobile number before going away to see if anyone could be persuaded to come out from Downing St to meet the protesters.
I left them leaning on the barriers and looking into Downing Street waiting for someone to come and see them, though I doubted if anyone would ever emerge.
The Fire Service has also suffered like other public services from government cuts; in London these led to Mayor Boris Johnson making dangerous reductions, closing some fire stations and reducing equipment and staffing, which left the London Fire Brigade ill-equipped to deal with major disasters such as the Grenfell fire.
The FBU union later won a number of legal cases against the government over the changes that were made to the pensions scheme, leading to significant compensation for some members.
Welfare activists protested outside the Dept of Work & Pensions in Caxton Street as a part of the national day of action over the arrest of welfare rights activist Tony Cox. He had been arrested when he tried to accompany a vulnerable claimant to her job centre interview to argue for a fairer claimant agreement.
As well as several banners, one man was gagged in protest. By law claimants are allowed to have and adviser present with them at the interview, but when a claimant turned up with Cox, his interview was cancelled.
Cox and the claimant then left the job centre, but later in the day police arrived at his him and arrested him, charging him with threatening behaviour.
RMT protest Underground Job Cuts – Edgware Road Station (Bakerloo)
Around 20 RMT members handed out fliers at the busy Edgware Road Bakerloo Line station against the proposed 50% cut in station staffing and the closure of the ticket offices which they say will endanger the safety of both passengers and staff.
They got a very positive reception from many of the public going in and out of the station or walking past, although a PCSO came to harass and try to stop their picketing. Most of the public seemed to realise that staff do far more than sell tickets and offer service and protection to the travelling public.
Many promises were made to Underground staff and the public about how they would be protected when cuts were made, but most were later broken.
Lambeth against £90m cuts – Lambeth Town Hall, Brixton
After taking some photographs of the protesting RMT staff I got on the Underground there, changing at Oxford Circus to take me to the end of the Victoria Line at Brixton.
There I walked down to Lambeth Town Hall on the corner of Acre Land to join around a hundred trade unionists, pensioners, library and other council staff, social housing tenants and other residents who were gathering for a lively rally outside Lambeth Town Hall.
A lively rally took place urging councillors who were arriving for the council meeting to reject library closures and other £90 millon cuts which were being passed there by the large Labour majority on the council. Labour then held 59 of the 63 council seats. Among the speakers at the rally was the only Green Party councillor, Scott Ainslie, who was to vote against the cuts. The Green Party gained four more seats in the 2018 council elections but lost three of these in 2022. Right-wing Labour councillors still have an overwheming majority and the council continues its policies which fail the community.
Lambeth’s finances were stretched by the development of a new Town Hall or Civic Centre the cost of which roughly doubled from the original contract of £55 million ot £104 million. Policies such as the closure of libraries and the demolition and sale of popular and well-built council estates like Cressingham Gardens had already produced a great deal of protest in the borough.
The £90 million cuts passed at the council meeting later that evening have had a disproportionate impact on children, old people and the disabled who always rely on local services more than the average person. Council employees at the rally opposed the cuts not only because they feared for their own jobs, but because they knew those that remain in post will not be able to offer the public the same quality of service that they do at present.
Palestine, Pancakes, Post, Olympics & Zombies – Tuesday 24th February 2009 was a long and varied day for me and included some serious issues that are still at the forefront of current news as well as some lighter moments – and I ended the day enjoying a little unusual corporate hospitality with some free drinks for London bloggers.
Al-Haq Sue UK Government – Royal Courts of Justice
First came Palestine, with Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq filing a claim for judicial review before the High Court of England and Wales challenging the government’s failure to fulfil its obligations with respect to Israel’s illegal activities in Palestine.
They were calling on our government – then New Labour under Gordon Brown – to publicly denounce Israel’s actions in Gaza and the continuing construction of the separation wall, to suspend arms related exports and all government, military, financial and ministerial assistance to Israel and to end UK companies exporting arms and military technology.
They also asked them to insist the EU suspends preferential trading with Israel until that country complies with its human rights obligations, and for the government to give the police any evidence of war crimes committed by any Israelis who intend to come to the UK.
Of course the court refused Al-Haq’s case, declining to deal with the UK government’s compliance with its international legal obligations and stating that their claim would risk the UK’s diplomatic “engagement with peace efforts in the Middle East“, something which seemed at the time to be absolutely zero if not negative. They also refused Al-Haq any right to bring the claim because it was not a UK-based organisation and “no one in the United Kingdom has sought judicial review of United Kingdom foreign policy regarding Israel’s actions in Gaza“.
Worshipful Company of Poulters Pancake Race – Guildhall Yard
It was Shrove Tuesday and I couldn’t resist the Pancake Race organised by the Worshipful Company of Poulters, and held – with the permission of the Chief Commoner, in the Guildhall Yard.
As I said, “It’s a shame that the Pancake Race is unlikely to feature in the London 2012 Olympics, because it’s perhaps the one sport in which Britain still leads the world, and we seem to have plenty of talent in training.“
Postal workers came out from a rally in Methodist Central Hall against government plans to privatise Royal Mail. The government argued they needed to do this to protect pensions and modernise the service.
Postal deliveries had been deliberately made uneconomic by earlier measures which have allowed private companies to cream off the easily delivered profitable parts of the service, while leaving the Royal Mail to continue the expensive universal delivery service – including the delivery of its competitors post at low regulated prices to more difficult destinations.
The government picked up the responsibility for the pensions when the post was privatised and the privatised post office has been allowed to fail on its delivery obligations. We now get deliveries on perhaps 3 or 4 days a week rather than 6, few first class letters arrive on time, and the collection times for most pillar boxes are now much earlier in the day – now 9am rather than 4pm at our local box. While privatisation was supposed to result in more investment it largely seems to have resulted in large dividends and higher pay to managers and the Post Office is in a worse state than ever.
I had time for a brief visit to the publicly accessible areas in and around the Olympic site where a great deal of work was now taking place with the main stadium beginning to emerge.
There were some reports at the time that the landmark building Warton House, once owned by the Yardley company with its lavender mosaic on Stratford High Street was to be demolished, but fortunately these turned out to be exaggerated, with only a small part at the rear of the building being lost. But all the buildings on the main part of the site had gone. Some others south of the mainline railway were also being demolished for Crossrail.
I made my way back to Oxford Circus for the ‘March of the Corporate Undead’, a Zombie Shopping Spree complete with coffins, a dead ‘banker’, posters, various members of the undead and a rather good band.
Police watched in a suitably deadpan manner (I did see one or two occasionally smile) as the group assembled and applied large amounts of white makeup before making its way along the pavement of Oxford Street, to the astonishment (and often delight) of late shoppers and workers rushing home.
We stopped off at Stratford Place, opposite Bond Street Station to toss some fried bankers brains in the frying pans and then there was a pancake race, holding up a Rolls Royce that was prevented by the police from driving through while we were there.
The parade continued, stopping for a minute or two under the bright lights of Selfridges before continuing to Tyburn, or at least Marble Arch, with more zombies joining all the time.
Hanging the already dead banker seemed a great idea, but getting a rope up over the arch was tricky. Eventually a severed hand gave sufficient weight to enable a rope to be thrown over the ornamental iron-work and the banker was soon hoisted up to dangle over the continuing revels below.
This was an anticapitalist event and in particular aimed against bankers and the huge amounts of cash given to them to in the aftermath of the 2007-8 financial crisis which was seen as rewarding the very people who had caused the mess the system was in. The mass of the population was having to suffer cuts in services under a severe austerity programme while bankers were still pigs in clover. The UK has become a very unequal society over the years since 1979 when Thatcher became Prime Minister. The the top 10% got 21% of the UK income, by 2010 it was around 32%.
I left to go to a meeting of London bloggers – and enjoy a few free drinks thanks to Bacardi. The blue and green Breezers seem to me just right for zombies, though I’m afraid after tasting one I went for the beer instead. But I think the zombies on Oxford Street were more alive than those in the corporate world.
Photographing Police & Policing Protest: On Monday 16th February 2009 I photographed two protests, one against a new law on photographing police and the second which made me question how the police were policing protests. Fifteen years later we have seen a number of laws which severely restrict the right to protest and draconian new proposals to outlaw many more of the activities which help bring protests to public attention.
Media Protest at Terror Law – New Scotland Yard
Around 400 people, mainly photographers, had turned up to protest outside New Scotland Yard, then still on Victoria Street, Westminster, on the day that Section 76 of the Counter-Terrorism Act came into force.
This makes it an offence to photograph members of the police, armed forces or security services, or at least to do so if the photographs are “likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism“.
The vagueness of this statement is a a symptom of the failure of our parliament over recent years to properly scrutinise new legislation, and journalists and others have protested that it could seriously inhibit the freedom of the press as well as the normal liberties of all citizens. The Metropolitan Police Federation agreed, believing the law is unworkable and could well inhibit the freedom of the press.
Photographers saw it as yet another law which increases the climate of fear felt by anyone using a camera on the public streets. Many of us have experienced questioning by the police when working; photographers have already been detained and searched under existing anti-terrorist laws and other acts when covering demonstrations, travelling close to airports or even photographing weddings.
Many of London’s leading press photographers turned up to this ‘media event’ organised to highlight the dangers to our freedom of expression and action this new law presents. Most of them wore badges or stickers proclaiming “I’m a photographer… not a terrrorist“, the name of the campaign group set up by photographers.
PHNAT’s founding description was “Photography is under attack. Across the country anyone with a camera is targeted as a potential terrorist. This campaign is for everyone who values visual imagery press freedom.” It was set up by a small group of London-based photographers and videographers who covered political protest including myself and colleagues in the NUJ and grew rapidly.
For once this was a protest which gained wide publicity even on the BBC and newspapers which generally ignore UK protests. It was of course covered in the photographic press too, though at the time I found the quality of the photographs of the event in some of them rather lacking.
Protest at Silence over Congo Genocide – Westminster
Police at the photographers’ protest had been friendly and for once I think they didn’t even bother to photograph us, though doubtless the whole area was covered by a number of CCTV cameras. But there was a very different atmosphere around the policing of this second event I photographed.
It was a fairly small protest, with perhaps 50 people in a march organised by International Congolese Rights against the continuing violence in the DRC, marching slowly down Victoria Street to Parliament Square.
They marched slowly, at a funereal pace in memory of those killed in Congo in the fighting since 1996. The marchers were continually harassed by police to go faster, but refused to do so. There were probably more police than marchers and the march was accompanied by five police vehicles, one in front of the marchers a surveillance vehicle with loudspeakers and continually filming the march.
When the march reached Parliament Square, the marchers were ushered into a pen of barriers on the side of the square facing Westminster Abbey and St Margarets, although clearly they intended to demonstrate to Parliament rather than the Church of England and surely should have been allowed to protest at the front of the square. One of their representatives was still arguing with police about this when I left.
Here is what I wrote in 2009 about the Congo and the reasons behind this protest:
Capitalism at its rawest is fighting for the mineral wealth of the country – particularly coltan, an ore containing niobium and tantalum, essential for mobile phones and other electronic devices, of which the Congo has 80% of known world reserves and cobalt – of which it is the world’s largest producer – but also diamonds, copper, and gold.
Competing interests trying to grab these riches have led to over 6 million people being killed in the Congo, and unimaginable atrocities against the people there – some of which were shown in the pictures that some of the demonstrators carried.
The Congo is a corrupt police state ruled by Laurent Kabila, with large areas occupied by forces backed by neighbouring states and criminal syndicates, including the Rwandan army. Rwanda, under President Paul Kagame has supported the National Council for the Defense of the People loyal to former General Laurent Nkunda. The UK government is accused of supporting Rwanda.
‘Anonymous’ Protest Church of Scientology – This protest on Sunday 10th February 2008 was I am fairly sure the first protest where I had come across people wearing the ‘Anonymous’ Guy Fawkes masks that later became popular and are still seen occasionally at protests. Some wore other masks, perhaps preferring not to contribute royalties to Warner Brothers and these made the protest more interesting visually.
The masks were based on the illustrations by David Lloyd for the 1980s graphic novel ‘V for Vendetta’ written by Alan Moore, but had become well-known in 2006 with the release of the film version where it was worn by the anarchist freedom fighter ‘V’.
The protest was also one of the earliest physical protests in the UK at least to be organised and carried out by an Internet-based organisation, Project Chanology, set up the previous month to oppose attempts by the Church of Scientology to remove one of their videos from the web.
This video, part of the Scientology training material featured leading Hollywood actor Tom Cruise, then alleged to be the second in command of the organisation. Since then Cruise appears to have distanced himself at least to some extent from Scientology, which had been at the root of his two divorces from Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes, and to have concentrated on his movie career.
There have been more and more revelations published about Scientology and allegations of the harm it has caused to those who either leave the organisation or publish material about it, who are regarded as ‘fair game’ for harassment campaigns.
As I wrote in 2008, it was because of this that Project Chanology called “themselves ‘Anonymous’ and the London demonstration was one of over 50 protests in cities around the world in which those taking part hide their identity behind masks.“
Various reports published over the years have comprehensively exposed some of the practices of the Church of Scientology and the number of its adherents is said to have dropped although the organisation has grown richer and acquired more real estate.
The London centre on Queen Victoria St was opened in 2006 and “20 City of London police officers between them accepted more than £11,000 in gifts and entertainment from the Church of Scientology” according to the London Evening Standard, perhaps why they arrested and charged a teenager in May 2008 for holding a placard “Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult.” The case was dropped after advice from the CPS.
So far as I was aware there were no arrests at the protest on 10th February at Queen Victoria Street or later when the protesters moved to the Dianetics & Scientology Life Improvement Centre in Tottenham Court Road.