Jubilee Celebrations and Kurdish Protest: Celebrations were taking place on Sunday 2nd June 2002 for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee (and they continued the following day which was the Golden Jubilee Bank Holiday, with the Tuesday also being the Spring Bank Holiday – moved into Summer for more celebrations.) My main reason for going into London was to photograph a protest by Kurds but I also tried to photograph some of the celebrations. Quotes below are from what I wrote on My London Diary back in 2002 with some of the pictures and I took.
Sloane Square
Chelsea
“As a convinced republican I wasn’t too excited, but thought I’d go along and have a little look at how others were celebrating. Sloane Square seemed a good place to see how Chelsea was taking it as they were having a fair on Sunday 2nd June.”
At least while I was there the celebrations in Sloane Square were an extremely formal event and rather boring.
Kurds Call For Human Rights in Turkey
Westminster
I am the Kadek – Kurds protest
“I was glad to leave and join the Kurds in their demonstration for human rights. Britain has a lot to answer for, having betrayed them at the Lausanne Treaty in 1923 which divided their country, giving most to Turkey which has since behaved with complete disregard for their human rights.”
The Devil TurkeyKurds protest against banning of their organisations Free Ocalan, Free Kurdistan
“More recently – again to keep the Turks onside – the US put the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on their terrorist list, despite it having abandoned terrorism to try and obtain justice. ” KADEK was the name the PKK changed to in 2002 when it said it was committed to non-violent activities and it was added to the PKK proscription in 2006.
“Turkey has continued a policy of brutal repression – as the European Court of Human Rights has confirmed.”
“Cynical support of US policy by Britain and other countries resulted in the PKK also being listed [in the UK] as a banned terrorist organisation last month. It’s the kind of politics that makes me ashamed to be British and loses our Labour government any respect.”
“After the demo I went on to see how Southwark were celebrating. “
“The answer turned out to be very low key, though as usual there were some interesting food and drink stalls at Borough Market, and a steady stream of people walking along by the river.”
The Beer and Wine Trade Society decided in 1851 to provide an asylum for its elderly poor members and purchased land on the north side of Nunhead Green, launching an appeal to its members to build these almshouses. They were built at at a cost of around £3,000 as a terrace of seven dwellings to house 13 people. The Metropolitan Beer and Wine Trade Society almshouses, architect William Webbe, opened in 1853.
The accommodation was on a generous scale, with each having four rooms and a kitchen and a part of the garden behind to grow vegetables. As well as the accommodation the residents also received a weekly allowance.
The almshouses are Grade II listed and are now private homes.
Nunhead Library, Gordon Rd, Nunhead, Southwark, 1990, 90-3e-26
Nunhead Library was designed by Robert Whellock of Camberwell in an Arts and Crafts style and built in 1896. Since 1965 in the London Borough of Southwark where it is one of four libraries which were founded by philanthropist John Passmore Edwards and is still in use as a library. Edwards founded another 11 libraries in London, most no longer in use.
Nunhead had been a part of the ancient parish of Camberwell but became a separate parish in 1878 and became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell in 1900, which became part of the London Borough of Southwark in 1965.
Nunhead Railway station is in Gibbon Road and this Gents Hairdresser at 52 and Launderette at 54 (and the Fish & Chip shop at 50 whose frying times are in the corner of their window) are just past the bridge north of the station entrance. Rather to my surprise there is still Gents Hairdresser and a Fish and Chip shop here, though the Launderette closed around 2010 and is now two homes at 54 and 54a.
The two people sitting reading outside – before the age of mobile phones – are doubtless waiting for their washing to finish inside the launderette.
I went down Gibbon Road and turned left into Hathway Terrace, which turns into Kitto Road and leads on to Drakefell Rd. Somewhere here was this path with a broken-down fence leading to an area of prefabs.
In 201 Elisabeth Blanchet and Jame Hearn from the Prefab Museum photographed the interior of a prefab in Drakefell Road and posted a video of the resident, John De’Ath, who had moved in when these prefabs were new in 1948 and stayed there until his death in 2017, a very satisfied resident. You can read more about London’s prefabs and see a photograph of one of them in a GLIAS Journal, when in 2024 the two last prefabs there were awaiting demolition.
Telegraph Hill Park, Brockley, Lewisham, 1990, 90-3f-55
The 10 acres site the hill top on Kitto Road was created in 1894 thanks to George Livesey, chairman of the South Metropolitan Gas Company and a local philanthropist. It has good views to central London and south and east towards Croydon and Shooters Hill, which made it a great side for a semaphore station which was built around 1795 – as one of a series which formed an optical communication system from London to Dover and Southampton with large arms which could be moved to different positions to convey letters or codes.
The French had invented the system for their military and we copied it – and it was able to speedily deliver the new of Wellington’s victory at Waterloo (among many other messages over the years) back to London. The signal station was out of use by 1823, but the name it gave to what had previously been ‘Plowed Garlic Hill’ stuck.
Rather than take the views, I decided to make a picture that showed a hill. I don’t think it shows the part of the park which once had the telegraph station.
Mantle Road and Endwell Road meet at Brockley Cross, just to the north of Brockley Station, which is just down the hill which goes under the railway bridge at the left of Endwell Court. This rather isolated block appears to have been built as a mansion block with perhaps four flats and looks very similar now.
A small group of three semi-detached houses on the north side of Drakefell Road close to Brockley Cross have some rather unusually detailed ornamentation. This end of Drakefell Road was Penmartin Road until 1902, and I think these houses probably date from a few years before then. The houses are now flats.
As always, comments and corrections are welcome. More from Brockley in a later post.
On 18th March 1990 I took an early train to Vauxhall and then travelled east on the top deck of a 36 bus to Camberwell Green. I saw the buildings at the crossroads there and rang the bell to get off the bus to make a photograph.
Camberwell New Road, Denmark Hill, Camberwell Green, Camberwell, Southwark, 1990, 90-3e-55
Here I crossed the road and walked a few yards to take this picture looking across the start of Denmark Hill to Camberwell Green and the start of Camberwell Road Most of the buildings in my picture can still be identified although their uses have changed. That ornate National Westminster Bank is now Camberwell Green Surgery, and Kennedy’s Sausages are long gone, their site now occupied by Technozone.
The Grade II listed Baroque Revival bank was built in 1899 for the London and County Bank, which after a series of mergers with other banks including the London and Westminster Bank shortened its name the the Westminster Bank in 1923 and merged with the National Provincial Bank to form the National Westminster Bank in 1970.
But I was on my way to Peckham and after taking a single frame crossed back to the bus stop and took the next bus along Camberwell New Road to Peckham High Street and walked down Rye Lane.
Here the lighting was right for was an impressive array of architectural styles and eras on the west side of the street, from plain late Victorian to more ornate turn of the century, 1930s and probably 1950s or 60s.
The range of buildings represents the establishment of Rye Lane as one of South London’s shopping streets in the late 1870s, but outstanding for me was Peckham Indoor Market. As I wrote in an earlier post here:
“Peckham Indoor Market was built around 1938 or shortly after as Rye Lane Bargain Centre with an imposing frontage for a narrow arcade leading back to a large covered market. It’s a style that rather makes it look like a cinema. Across the top is the message ‘Come Rain Or Shine It’s Always Fine at Peckham Indoor Market’.
In the early 2000s the market at the back was reduced in size with part now redeveloped as flats but the front section remains and is now Rye Lane Market, housing over 50 small shop units.”
The Morning Star, Rye Lane, Peckham, Southwark, 1990, 90-3e-44
The Morning Star at 231 Rye Lane was built in 1871 and is now the Nag’s Head, having changed its name to cash in on the BBC TV comedy ‘Only Fools And Horses’, though I think the BBC made them paint over a reference to this high on the frontage. The pub was South London’s most famous Darts Pub in the 1970s and 80s.
But I was really photographing ‘The Triangle’ which had been a favourite meeting place for Mods and their scooters.
Former Camberwell Workhouse, Gordon Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1990, 90-3e-33
20 Gordon Road was built as the Camberwell Workhouse in 1878 when a competition for their design was won by architects Berriman and Sons Ltd. It housed 743 able-bodied inmates. Women were employed in laundries and men broke stones and chopped wood. Taken over by the London County Council in 1930 it became the Camberwell Reception Centre, closing around the end of the 1970s. Minor buildings on the site were demolished and the main buildings converted into flats.
This was later simply a casual ward, and took in many normally sleeping rough and only seeking accommodation in bad weather or desperate for a meal. Many tramping the roads preferred to sleep rough as to get a meal and a bed for the night men were expected to then to join the permanent residents working most of a day breaking up stones to mend roads or chopping wood – or in the laundry for women.
Former Camberwell Workhouse, Gordon Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1990, 90-3e-34
There were still ‘tramps’ in the 1950s who would knock at our back door in oouter London and my mother would talk to them, give them a mug of tea and fill their water bottle if they had one, but few people would make them welcome – and some set the dogs on them. We only had a cat, and my mother was a charitable woman. Tramps would often make chalk marks on pavements to tell others which houses to visit and which to avoid.
Former Camberwell Workhouse, Gordon Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1990, 90-3e-36
Tramps would often run away before finishing their work – and this was a criminal offence which could put them in prison for up to a month were they caught until the 1970s.
Former Camberwell Workhouse, Gordon Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1990, 90-3e-22
A bench from Gordon Road is now in the London Museum together with a good account of how ‘casuals’ would be treated, at least after the National Assistance Board built a waiting room at ‘the Spike’ in 1952 – though they think the bench was only provided after 1964 when a report noted that chairs were ‘brandished as weapons in altercations between waiting applicants’.
It quotes two of the casuals: ‘Upon arrival at Gordon Road, you had to wait with dozens of other dossers in a dingy, unheated outhouse containing nothing but a few benches. You might have to wait here for several hours, even all night‘ The waiting room was often overcrowded and violent: ‘Last night sat for three hours before the porters called us in. Quite a few drunks, same old faces, singing, swearing, bottles breaking, glass all over the place. One goes flying through the window and I duck as it flies over my head. Five or six porters come rushing in, they grab the drunk and push him out the gate.’
Those admitted were then given a hot bath – many were very dirty and infected by lice – before being fed. The Camberwell Reception Centre only finally closed in 1985 and was still derelict five years later when I made these pictures.
The Star of India, Gordon Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1990, 90-3e-24
The Star of India was a Victorian pub on the corner of Gordon Road and Brayards Rd, dating from before the 1871 census. It was closed and demolished around 2000. A block of 12 flats on the site was completed by Habitat for Humanity using 1500 volunteer days in 2009. The flats were sold on completion to Hexagon Housing Association and New World Housing Association.
12 Days of Christmas -some of my favourite pictures from those I made in March 2025.
London, UK. 1 March 2025. Over 600 Southwark residents march from a rally in Peckham to Borough, outraged against plans by Berkeley Homes at the Aylesham Centre for only 12% of affordable housing – while Southwark has around 18,000 families on the council waiting list. London desperately needs more housing at social rents, not high market price housing for developer’s profits. More joined the march at Burgess Park. Peter Marshall.London, UK. 8 Mar 2025. Women, including many from migrant groups, marched along Oxford Street and on to a rally in Trafalgar Square for Million Women Rise, a woman-only march on International Women’s Day. Men supporters were only allowed on the pavement. The march called for an end to male violence against women and girls in all its forms and to everyday and structural racism at the heart of policing and our immigration system and society generally. Peter MarshallLondon, UK. 15 March 2025. Dr Hussam Abu Safiya & all Gaza healthcare workers. Many thousands including large numbers of Jews marched from Green Park to Whitehall days after Israel had blocked off all supplies of goods and electricity to Gaza in clearly genocidal acts violating international humanitarian laws and in breach of the ceasefire agreement they had made earlier. Protesters called for a permanent ceasefire now and for negotiations to lead to freedom for Palestine and to bring peace to the area. A small group waved Israeli flags, shouted abuse and made obscene gestures as they passed. Peter MarshallLondon, UK. 22 March 2025. Thousands came for a protest at the Israeli Embassy following the renewal of genocidal on Gaza in breach of international humanitarian laws. Police banned banned them protesting in the normal position moving them over a hundred yards away from the embassy. The demand an immediate ceasefire, for Israel to return to serious negotiations towards a lasting peace and an end to the total blockade which is starving the people of Gaza to death. Peter Marshall.London, UK. 22 March 2025. Thousands came for a protest at the Israeli Embassy following the renewal of genocidal attacks by Israel on Gaza in breach of international humanitarian laws. Police banned banned them protesting in the normal position moving them over a hundred yards away from the embassy. The demand an immediate ceasefire, for Israel to return to serious negotiations towards a lasting peace and an end to the total blockade which is to death. Peter MarshallLondon, UK. 22 March 2025. A peaceful and colourful street theatre demo by Scrap Factory Farming opposite Parliament called on the Labour government to start an immediate phase out of Factory Farming. They say it is wicked and inflicts great cruelty on animals we should work towards a world that is kinder to animals, people and planet. Peter MarshallLondon, UK. 26 Mar 2025. After protesting at Downing St disabled people and supporters marched to protest outside parliament against cuts in incapacity benefits and removing PIP payments from a million people. Some will lose as much as £10,000 a year as they will also lose carer’s allowance and their ability to contribute to society. Many will die from the cuts and they say there are simple ways to make the savings in a largely progressive way rather than severely punishing the disabled. Peter Marshall
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
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.
Roy Bard speaks outside the sales gallery for Lend Lease’s Elephan Park development
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 entrance to developer Lend Lease’s Heygate (Elephant Park) site
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.
Council estates like this are a prime target for developers who can make huge profits if councils get rid of the tenants for them
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.)
Marchers at London Bridge Station
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.
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.
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
Limehouse and the City – Panoramas 1994: I made one panorama at the end of my trip to Limehouse in June which is on a film processed in July which I overlooked when posting pictures to Flickr.
This was taken from the top floor of John Scurr House on Ratcliffe Lane where there are open balconies leading to the flats it shows both the National Rail and DLR Limehouse stations with the DLR viaduct leading east, with the white tower of St Anne’s Limehouse just visible at extreme right before the top of the brickwork of the stairs.
You can also just see the north side of Limehouse Basin on the other side of Branch Road, and lower right of centre is a small but packed garden centre. A bus goes along Commercial Road and you can see the houses and flats of Limehouse and Bow beyond. Like all the other pictures in this post it was taken with a swing-lens panoramic camera with a horizontal angle of view of over 120 degrees.
Blackfriars Rail Bridge, Blackfriars Bridge, River Thames, Southwark, 1994, 94-701-42
Early in July I took a train to Waterloo and walked into the City from there, pausing before I crossed Blackfriars Bridge to make this panorama. This is the only place where the City comes ‘South of the River’ and where I was standing in Rennie Garden I was already in the City of London, though the wall at right and half the rail bridge past it is in Southwark.
While the City boundary for the other bridges is in the centre of the river, for some reason the Blackfriars and Southwark Bridges Act 1867 put the full length and its southern end within the city’s borders, in the parish of St Anne Blackfriars.
The garden here Rennie Garden is named after John Rennie (1761 – 1821) the engineer who built several of London’s bridges but not this one, which was by by Joseph Cubitt, also responsible for the dismantled railway bridge whose red piers remain.
This was the site of the Albion Flour Mills designed by Samuel Wyatt on this site in 1786 to house the machinery of Matthew Boulton and steam engine of James Watt – and it was this steam-powered corn mill, the first major factory in London, which is thought to be the inspiration for William Blake’s ‘dark satanic mills’.
The Albion Mill died by its own hand, burnt down in 1791 by a fire probably caused by poor maintenance when a bearing overheated, but four years earlier Robert Barker had sent his son Henry Aston Barker to sit on the roof of the building to make the sketches for his ‘London from the roof of the Albion Mills‘ which he then added detail, “greatly enlarged and painted in distemper on canvas.” He coined the name ‘panorama’ and in 1787 patented the idea. His panorama, first shown at the Albion Mill shortly before it was burnt down and then shown in various galleries in London.
Sets of aquatints were made by Frederick Birnie which toured Europe and went to the United States and while these survive in various collections the original panorama is lost.
Puddle Dock, Queen Victoria St, City, 1994, 94-701-33
Puddle Dock was a dock and also a sewer outfall and was filled in during the comprehensive reclamation and redevelopment of the area between 1962 and 1972 which created Upper Thames Street as a major road and Puddle Dock linking this to Queen Victoria Street underneath part of Baynard House, a Brutalist office block built for BT and completed in 1979.
As a part of plans to separate vehicle and pedestrian movement in the City it included a walkway leading to Blackfriars Station from which I made this panorama. The dome of St Paul’s can be seen just to the left of the tower of St Andrew by the Wardrobe.
Sculpture, Farringdon Rd, Holborn Viaduct, City, 1994, 94-702-51
Holborn Viaduct was London’s first flyover, connecting the City with Holborn over the deep valley of the River Fleet, which had be culverted here in the 18th century, in part for the building of New Bridge Street. Built in 1863-69 it links Holborn Circus with Newgate Street and was a major redevelopment ‘”the most ambitious and costly improvement scheme of the [nineteenth] century” (White 47), and it involved some outstanding feats of Victorian engineering.‘
Over the years I’ve made quite a few panoramas on and of the viaduct and written about it at some length – here are a few from 1994. You can read a detailed account on the Victorian Web site.
Sculpture, Farringdon Rd, Holborn Viaduct, City, 1994, 94-702-52
Sculpture, Farringdon Rd, Holborn Viaduct, City, 1994, 94-703-11
Carnaval, Right To Protest & Tobin: On Sunday 7th August 2005 I began by photographing London’s Latin Americans getting ready for the Carnaval Del Pueblo procession, then went to Parliament Square for an illegal protest against the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 which had come into force on August 1st and among other things restricted the right to demonstrate within a large area around parliament without prior written notice to the police. Finally another illegal protest on Westminster Bridge expressed support for the Tobin Tax, a low rate of tax on currency conversions with the aim of discouraging short-term currency speculation and so stabilising currency markets. Here is what I wrote about the day in 2005 with some pictures and links to more on My London Diary
Carnaval del Pueblo – Southwark
Sunday I started off photographing London’s Latin American communities getting ready for the start of their annual Carnaval Del Pueblo procession. This year it was starting from Potters Fields near the GLA headquarters, on an empty site awaiting development, rather than from a street, and this made photography a little more difficult.
It was good to see so many groups taking part, although I found it very difficult to sort out the different nations, and found myself unable to recognise most of their national flags.
This procession, making it’s way to Burgess Park where there is a Latin-American Festival, is one of London’s most colourful events, with some costumes to rival those seen at the much larger annual Notting Hill event at the end of the month.
I was sorry not to be anle to go on to the festival, especially since there was to be a short period of silence to mark the tragic shooting by police of the innocent Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes, on a tube train at Stockwell Station the day following the second round of bombings in London.
I followed the procession up to London Bridge Station where I needed to get on a train to get to Westminster.
Police arrest a demonstrator in Parliament Square, London. The crime? Holding a protest banner. Welcome to Britain, the police state (not that I think the police particularly welcome it.).
Britain once had a deserved reputation as a haven for free speech and the rights of the citizen. A number of acts by our New Labour government have seriously curtailed these freedoms – including introducing a number of measures that they had opposed before they came to power.
Some of these measures have just been a part of the general trend to central control begun under Thatcher, but others have been brought on by the threat of terrorism and even more by the growth of opposition to government policies, and in particular to the war on Iran.
Formerly a life-long supporter of the party it saddens me, and angers me. One of the signs that Brian Haw holds in a picture is a quotation from a speech by Condoleeza Rice in January 2005, when she said “if a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society. We cannot rest until every person living in a ”fear society” has finally won their freedom.”
New restrictions have been brought in that move Britain into that realm of a “fear society”.
This afternoon I saw five people arrested for simply peacefully holding banners supporting the right to protest. It happened on the square opposite our Houses of Parliament, and it made me feel ashamed to be British.
Although the law was passed largely to get rid of Brian Haw, it turns out not to alter his right to be there, as his protest started before the act became law and is thus not covered by it. Rather a lot of egg on government faces there.
[The High Court decision that agreed Haw was not covered by the Act was overturned by the Court of Appeal in an alarming decision in May 2006.]
In 1978, Nobel Prize-winning economist James Tobin proposed a uniform world-wide tax at a very low level – perhaps only 0.2% – on all foreign currency exchange transactions. The aim was to deter speculation on currency movements, thus giving the elected governments greater control over their fiscal and monetary policies, and reducing the power of unelected speculators (who include some of the larger multinational companies) to affect the markets.
Exporters, importers and long-term investors would all benefit from less volatile exchange rates, and the revenue raised by the tax could make a significant contribution both to the revenue of national economies and also for international development projects.
As a small gesture of support for the Tobin Tax, another illegal demonstration took place in Westminster this afternoon, unnoticed by police. A small group of demonstrators, again following an example from Boston – although this time from 1773 – chose tea as a way to symbolise their protest. Each threw a teabag, produced by one of the giant corporations, from the middle of Westminster Bridge into the River Thames below.
Tories Out March: Around 20,000 met outside the BBC in Portland Place on Saturday 1st July 2017 to march to Parliament Square demanding an end to the Tory government under Theresa May.
Class War wrap a march steward in their banner at the start of the march
Most were supporters of the Labour Party and in particular of the then Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn, who had narrowly failed to win the recent general election, defeated not by the Tories but by sabotage within the party by the Labour right who controlled much of the party mechanism.
John McDonnell with the banner at the front of the march
The Labour right had been shocked and appalled by Corbyn’s victory in the leadership contest and had done everything they could since then to get rid of him, with orchestrated cabinet resignations and the stoking up of false antisemitism claims combined with behind the scenes actions to ensure the failure of his attempts to improve the way the party tried to deal with such allegations.
Rev Paul Nicolson from Taxpayers Against Poverty rings his bell
We had seen on television the relief felt by some of them as the results came out when after it had begun to look as if Labour had a chance of victory it became clear that the Tories would hang on to a small majority. The last thing they had wanted had been for Corbyn to have won.
Mark Serwotka of PCS and MP Diane Abbott hold the banner at the front of the march
Theresa May had scraped in but had then had to bribe the DUP, a deeply bigoted party with links to Loyalist terrorists to give her a working majority.
A Grenfell resident speaks in Parliament Square holding up some of the flammable cladding
Her austerity policies had been largely rejected by the electorate and the recent Grenfell Tower disaster had underlined the toxic effects of Tory failure and privatisation of building regulations and inspection and a total lack of concern for the lives of ordinary people.
A woman poses as Theresa May with a poster ‘We cut 10,000 fire fighter jobs because your lives are worthless’
The protesters – and much of the nation – knew that the Tories had proved themselves unfit to govern. The marchers and the people wanted a decent health service, education system, housing, jobs and better living standards for all.
East London Strippers Collective
But not all were happy with Labour policies either, although the great majority of them joined in with the sycophantic chanting in support of Corbyn. But there were significant groups who were also protesting against the housing polices being pursued by Labour-dominated local authorities, particularly in London Boroughs including Labour Southwark, Lambeth, Haringey and Newham.
Huge areas of council housing had been demolished or were under threat of demolition largely for the benefit of developers, selling off publicly owned land for the profit of the developers and disregarding the needs of the residents and of the huge numbers on council housing lists.
Class War protest the devastation of the estates where the poor live
One example was “the Heygate at Elephant & Castle, a well-designed estate deliberately run down by the council over at least a decade, but still in remarkably good condition. It cost Southwark Council over £51m to empty the estate of tenants and leaseholders, and in 2007 had valued the site at £150m, yet they sold it for a third of its market value to developers Lendlease for £50m.”
The estate had been home to over a thousand council tenants and another 189 leaseholders. Around 500 tenants were promised they would be able to return to to homes on the new estate – but there were just 82 social rented homes. The leaseholders were given compensation of around a third of the price of comparable homes in the new Elephant Park – and most had to move miles away to find property they could afford.
In 2017 Haringey was making plans to demolish around 5,000 council homes, roughly a third of its entire stock under what was known as the Haringey Development Vehicle (HDV) with developers Lendlease. Plans here prompted a revolt in the local area led by Labour members in the pro-Corbyn Momentum group who gained control of the council in 2018 and scrapped the HDV.
A giant-headed Theresa May outside Downing St
Among those leading protests against Labour’s Housing Policy was Class War who have been active in many of the protests over housing. I photographed them having a little fun with the march stewards, but unfortunately missed the scene at the rally in Parliament Square when Lisa Mckenzie confronted both Len McCluskey, General Secretary of Unite the Union and Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn asking them the simple question ‘When are you going to stop Labour councils socially cleansing people out of London?’.
Class War lift up their banner in front of a police officer videoing protesters
Both men ignored her, walking past without pausing to answer and “the small Class War group was surrounded by Labour Party supporters holding up placards to hide them and idiotically chanting ‘Oh, Je-re-my Cor-byn! Oh, Je-re-my Cor-byn!’. But eight years later, now in power led by Starmer and Angela Rayner, Labour seems determined to make much the same mistakes in its housing policy.
Racists, Anti-Fascists, PR, Korea and a Victory Party: Saturday 24th June 2017 was a long day for me, beginning with a march by the English Defence League and the anti-fascists who came to oppose it, moving on to another extreme right protest by the Football Lads Alliance on London Bridge then returning to Whitehall for a protest against the ongoing talks between Theresa May and the Ulster DUP to provide support for her minority government. In Parliament Square there was a picnic and rally against our ‘unfair first past the post’ voting system. From there I went to the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square where supporters of North Korea were calling for the US to withdraw its troops from South Korea. Finally I went to Burgess Park in South London where cleaners from the LSE were celebrating a successful end to 8 months of campaigning.
EDL march against terror – Whitehall
The EDL march followed closely after the 3 June event when three Islamists drove a van into pedestrians on London Bridge killing eight people and injuring many more before being shot by police. Earlier in the year a police officer had been stabbed at the Houses of Parliament and a suicide bomber had killed 22 and injured over a thousand at the Manchester Arena.
One of the protesters photographs me as I take his picture
Tempers were running high and just five days earlier a right-wing activist had driven a van into a Muslim crowd at the Finsbury Park Mosque. The Met were taking no chances and had issued strict conditions on both the EDL for their march and rally and for those who had come to oppose them, and had the police on the ground to enforce them.
A member of the public hurries past the EDL
The EDL were meeting outside (and inside) the Wetherspoons close to the north end of Whitehall and I joined them on the pavement. There were quite a few police in the area and the protesters were mainly happy to talk and be photographed. Eventually they were escorted by a large group of police to the starting point of their march, the police taking them through some back streets to avoid the counter-protesters who had previously been restricted to the corner of Northumberland Avenue.
Anti-fascists oppose the EDL – Northumberland Avenue
Several hundred Unite Against Fascism supporters had come to protest against the EDL march but although there were a few minor scuffles as EDL protesters made their way to the pub, a large police presence kept the two groups apart.
Police again handed out copies of the conditions opposed on their protest. A small group of protest clowns taunted the police but there was no real attempt to break the police conditions. Eventually the UAF held a rally opposite Downing Street kept by police well away from the EDL rally taking place at the same time on the Embankment.
Well over a thousand supporters of the recently formed Football Lads Alliance marched to the centre of London Bridge to protest what they see as the UK government’s reluctance in tackling the current extremism problem. I arrived late when the march was over but was able to photograph some of those taking part as they posed with wreaths at the centre of the bridge.
I went on to photograph the many flowers and messages that had been put their by people in the days since the attack.
Back at Downing Street women concerned over abortion rights, housing activists and others had come to protest against the talks taking place with the Democratic Unionist Party and the concessions Theresa May would make to get their support for her government after the 2017 general election had resulted in a hung parliament.
Many protesters were in red for the blood of lives lost without access to reproductive rights, but others came to protest about those who lost their lives at Grenfell tower because they were considered too poor or black to need safe housing, for the disabled who have died because of cuts and unfair assessments, for innocent civilians bombed overseas and by terrorists here, for the blood shed in Northern Ireland before the peace process and for the decision to gamble the rights, health and safety of LGBT+ people.
Time for PR – Save Our Democracy – Parliament Square
At the end of the rally at Downing Street I walked down to Parliament Square, where Make Votes Matter and Unlock Democracy had organised a picnic and rally after the recent election had again demonstrated the unfairness of our current voting system. The rally used various colours of balloons to represent the percentage of the vote gained by different parties.
Prime Minister Theresa May had called a snap election but failed to get the 326 seats needed for an overall majority with only 317 Conservatives elected. Her party had received 42.3% of the total votes. Labour under Jeremy Corbyn had improved its position and had gained 30 seats but was still well behind at 262 seats and 40% of the total votes. They had failed to gain some key marginals where the party right had managed to stop the party giving proper support to candidates or probably the party would have won the election. By making promises to the Democratic Unionist Party, DUP who had won 10 seats in Northern Ireland, May was able to remain as Prime Minister.
The UK Korean Friendship Association marked the 67th anniversary of the start of the Korean War, never officially ended, by a protest outside the US Embassy calling for the withdrawal of US troops from South Korea and an end to sanctions on the so-called Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, one of the least democratic countries in the world, a highly centralised authoritarian state ruled by the Kim family now for over 70 years, according to its constitution guided “only by great Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism.”
LSE Cleaners Victory Party – Burgess Park, Southwark
Mildred Simpson shows off the ‘Masters of Arts’ certificates that were presented to the cleaners at the protest
Finally it was good to meet with the cleaners from the LSE and other members and friends of the United Voices of the World and Justice 4 Cleaners who were celebrating the end of their 8 months of campaigning at the LSE. I had been at the meeting when the campaign was launched as a part of the LSE’s 3-day ‘Resist’ Festival organised by Lisa McKenzie, then a research fellow at the LSE, and had photographed many of their protests and it was great to celebrate their success with them.
Class War had supported the cleaners in their protests and some came to celebrate
Their actions, including 7 days of strike, had achieved parity of terms and conditions of employment with directly employed workers and a promise that they would be brought in-house by the Spring of 2018.
Several of the cleaners spoke at the party and the cleaners were “presented with ‘Masters of Arts’ certificates with First Class Honours in Justice and Dignity.”
Petros Elia, UVW General Secretary runs to organise everyone for a group photo
The final part of the dispute was settled a month later in July 2017 when Alba became the 5th cleaner to be reinstated at the LSE in a year with the UVW “winning a groundbreaking, precedent setting tribunal hearing today which declared Alba’s dismissal not only unlawful but profoundly and manifestly unfair.”
Peckham Fight the Developers: Last Saturday, 31st May 2025 I went to a protest in Peckham against the proposals for the redevelopment of the Aylesham Centre in the heart of Peckham by developers Berkeley Homes.
Peckham, London, UK. 31 May 2025
Their proposals shocked local residents in various ways. They include a 20 storey tower over 250 ft tall, and while the site would included 877 new homes, only 77 of those would be ‘affordable‘. Only a quarter of the number required in the new London Plan which calls for 50% – and for these to be ‘genuinely affordable‘, something that there is no clarity that any of those meagre 77 would be. The plans also include a supermarket and car park, some space that could be used to provide various services or offices as well as shops and a “Drinking Establishment”.
Peckham, London, UK. 31 May 2025
Because of the widespread opposition, apparently including all three local councillors as well as various local community groups which have come together in the umbrella group of housing campaigns and activists from across Southwark – SHAPE – Southwark Housing And Planning Emergency – it seems likely that Southwark Council will reject the application. In which case Berkeley are almost certain to appeal.
Peckham, London, UK. 31 May 2025
Given the Labour Party’s new policies on planning it seems unfortunately likely that in the case of an appeal Levelling Up Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner is likely to wave their proposals through despite their obvious failings and disatrous effect on Peckham.
Peckham, London, UK. 31 May 2025. Journalist and author Anna Minton
One of the speakers at the event was authour and Guardian journalist Anna Minton, invited to speak after her article last week, A new kind of gentrification is spreading through London – and emptying out schools which had the subhead “Thanks to ‘placemaking’, thriving communities are hollowing out, to be replaced by luxury apartments and expensive restaurants.”
Peckham, London, UK. 31 May 2025
Much of her article looked at the consequences of the demolition and replacement of another area of Southwark, the Heygate Estate at Elephant and Castle. This large council estate was replaced by developers Landlease with ‘Elephant Park’ with many flats being sold off-plan to international investors. Lendlease made big profits but Southwark council actually lost both a hugely valueable asset in land as well as actual money in the process.
Peckham, London, UK. 31 May 2025
The new site had more homes than the old, with around 2,000 largely still council-owned flats and houses being replaced by 2,704 of which only 82 are social housing. There 25% were ‘affordable’ but at up to 80% of market rent unaffordable to most locals including the previous residents of the area – and only a small fraction of the site being ‘affordable’. Replacing family homes by luxury flats has led to a large drop in births in the area, forcing the closure of the local primary school at the end of the current term. It was an exercise in ‘ethnic cleansing’ with most forced out of the Heygate having to move long distances further from the centre of London to find properties they could afford.
Peckham, London, UK. 31 May 2025
Minton comments “The positive rhetoric and branding of placemaking is that it transforms run-down areas into vibrant and economically successful parts of the city. The reality is that it creates sterile places, emptied of so many of the essential aspects of urban life, except the expensive activities.”
Peckham, London, UK. 31 May 2025. Outside the Aylesham Centre
Rye Lane on which the Aylesham Centre stands was described in 1934 as “the Oxford Street of South London” with no rival outside of Central London. At the north end of this “Golden Mile of shops” was a whole block containing the department store Jones & Higgins of which only a small part containing its clock tower remain – and under risk.
Peckham, London, UK. 31 May 2025. Outside the Aylesham Centre
Jones & Higgins closed in 1980 and in 1985 most of it was demolished to build the Aylesham Centre. Most of the other fine shops of the past have left, but their buildings mainly survive in new uses, and the street is now remarkably vibrant largely with small shops serving the area’s multicultural community. Rye Lane remains one of London’s busiest shopping streets and I always enjoy walking along it. Off to the side are several small street markets and the amazing Copeland Park and its former cricket bat factory the Bussey Building, now a cultural centre, along with Peckham Levels, a transformed multi-storey car park, though its Derek Jarman memorial garden was in a poor state when I last visited a few years back.
Peckham, London, UK. 31 May 2025. Outside the Aylesham Centre
The Aylesham centre is perhaps now the low point on the street and its demolition would certainly be no loss, but it would be terrible for it to be replaced by yet another sterile ‘white Elephant‘. It is a site that could offer much to the local community, including making a significant inroad into the roughly 12,000 families on the local council’s housing waiting list.
