tank | >Re-PHOTO

DSEI March and a Tank – 2007

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

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

CAAT March Against DSEi East London Arms Fair

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More pictures at CAAT March Against the Arms Fair

Space Hijackers Auction Tank at Arms Fair

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Communications centre inside the ‘tank’*

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

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

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

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Hoxton Olympic Hand Over 2008

Hoxton Olympic Hand Over: On Sunday 24th August 2008, fifteen years ago the Olympics were officially handed over from Beijing to London. To mark this, events were arranged in Hoxton, part of Hackney, one of the three London Boroughs in which the main Olympic site was being developed.

Hackney Council hoped that they would gain some money for regeneration from the huge Olympic spending, though it is difficult to find much evidence that it did in any way improve the borough. They had arranged what turned out to be a very boring event in Shoreditch Park with a giant TV screen showing events from Beijing and some performances and speeches. It was very poorly attended – probably only by a few council officials and families of the local kids who ran a few races or took part in the displays and singing. I took a few pictures – including one showing both the Union Jacks being waved in the park, but soon left for the more interesting local event – a 1948 Street party – in Hoxton Street.

The previous London Olympics in 1948 were arranged on a shore-string budget when the whole country was still under rationing and still recovering from the war. They made use of existing facilities and were truly an ‘Austerity Olympics’. But they were also a very successful event.

Back then the athletes were truly amateurs, taking time off from work to compete and training outside their work hours. Now, particularly since lottery funding it is a massively professional affair, with billions going into Olympic sports, and little if any of the original Olympic ideals remain.

Studies published in 2016 reveal that London 2012 was the most expensive Summer Olympics in history, costing $15 billion, overrunning its original budget by 76%. The organisers doubled the estimate after winning the bid, then claimed that they had come in under budget in what the study describes as “deliberate misinformation of the public about cost and cost overrun” saying it “treads a fine line between spin and outright lying“.

But the figures are actually a huge underestimate of the actual cost, as they exclude “indirect capital costs, such as the money spent on upgrading the local transport infrastructure”, much of which is inappropriate to current needs or the future development of the area.

In contrast, the total spending on the 1948 Olympics was £732,268, equivalent in 2012 allowing for inflation to around £16 million, only just over one thousandth of the cost of London 2012. And the 1948 cost was a little under budget and was more than paid for by ticket sales – there was a profit of over £29,000.

Hoxton had decided to put on a ‘1948 Street Party’ in the area of Hoxton St where the market takes place, and there were shops, museums and various local organisations taking part and putting on events and displays.

Back in 2008 I wrote:

I’d had a very nice cup of tea served in 1948 style china by a “nippy”, and in the street were tea parties (with free cakes) and displays of boxing, jitterbugging and various objects from the 1940s kitchen (almost all of which we still use here, including a pastry blender – and no, it isn’t used to make bread.) Pearlies came in force and had a sing-song round the joanna.

Of course there was a bar, and there was also a little welcome madness in the section of road where the Hackney Austerity Olympics was taking place. It was of course highly appropriate, as the last Olympic Games held here were very much run on a shoe-string in 1948.

There was dancing on the street and everyone was having a good time. Including the ‘Free Hackney Movement’ Space Hijackers who arrived in what they call a tank to celebrate the handover of the protest torch for the Olympics from the Free Tibet protesters to Free Hackney.

The Free Hackney protest sees London 2012 as a great opportunity for property developers to rip us off and make obscene profits building luxury flats in the area, while at the same time restricting public access, closing down the existing free facilities and demolishing social housing and local businesses. So far its hard to argue against their case given the closure of local sports facilities including the closure of the Temple Mills cycle circuit and the removal of the Manor Gardens allotments and the wholesale clearance of small local firms which were based on Stratford Marsh.

There are a few locally based companies that have done well from their move, but more that have moved outside the area or closed down, with a loss of jobs in the area. There has also been considerable development of tall blocks of flats, but mainly for private sale or student accommodation which has done little if anything for the huge housing problems faced by local residents who want to remain in Hackney, Tower Hamlets or Newham.

Of course the London 2012 Olympics did give pleasure to many in the UK and around the world who watched the events, including the relatively few who bought tickets and watched them live. But any overall economic benefit for the UK – as claimed by the government – is debatable and given the extreme cost in any case marginal. Personally I find the media induced hysteria generated by the media around sporting events such as this objectionable and feel it is bad for the moral health of the country which needs a greater emphasis on the social and less on individual achievements of a tiny minority.

More at
Free Hackney Movement
Hoxton Handover – 1948 Street party

Hoxton 1948 Street Party

No, I wasn’t taking pictures in 1948, nor was Hoxton’s 1948 street party taking place in 1948, but on Saturday 24th August 2008, the date marking the handover of the Olympics to London from Beijing where the 2008 Olympics had recently finished.

Hackney was one of the three boroughs – along with Tower Hamlets and Newham at the centre of the London 2012 Olympics, coming to London for the first time since 1948. The London Olympics then were very much run on a shoe-string in 1948, with a total budget of well under a million pounds – allowing for inflation probably rather less than a hundredth of the budget for 2012.

People in Hackney had decided to mark the event with a ‘1948 Street Party’ in Hoxton in the area of Hoxton Road where the market takes place (confusingly around half a mile from a street named Hoxton Market) and there were shops, museums and various local organisations taking part and putting on events and displays. And appropriately for a celebration of 1948 they organised their own ‘Austerity Olympics’ on the street, as well as some more serious boxing.

Hackney Council, being doctrinaire New Labour were of course appalled by the idea of a community initiative such as this. Their idea of politics was for people to put an X in the Labour box of the ballot paper and then sit back and let those they elected get on with running things to their advantage – without the people getting in the way of their schemes. So instead of backing a community initiative which might display what people thought about the forthcoming Olympics they snootily set up their own rival event in a park a few minutes walk away, with a giant screen relaying the events from Beijing.

*There were two men waving Union Flags at the Hackney Council event.*

I went to both, though most of the hour and a half I spent at the council event was an hour and a half of my life lost, tedious in the extreme, except for a short performance by a local kids group. There was a Chinese group with flags and a lion, but they seemed to be deliberately hidden away in a corner.

Back on Hoxton St, things were much more interesting, and very much a reminder of my own youth in the 1950s. I enjoyed a very nice cup of tea served in 1948 style china by a “nippy”, and in the street were tea parties (with free cakes) and displays of boxing, jitterbugging and various objects from the 1940s kitchen (almost all of which we still use at home, including a pastry blender – and no, it isn’t used to make bread.) Pearlies came in force and had a sing-song round the joanna.

And then there was the ‘Free Hackney Movement’ (aka Space Hijackers) who brought some serious politics to the event along with a ‘tank’. Here’s what I wrote about them in 2008:

The Free Hackney protest sees London 2012 as a great opportunity for property developers to rip us off and make obscene profits building luxury flats in the area, while at the same time restricting public access, closing down the existing free facilities and demolishing social housing and local businesses. So far its hard to argue against their case given the closure of local sports facilities including the closure of the Temple Mills cycle circuit and the removal of the Manor Gardens allotments and the wholesale clearance of small local firms which were based on Stratford Marsh

In 2008 I commented “The Olympic development has so far been something of a catastrophe for the area, and a lot has to be done to recover from this, let alone produce a positive outcome for the area.” Unfortunately most of what has been done since has borne out the fears and predictions that were made by the Free Hackney Movement and others back in 2008. London 2012 was a bonanza for the few but disrupted the lives of many in the three boroughs.

More at:
Hoxton Handover – 1948 Street party
Free Hackney Movement
Hackney Council Hoxton Handover

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