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XR at the BBC, Noahs Ark & Nine Elms – 2018

XR at the BBC, Noahs Ark & Nine Elms: On Thursday 21st December 2018 after photographing a protest at the BBC by the Climate Media Coalition over the BBC failures in presenting the climate emergency and their programmes which encourage climate wrecking activities I took a few pictures of the nearby Noah’s Ark Earth Rescue display before going to the US Embassy to cover a protest there. Unfortunately although I and the police made it on time the protesters failed to turn up. I took a walk around the area – London’s largest development taking a few pictures and when after an hour only a single protester and another photographer had arrived I went home.

Extinction Rebellion at the BBC – Broadcasting House

XR at the BBC, Noahs Ark & Nine Elms - 2018

Climate campaigners from Extinction Rebellion came to the BBC to tell it to stop ignoring the climate emergency and mass extinction taking place and promoting destructive high-carbon living through programmes such as Top Gear and those on fashion, travel, makeovers etc.

The BBC had long misused its policy of impartiality to give huge prominence to a small group of climate deniers, largely fossil fuel lobbyists, to give them equal airtime to the warnings supported by the huge body of scientific evidence on global warming caused by our increasing consumption of coal, oil and gas with the associated rise in greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere.

The protest had been organised by environmental campaigner Donnachadh McCarthy and the Climate Media Coalition and they had brought with them mannequins wrapped in white sheets to represent the 27 climate victims from the Greek Village of Mati, burned alive by a wildfire. They were among a hundred people are known to have died in Greece in the fires caused by global warming. They set these out in front of the BBC for a vigil at the start of the protest

Later there were angry protests at both entrances to the BBC site which which was closed off by barriers and security staff. It took a couple of minutes through the local streets to get between the two and I was at the other one where two protesters had superglued their hands, one to the steps and another to the door, when Donnachadh McCarthy attempted to climb over the security banners and was arrested.

You can read more about the protest along with many pictures and captions on My London Diary at Extinction Rebellion at the BBC.

Humanity Face Extinction – Great Portland St

The protest at the BBC was continuing when I walked towards the tube to travel to a protest sceduled at the US Embassy in Nine Elms and stopped to take a few pictures of the Noah’s Ark Earth Rescue display.

This was deserted probably as those usually here were all at the BBC protest. The display was a part of the “eco-warriors’ worldwide publicity campaign to save the South Pacific island nations from vanishing beneath the rising sea levels and offering genuine solutions to save humanity from being driven to extinction by global warming as a result of the burning of fossil fuels.”

More pictures at Humanity Face Extinction

Nine Elms Wander

I arrived at the US Embassy at the time given on the press release and the Facebook event page for a protest against Trump’s announcement of the withdrawal of US troops from Syria to find two police vehicles but no protesters.

After waiting around ten minutes I took a walk around the area, part of a huge redevelopment between the former Battersea Power Station and Vauxhall which I’d been watching for some years from the train as I came into London and had often photographed through the train windows.

Under the River Thames construction was also taking place for London’s new super-sewer, the 16 mile long Thames Tideway Tunnel expected to be fully operational in 2025 and the first major upgrade to London’s sewage systems since Bazalgette in 1875.

I went back to the embassy an hour after the protest was due to start. By now one man had arrived also looking for the protest, and a second photographer. I walked back up to Vauxhall Station to see if I could find any protesters on their way, but met none and so I caught the train home.

More pictures at Nine Elms Wander.

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Disabled Protest at BBC in London

Disabled Protest at BBC in London: On Monday 2nd September 2013 I went with disablement protesters, some in wheelchairs, who were protesting at Broadcasting House in London at the BBC’s failure to report truthfully the effects of government cuts, particularly on the disabled. They blocked the main BBC entrance for an hour, with some locking themselves to the doors.

The BBC eventually called the police, who arrived not long before the protest was to end, and when they told the police this, the police stood back and watched until they did pack up and leave. Of course the protest was only a minor inconvenience to the BBC as there are alternative entrances which people were able to use.

*They join hands before going to the BBC*

At one point a BBC TV cameraman turned up who had been asked to film the protesters. I joked with them that perhaps he would be able to sell his footage to ITV news as it was most unlikely that it would be shown by the BBC. And I was correct in that there was no mention of the protest at all on BBC news programmes. Perhaps a few years later the footage might appear in some feature about disabled people.

The protesters took turns in speaking out about the failure of the BBC to report the real hardship caused by ATOS assessments and the withdrawal of benefits, benefit cuts and caps and the bedroom tax. All were fed up with the BBC repeating the lies and half-truths of government and asked why the real problems and numerous deaths from the austerity programme and the protests over these were not being properly reported.

The situation was critical for many poor and disabled people, with over 500,000 having to resort to food banks set up by churches and charities to fend off starvation. The protesters chanted ‘BBC, Tell the Truth’ and requested someone from the BBC to come and discuss the issue with them – but no one would.

They made clear they were not asking for special treatment for the disabled, but for full, accurate and impartial reporting – something the BBC once had a reputation for, but sadly no more.

They were joined by chance by activist comedian Mark Thomas who had been inside the BBC when they arrived. Some had recently met him during his ‘Mass Miracle’ performance outs Atos’s Edinburgh office which had been a part of the previous months Edinburgh fringe. He was persuaded to speak briefly and gave his support to the protest, praising the protesters for coming to make their views known to the BBC.

I have mixed feelings about the BBC which still does produce some fine programmes but also I think has failed in many ways. Although they are supposedly independent they are very much an establishment mouthpiece and they very much work from the point of view of the wealthier parts of our class-ridden society.

*BBC Security failed to persuade them to move*

Journalist Emily Maitlis has recently spoken out about the ‘Tory cronyism at the heart of the BBC’ and their misguided approach to impartiality which led, for example, to climate deniers being given equal prominence to the huge body of scientific evidence over the extreme dangers of climate change.

*Protesters took turns to speak about the effect of the cuts*

Maitlis is clearly an accomplished journalist and presenter with a long and successful career. But she was in a very well paid post at the BBC, is married to an investment manager and lives and works in a very different world to the great majority of the British people. At least she was one of relatively few in such positions who was educated at a state school (though certainly not a bog-standard one) before going to Cambridge.

*Eventually police arrived – and protesters told them they would leave* shortly

But for years it has been clear that we can not rely on the BBC for a comprehensive view of events in the UK and around the world. If you want to be well-informed about what is happening and why you need to look and listen to other sources – including the BBC’s own World Service, and other UK and foreign news services (which often have a very different bias), as well as alternative UK media such as Double Down News, Novara Media and The Canary.

But the BBC has increasingly come under threats from governments who control its purse-strings – if at a slight distance. I don’t pay a licence fee because I don’t view TV but do listen to BBC radio for an hour or two most days, though usually with half and ear while doing other things. The BBC is still much better in many ways than the commercial alternatives and in a different league to those in some other countries – such as the USA.

More pictures at DPAC at BBC – Tell The Truth.

Telling the Story – 19 July 2019

I often find myself thinking about my role as a documentary photographer when I’m taking pictures of protests. And of thinking about how I can carry out that role.

Clearly I’m not their to take part in the protest – though often I support the cause of the protesters I’m making pictures of. I’m an observer rather than a participant, though there are occasions when I will intervene in some way, largely the kind of actions that I would expect anyone to take, like stopping people walking into traffic or helping someone who has fallen down or dropped something.

There have been times too when I reminded police of the law (not always advisable) or protested at their use of unnecessary force. And on some occasions when marches have got lost or taken a wrong turning I’ve pointed this out to the marchers. Some embassies and companies are quite hard to find.

I never set up people or groups, though sometimes when photographing people I may ask or gesture them to look at me or to hold their poster or placard higher or lower. But it isn’t a portrait session and I don’t ask them to smile or scowl or act up for the camera. It would have been much easier to make the picture of the XR symbols in those dark glasses in the studio and it took a number of attempts to catch him looking in exactly the right direction and catch those reflections from a banner which I’d noticed moving across them earlier.

But it isn’t just a matter of passive observing. I’m choosing my position, framing my pictures, selecting the moment, working to try to present the story clearly and effectively.

It isn’t essentially about making dramatic or attractive pictures, though I always hope some might be.

Extinction Rebellion’s ‘Requiem for a Dead Planet’ at Northcliffe House, home of the Daily Mail, Independent, Mail on Sunday, London Live and Evening Standard demanding they publish truth and end lies about climate change was a tricky one to cover, with heavy rain falling much of the time and a very limited area under cover for protesters and photographers. As we’ve seen in the past week, the weather is becoming more violent and this seemed appropriate if making the job more difficult.

Here’s some of the text I wrote at the time – the link below has more and more pictures:

“XR say avoiding climate & ecological devastation needs the media to tell the truth and stop publishing fake science denying climate change as well as advertising and editorial material that promotes high-carbon lifestyles, whether about fashion, travel food or other consumerist content so government can take the drastic action needed.
The protest included suitable requiem music by a small group of musicians in XR Baroque, a eulogy for lost species by a priest, speeches, poems, skeletons, banners and a die-in.”
Requiem for a Dead Planet at Daily Mail

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

XR Westminster

I don’t know who these two men were, striding purposefully with their document cases but I think they had emerged from a government ministry and they were probably making their way to another or possibly the Tory party HQ. It’s possibly quite unfair, but to me they seemed to epitomise the reason why we are in the situation we are in, a determination to carry on ‘business as usual‘ when it is quite clear that to survive we need drastic system change. We can’t trust men in suits.

XR were protesting across Westminster, and it was hard to keep up with what was happening at I think eleven locations, but I did quite a lot of walking around and taking pictures, with a pretty total shutdown of all the roads in the area. Police made movement a little more difficult by setting up some road blocks of their own, which seemed totally pointless but made my job more difficult when they wouldn’t even let me walk across Lambeth Bridge although I showed my press card.

They seemed also to be making the very occasional and almost totally random arrests, picking on small groups or individuals when hundreds were blocking roads. It seemed a simply pique at being unable to control the situation of mass peaceful civil disobedience.

Although it was taking place in London, the XR protest was not a London protest, with the huge bulk of the protesters having come into the city from small towns across the country. XR has been very successful at motivating a largely white mainly middle class and highly educated population but rather less so with the urban working class, and there were far fewer from London’s ethnic communities than at most London protests, and who are well represented in movements such as the Youth Climate Strike and of course anti-racist and anti-fascist protests.

It will of course be the poor and those who have to struggle most to make a living in our cities who will be the first to suffer as the effects of global heating kick in, just as it is the countries of the majority world who are now feeling it most severely. But perhaps it is hard to persuade people who are living in precarious situations of the efficacy of the kind of apolitical and non-violent approach that appeals to XR supporters.

More at Extinction Rebellion occupy Westminster.

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

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Requiem for a Dead Planet

The Daily Mail was banned by Wikipedia as an ‘unreliable’ source in 2017, and fact checking sites and organisations regularly find that it published materail that is known to be untrue. But of course there are stories in it that are factually correct, though even these often have misleading and sensational headlines.

It has a long history of support for extreme right views and its proprieter in the early 1930s Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere was a friend of both Hitler and Mussolini and ensured his papers published articles in support of the fascists and in 1934 wrote and published an article ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts’ urging young men to join Mosley’s thugs. The family still have a controlling share in the Mail group, which includes the Mail on Sunday and the daily free Metro. Northcliffe House in Kensington where this protest took place is now also the home of Independent, London Live and the Evening Standard.

Extinction Rebellion had organised the protest to urge the press to stop publishing denials of climate change and to tell the truth about the climate emergency. They want the press to “put the full resources of their papers behind saving humanity from climate catastrophe and ecological collapse, and protect what is left of the natural world. “

As well as stopping publishing fake science, this would also mean changing the content of the papers to remove advertising and editorial material that promotes high-carbon lifestyles, whether about fashion, travel, food or other consumerist content and so enabling government can take the drastic action needed.

It was a protest where a great deal of thought and effort had gone into visual material, including skeletons, banners and lilies, as well as having classical music from XRBaroque who performed inside a large gazebo.

It was still raining most of the time, heavy at times, but Northcliffe House has a large projecting porch over its entrance which kept the rain off most of the protesters, and at least some of the time from photographers too. And it meant that most of those who took part in the die-in had a fairly dry pavement to lie down on. But there were still times like the die-in when to stand where I needed to take pictures meant standing in the rain. My lenses had dried out on the journey from Piccadilly Circus, but after taking pictures for an hour or so here I was having trouble with condensation.

Since it was ‘A Requiem for a dead Planet‘ some of those attending had come in suitably funereal dress, including one man in black with a black hat and dark glasses. I noticed these were reflecting some of the banners on the floor and as he moved around the white XR symbols on a black banner werem at times reflected in the lenses. There was a short period of time when there was a suitable banner behind him too, with skulls, and I took a whole series of pictures trying to get the effect I wanted. It would have been tricky to even set this up and I was pleased to get one frame with exactly the effect I wanted. People who were there have said to me “I didn’t see he was wearing glasses with the XR symbol on them” and I’ve just smiled.

More pictures at Requiem for a Dead Planet at Daily Mail

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

Clearing the ‘Sea of Protest’

Police I think waited until the journalists covering Emma Thompson’s visit to the Extinction Rebellion (XR) ‘Sea of Protest’ around Berta Cáceres, the pink yacht at the centre of Oxford Circus before they closed in.

I’d left with the others, but came back 25 minutes later to find the yacht surrounded by a ring of police, with just those protesters locked on to the boat inside. And sitting on the ground around them was a large crowd of XR supporters, listening to singers and occasionally chanting slogans.

Soon more police arrived and set up a cordon around the whole of Oxford Circus, allowing people to leave but not to enter. There were some heated arguments and one protester tried to urge the crowd by now outside to push their way through the police line, but XR organisers urged them to respect the non-violent principles of Extinction Rebellion and not oppose the police physically, and no-one followed his lead.

Police came and began to persuade those still sitting down in Oxford Circus to leave, telling them they would be arrested if they stayed, and numbers began to dwindle, although there were many who stayed, having come prepared to be arrested to make XR’s point.

As well as photographing this, I was taking pictures mainly between the legs of police officers, both the ring around the outside of the protest, particularly of the dance group dressed in red that were going around the outside of the cordon, and, through the legs of the much tighter cordon around the yacht, looking through to the protesters who were locked on.

I wasn’t sure how much of the police to include in the frame with these images, and took some with a minimal presence as in the picture above, but also wider views showing the line of police. And of course it was possible to zoom in and exclude the police altogether. But I felt it important to have both police and yacht in the image to locate it.

Eventually the specialist police team turned up to begin to release the protesters from the yacht and its undercarriage – though some were very easily removed, others needed cutting out, and it was a lengthy process. As they were removed they were arrested and rushed to waiting police vans.

Once the numbers sitting on the road had reduced to a more manageable number police began making arrests of them also, taking them away. I hung around and photographed a number of them being carried away, though it was hard to get clear pictures as there were often too many people – police, other photographers and protesters – in the way.

After I’d been there for around two and a half hours watching and photographing I decided I’d taken enough pictures and left. It was several hours later before the area was cleared and the yacht was towed away, having been there for around five days.

Many more pictures at Police clear XR from Oxford Circus.

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

XR and Emma Thompson

I don’t go out of my way to photograph celebrities. Often another photographer will point out someone to me and they are people I’ve never heard of, and certainly wouldn’t recognise. One of the delights of not owning a television is that it keeps your mind clear of such clutter, though it has occasionally meant I’ve missed taking pictures that would have sold well.

But of course I do have some idea of who Emma Thompson is and what she looks like, though I hadn’t known she would be arriving to speak at Oxford Circus before I got there on April 19th and a colleague shared this information. I’d gone to Oxford Circus simply to photograph the XR occupation of the area around the large pink yacht, the Berta Cáceres, and the other sites still blocked by the protests,

I saw her arrive before most of the other photographers and was able to take a few pictures before she was surrounded by a crowd of people with cameras, including one of her showing off her ‘There is no planet B’ bag.

Soon other photographers realised she had arrived, but there wasn’t room for them where I was between her and the boat, so there was a ring of photographers all pointing there lenses at her back while I was taking her picture with a member of the crew. I realised she was going to have to wait and then climb up the ladder onto the boat after the singer currently performing came down and moved to where I thought I would be best placed for more pictures – a few of which you can see on My London Diary.

Of course I moved into the crowd in front of the boat as she spoke, to take more pictures of her, but mainly of the people listening. After she had spoken to the crowd, she did speak to a couple of TV crews from the back of the boat and I did take a few more pictures, but I was more interested in the pep[;e who were surrounding the Berta Cáceres, some locked on, to protect the boat from being moved.

I then made the mistake of leaving Oxford Circus to look at something happening elsewhere, but after a brief look I came back to find that police had moved in and began the long process of clearing the road junction. More about that in a later post.

More pictures at Emma Thompson speaks at XR

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

XR Marble Arch

Extinction Rebellion’s largest site during their multiple occupation of London was in the area around Marble Arch. It’s were one of inner London’s busiest north-south routes, Park Lane on the east edge of Hyde Park, crosses the East-West route of Oxford St and the Bayswater Road, with Edgware Road, the A5 starting out its long journey well beyond Edgware to the far Northwest (and there is another similar arch where it ends in Holyhead.).

The Marble Arch itself is on the north edge of the traffic island in the centre of the large gyratory system here. It had been designed in 1827 by John Nash as a ceremonial entrance to Buckingham Palace, but in 1851 it was moved to its present position to serve as an entrance to Hyde Park at the time of the Great Exhibition.

Unfortunately the widening of Park Lane in 1960-64 led to it being cut off from Hyde Park, in isolation on a traffic island. No traffic passes through it now, although you can still walk through its arches. Until the late 1960s three rooms inside the arch were in use as a police station, but are now unused.

XR blocked traffic on all the roads leading to Marble Arch and tents filled most of the grassed area around, with the hard standing in front of the arch being used for stalls and performances, as well as a lorry equipped as a stage on Cumberland Gate. The area was occupied from the early hours of Monday 15th April. Police got the traffic moving again on Wednesday 24th, and XR finally left after a closing ceremony the following evening.

There wasn’t a great deal happening on either of the occasions I visited Marble Arch, but there were some major events on various of the evenings, with some well-known performers coming to perform and show their support. But I like to go home at night to a comfortable bed (and a good dinner) and left it to those staying in the camp to record.

More at Extinction Rebellion Marble Arch.

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.