Posts Tagged ‘vegans’

Hong Kong, Fur, Brixton & Carnaby – 2019

Thursday, November 23rd, 2023

Hong Kong, Fur, Brixton & Carnaby – There were five events listed in my diary for Saturday 23rd November 2019, but I only photographed two of them, the Stand With Hong Kong march and rally and the annual March Against Fur, though I missed the others. But I did take a couple of short walks. I can’t remember now why I went to Brixton, but my trip to Carnaby Street was to see a small exhibition in a shop I had three pictures in.


Stand With Hong Kong – Westminster

Hong Kong, Fur, Brixton & Carnaby

Sadly the idea that the British Government could in 2019 have any real influence on China over the breaches of Sino-British Joint Declaration agreed in 1984 when Margaret Thatcher was in power was always an illusion.

Hong Kong, Fur, Brixton & Carnaby

In 2014 the Chinese government had said it regarded the agreement had already met its objectives following the handover in 1997 and they regarded it as now having no legal effect. The British government disagree but have no possibility of doing anything to change Chinese minds or actions.

Hong Kong, Fur, Brixton & Carnaby

So while I had great sympathy with people of Hong Kong who had been protesting there as well as their supporters in foreign countries including UK, it was clear that these protests would not change policies in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong, Fur, Brixton & Carnaby

Finally the British government had to admit this and it led to the setting up of the Hong Kong British National (Overseas) visa scheme in 2021, which allowed Hong Kong British National (Overseas) citizens (BNOs) and their close family members to move the the UK for five years after which they can apply for leave to remain and, after a further year for British citizenship.

Perhaps protests such as these did influence the government in how the scheme was set up, with a fairly generous interpretation of the rules governing family members, although the route to becoming a British citizen seems unnecessarily long and complicated.

BNO status was set up by an Act of Parliament following the 1984 declaration for Hong Kong residents who wished to retain a connection with the UK after the handover to China and had to be claimed before that too place in 1997. About a third of Hong Kong residents had BNO status and the scheme would also allow a similar number of their families to get visas.

Although the total number of people eligible to come to the UK was thought to be over 5 million, the number expected to take up the offer was expected to be around 320,000 and so far is only roughly half this. Although much cheaper than other visa schemes it remains quite expensive as a health charge is also applied and for a family with one child the total costs over the period to obtain British citizenship is around £20,000.

Stand With Hong Kong


March Against Fur 2019

After a rally in Leicester Square the march set off through central London.

The march went along the pavement along Charing Cross Road, which was extremely crowded.

Though it spilled out onto the road.

Although the main focus of the many posters was against fur and the ending of the fur trade, the main banner called for an end to all forms of animal oppression and many on the march were vegans.

I left the march as it turned down Shaftesbury Avenue for a tour of the West End and stores selling fur products, calling for an end not just to using fur in clothing but against all exploitation of animals of all species, whether for meat, dairy, wool, leather or other products.

More pictures at March Against Fur 2019


Brixton & Carnaby Street

First Child by Raymond Watson, a memorial to 116 children murdered by the Afrikaner police force in Soweto in 1976 was the first public sculpture by a Black artist in the UK, commissioned in 1998 by the 198 Gallery.

Bon Marché, Britains first purpose built department store, was opened in 1877. Its founder went bankrupt but the store continued in business with various owners until 1975. Since then it has been refurbished with almost all ground floor detail lost.

I paid a brief visit to Carnaby Street where 3 of my pictures were in the window of a shop called Size? in a temporary display celebrating the apparently iconic Nike Air Max 90 introduced in 1990. I took the three rather maroon images in this picture of the window and the one at the right, taken at Notting Hill Carnival in 1990 shows a man in rather long shorts wearing those trainers. There were ten panels in the display, the other nine using later pictures taken by other photographers.

Brixton
Carnaby Street Show


Animal Rights & McStrike – 2017

Saturday, September 2nd, 2023

Animal Rights & McStrike: After photographing the start of the 2017 Official Animal Rights March on Saturday 2nd September 2017 I took the tube to East Finchley for a rally outside the UK Headquarters of McDonald’s.


Vegans call for Animal Rights – Hyde Park

Animal Rights & McStrike - 2017

Several thousand vegans met to march from Hyde Park through London demanding an end to all animal oppression in the 2017 Official Animal Rights March, supported by The Save Movement and HeartCure Collective.

Animal Rights & McStrike - 2017

Many carried posters or placards calling for an end to regarding animals as food or sources of wool and fur, and there were some dressed as animals.

Animal Rights & McStrike - 2017

In nature there are predators and prey and a complex interdependence between species. We are in some ways at the top of this pyramid in which some animals eat other animals as well as some eating plants, and our species has evolved as omnivores. We’ve developed some rather complex and industrial ways of doing this through agriculture and food processing, but essentially we are no different from lions eating goats though we have a rather greater choice of food. Are those lions being speciesist?

Animal Rights & McStrike - 2017

Unless we ate their meat, drank there milk, ate their eggs or fried their bacon, farm animals would not exist. There might I suppose be a few wild boars and deer roaming our countryside and certainly rather more rabbits but it would be a very different landscape and populated by very different animals to those that now adorn the vegan posters. Everyone going vegan would destroy all reason for their existence.

I’m certainly against cruel practices in farming and don’t condone the inhuman practices in some modern farming. I gladly pay the extra for eggs and meat that has been produced without cruelty, though it’s not always possible.

I can see no justification for fur farming, as there are good alternatives to the uses of fur and nobody needs a mink coat, and the trapping of animals for their skins seems barbaric. But while I’m against the use of animals for testing cosmetic products etc, I find it impossible to object to some use of animals in some medical research, though perhaps this could be ended as better methods are developed. There are strict rules governing it, though they could be tightened, but I wouldn’t be alive but for drugs whose development critically involved some use of animals.

For environmental reasons it is a good thing to eat less meat and I’m happy that many of us have reduced our reliance on meat and that some have decided to cut it out of their diets, and that others have gone further and vegans. Even more doing so would be a good thing, but everyone becoming vegan would be a disaster.

But meat is certainly not murder, though slaughter should certainly be as humane as possible – and it certainly isn’t always so. And milking cows certainly isn’t stealing their milk when they have been bred to produce many times the volume that their calves could possibly consume. Not milking them would certainly be cruelty.

Animals are not ‘Just Like Us’, though of course we have much in common. Animals interact in rather different ways to us (and to other animal species) it infantilises and confuses to refer to them in terms we use for our human relationships and culture. Human rights are different and more important than animal rights and I often found myself wishing that we could have as many people as active in protests over these as over animal rights.

More pictures at Vegans call for Animal Rights.


McStrike rally at McDonalds HQ – East Finchley

I left the animal rights marchers as they passed Green Park station and took the tube to East Finchley. The rally there was in support of McDonald’s workers who are holding the first UK strike against the company on Monday, US Labor Day, calling for an end to zero hours contracts, £10 an hour and union recognition.

McDonald’s workers complain about bad management and bullying at work and the strikers report threats and insults by managers. There was a table with chairs in front of the McDonald’s building calling for them to come and sit down and negotiate with the BFAWU, but McDonald’s refuse to have any dealings with trade unions

Ian Hodson and Joe Carolan from Unite New Zealand

Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) President Ian Hodson led the rally at which organisers from the New Zealand Unite union as well as strikers and other supporters spoke in solidarity. New Zealand Unite fought a successful campaign which ended all zero hours contracts and forced McDonald’s to recognise the union and pay higher wages and the BFAWU is determined to do the same.

More pictures at McStrike rally at McDonalds HQ.


Refugees, Animal Cruelty, Syria and International Times

Monday, January 16th, 2023

Saturday 16th January 2016 was a busy day for me, ending rather unusually with taking some photographs at a party which I also put on-line.


St Pancras Die-In for Calais refugees

Refugees, Animal Cruelty, Syria and International Times

Saturday 16th January 2016 was an International Day of Action in solidarity with refugees and there were protests in Calais and Dunkirk as well as in many cities. The protests were held at short notice against the clearing the Calais refugee ‘Jungle’ and urged the UK government to give refugees at Calais safe passage into the UK to claim asylum.

Refugees, Animal Cruelty, Syria and International Times

Many of those in the camps have family and friends in the UK, which has failed to take a fair share of the migrants. Protesters included people from the London2Calais convoy as well as a Christian contingent with some bible-based placards.

Refugees, Animal Cruelty, Syria and International Times

After a brief speech on the wide pavement in front of Kings Cross station the protesters walked to the main entrance of St Pancras International where a large group of police prevented them from entering and they held a short rally.

The protesters then marched off down to Euston Road accompanied by a large group of police. While some continued to march along Euston Road many caught the police unaware by rushing down the steps into the underground entrance and along past the ticket offices before being stopped by more police at the underground entrance to the long shopping mall in St Pancras Station.

They held a protest there with several speakers calling for refugees at Calais and Dunkirk, who include many unaccompanied minors and others with relatives living in the UK, to be allowed to enter the UK and make asylum claims. Actup London then staged a die-in with others sitting down to join them for around ten minutes, ending with a final speech.

Apparently a few protesters had managed to get in and protest with fake body bags at the Eurostar entrance. The protesters had been careful throughout to leave a path for people catching trains to enter the station, but some had been held up by police who mistook them for protesters.

More at St Pancras Die-In for Calais refugees.


March against Taiji Dolphin Slaughter – Regent St

I was late and missed the start of the march against the annual inhumane slaughter of dolphins and small whales at Taiji in Japan. They had met in Cavendish Square but were marching down Regent St when I caught up with them on their way to the Japanese Embassy.

Although there were several hundred taking part, the marchers kept to the pavement rather than take to the road, which seemed rather strange and perhaps reduces their impact, though it did mean that shoppers who often appear to be sleepwalking did have to move out of the way.

Dominic Dyer of the Born Free Foundation, Care for the Wild and CEO of The Badger Trust led the march down the street. As usual many of the marchers had made their own posters and placards and some carried dolphins. This year many of the placards called for a boycott of the Tokyo Olympics for the shame that this inhumane slaughter brings to Japan.

I walked with the marchers taking pictures as far as Oxford Circus, waiting until all of them had passed on their way down Piccadilly to the Japanese Embassy and then left.

More pictures at March against Taiji Dolphin Slaughter.


Vegans ‘Awakening Compassion’ – Piccadilly Circus

Around the statue of Erost were a group of Vegans from ‘Awakening Compassion’, standing and holding posters with large photographs of animals we farm for food – chickens, cows, sheep, goats, pigs- with messages such as ‘I am an animal – Someone not something – I want to stay alive.

Although I’m opposed to the cruel treatment of animals, the animals in these pictures owe their existence to the farmers who over millennia have bred them and now raise them. If we gave up eating meat and dairy products our countryside would be a very different place. We should be eating less meat for various reasons, and I do often have meals without it and pay more for meat and eggs produced with less cruelty, but farm animals form a vital part of the ecosystem and I’d hate to lose them.

Vegans ‘Awakening Compassion’


Drop Food Not Bombs on Syria – Trafalgar Square

The message of the Syrians who had come to protest in Trafalgar Square was clear – Drop Food Not Bombs on Syria. Instead of spending billions on bombs and weapons they want the money to be spent on humanitarian aid for those under siege across Syria, including those in Madaya and the Yarmouk refugee camp.

Many wore or held the Free Syria flag with its green, black and white strips and three red stars, and various posters which made clear they condemnation of ISS, the Russian bombings and the Assad regime.

One poster read ‘Syrians started the Revolution – Assad started the war’ while others made clear what they were calling for; ‘Drop the Food, Not Bombs’ and ‘Medaya is Crying While the World is Denying’

More pictures: Drop Food Not Bombs on Syria


International Times new ‘Issue Zero’ – Mayfair Rooms, Fleet St

Hot from the press – but long sold out

Notorious London underground paper International Times, first published in 1966 and closed down in 1973 (with several re-incarnations and a web site since 2009) started again for its 50th anniversary with a launch party for the 36 page ‘Issue Zero’.

Among those writing for the new issue were stalwarts from its early days, including Heathcote Williams, and the issue was edited by Heathcote Ruthven with subediting by Emily McCarthy, Heather Williams, David Graeber and Heathcote Williams, design by Darren Cullen and art by Nick Victor and Claire Palmer.

Heathcote Williams

More about the issue and more pictures at International Times new ‘Issue Zero’.


Thousands March for Animal Rights – London.

Thursday, August 25th, 2022

Thousands March for Animal Rights

Thousands March for Animal Rights – thousands of vegans marched through London from Westminster to Hyde Park on Saturday 25th August 2018 in the Official Animal Rights March founded by animal rights organisation Surge, calling for an end to animal oppression and urging everyone to stop eating animals and using dairy products.

Vegans say that animal lives matter as much as ours and call for an end to speciesism, and the misuse of animals for food, clothing and sport. There does however seem to be rather less concern about aspects such as the breeding of dogs and other animals as pets. And while horse racing attracts some attention, the last protest that I photographed against that most cruel of all races, the Grand National, attracted only a handful of protesters compared to the thousands on this march.

Specieism – the idea that animal lives matter as much as human lives – isn’t something I can agree with. I firmly believe there is something special about the human species which has come about through evolution and in particular the development of language. While other species can communicate with each other and some develop very intricate systems of cooperation and civilisation, humanity has developed these to a very different level.

It’s that level indeed that makes veganism possible. The lion needs to hunt and eat, killing other species cruelly in order to survive. Nature truly is famously ‘red in tooth and claw’ at virtually every level, and predation is a vital aspect of all ecosystems.

Of course I’m against cruel treatment of animals, whether it is in farming practices, the transport of live animals, fur farming etc. I’ve never eaten foie gras and will never do so, but I still happily consume cows milk knowing that cows have been bred that now produce many times the amount their young offspring need and would experience considerable pain if not milked. And I’ll happily pay the extra for free range eggs while opposing the terrible treatment of chickens kept in horrifically overcrowded chicken houses. Modern farming practises have generally prioritised cutting costs over being kind to animals and while injections and vetinary treatment may have cut disease it has been in the interests of productivity rather than a more overall view of animal welfare.

There are good environmental reasons for eating less meat, though less so for grass-fed livestock and also for reducing the scale of consumption of diary products. It’s welcome that some people decide not to eat these things, but a wholesale adoption of veganism would be highly damaging to ecosystems around the world and change the nature of our countryside. Just imagine a farmyard without animals – and think seriously about the future of soil without farmyard manure.

Those fluffy animals on the posters at many vegan protests are not wild animals but domesticated animals, which only exist as they do because they have been bred to live with humans and to provide us with food. I would be sad to see them disappear, but there would be no reason for there to be any cows, sheep, geese, pigs, chickens etc in our farms and fields if we ceased to eat them (though I wouldn’t miss turkeys at all.) And certainly I’d not want to see more petting zoos. But I would like to see more truly wild animals in our countryside – including wild ponies rather than horses being kept and ridden for pleasure. And keeping animals as pets does seem to me to be abuse of a kind too – and sometimes by kindness.

There are animals that I happily kill, such as the slugs that eat my vegetable crops and the ticks that hop a ride to suck my blood. Others that I’d support the culling of – including deer and the grey squirrels that are destroying young oak trees and other young vegetation (and we are slowly finding that plants have feelings too) though I can see no justification for the killing of badgers. Then there are smaller animals that I kill accidentally by walking along paths or through forests.

I’m an insulin user, and it has kept me alive and reasonably healthy for around the last 20 years. Reasearch on insulin began in the 1880s, though it was only in the 1920s that the first human patients were injected with it. That research was only possible through experiments using animals, mainly dogs. Until 1982 when the first biosynthetic human insulin became available all commercial production of insulin depended the use of cattle and pigs. Much more recently a plant source has been found. Using animals in medical research in this and many other cases has saved millions of lives but of course it should be subject to proper controls and certainly not used for trivial and routine tests.

In the past I have marched with animal rights activists, supporting many of their protests against animal cruelty. And my diet now contains far less meat than it once did. But it would be good to see more of those who come out to march for animal rights also coming out to march for human rights. still suffering much abuse here and elsewhere around the world. We are a species too and even though we now don’t eat each other, people are being killed, tortured, sexually assaulted, imprisoned without trial, sentenced for their political views variously abused and denied their human rights and the necessities of life.

More at Thousands March for Animal Rights.

XR, Hong Kong, Animal Rights & London – 2019

Wednesday, August 17th, 2022

XR, Hong Kong, Animal Rights & London

XR, Hong Kong, Animal Rights & London – 2019 Three years ago today, on Saturday 17th August I made a few journeys around London to photograph protests in Greenwich by Extinction Rebellion and Animal Rights marchers in central London as well as protests supporting Hong Kong’s Freedom marches and Chinese students opposed to them in Westminster.

Royal College and Thames with sailing barge from Greenwich Park, Greenwich. 1982 31p-44: barge, college, palace, river, Thames

My day taking pictures ended in Greenwich Park, where I made the picture at the top of this post, a view looking down the Queen’s House and the Old Royal Naval College and on towards Canary Wharf. I’d made a photograph from a very similar position in 1992 and the pair make an interesting comparison.


XR Rebel Rising March to the Common – Greenwich

XR, Hong Kong, Animal Rights & London

Supporters of South East London Extinction Rebellion met beside the Cutty Sark in Greenwich to march to a two-day festival on Blackheath Common, calling for urgent action on Global climate change.

XR, Hong Kong, Animal Rights & London

Blackheath Common has a long history of involvement in protest. It was here that around 100,000 anti-poll tax rebels gathered under Wat Tyler in 1381, and in 1450 that Jack Cade’s 20,000 Kent and Essex yeomen camped in their revolt against Henry VI’s tax hikes. Neither of these events ended well, nor did the several thousand Cornishmen killed and buried on the common after they rose up against taxes levied to fight the Scots 1497. The Chartists who met here also largely failed, but the Suffragettes did better.

XR, Hong Kong, Animal Rights & London

Ten years earlier, I’d come with Climate Camp to swoop to a secret destination which turned out to be Blackheath Common, and photographed the camp being setup and spent another day there as a part of the Climate Camp documentation team. But that too had failed to spur the UK into any really effective action, though perhaps more lip-service.

The situation by 2019 was clearly critical and Extinction Rebellion were calling on our and other governments to take the urgent actions needed to avoid the extinction of species including our own, and also for local councils to do everything within their powers.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to stay with the marchers all the way to the festival ground as the march started late, waiting for the samba band to arrive. I had to leave them halfway up the hill and rush back down to the station for a train to central London.

XR Rebel Rising March to the Common


Stand with Hong Kong & opposition – Trafalgar Square

My train took me into Charing Cross and I rushed the short distance to Trafalgar Square where I found a rather confusing situation. It took me a few moments to realise that the first group of Chinese protesters I met were supporters of the Chinese government, but the number of Chinese flags they were waving was an undeniable clue.

There are many Chinese students studying at UK universities, providing a very useful source of finance to these institutions. Most of that money comes from the Chinese government or from families that are very wealthy from their Chinese businesses which depend on that government, and as they intend to return to China have no choice but to come and be seen showing their support for China.

I spent a few minutes photographing their protests, then moved on a few yards to a protest with a very different colour, dominated by yellow posters, banners and umbrellas of the Hong Kong Freedom Movement.

Eventually they set off to march down Whitehall, stopping to protest opposite Downing
St. The Chinese students followed them, but police largely kept the two groups on opposite sides of the road, with the Chinese supporters shouting to try and drown out the speakers opposite.

After a rally at Downing St the Hong Kong freedom protesters moved off towards a final rally in Parliament Square – followed too by some of the Chinese who continued to shout and mock them. But I left to go elsewhere.

Stand with Hong Kong & opposition


Official Animal Rights March 2019

I’d missed the start of the vegan Animal Rights march in Hyde Park, but met them and took some pictures as they came to Trafalgar Square, where they halted, blocking all the roads leading in and out of the square.

This march was organised by the vegan activist collective Surge and non-violent civil disobedience movement Animal Rebellion, who say animal lives matter as much as ours and call for an end to speciesism, and the misuse of animals for food, clothing and sport.

Some of the marchers wore t-shirts with the number 269, the number of a calf on an Israeli diary farm whose number Israeli animal rights activists branded themselves with in a 2012 protest after which 269life became a worldwide movement.

Official Animal Rights March 2019


Charing Cross to Greenwich & Back

Deptford Creek

For once my trains to Blackheath and back from Greenwich after photographing the central London protests both had reasonably clean windows, and I took a number of photographs on the outward and return journeys. Also in this section I included the picture from Greenwich Park at the top of this post, along with a couple of others from much the same position.


Charing Cross to Greenwich

XR Rebel Rising Royal Observatory Die-In – Greenwich

From Blackheath Station I rushed to the Rebel Rising festival on Blackheath Common, arriving just in time for the start of a march from the festival to protest at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich Park.

The march proceeded behind a black banner with the text asking the question ARE WE THE LAST GENERATION? Unfortunately at least for the younger members of the marchers, some of whom were in push-chairs the answer could well be YES.

At the Royal Observatory there was a die-in on the area in front of the gates, the site chosen to symbolise we have zero time left and that we need to act now on climate change. Some taking part had clock faces drawn on their faces and the protest was just a few yards to the east of the markers for the Greenwich meridian, zero longitude.

Many of the tourists passing the protest including those going in and out of the Royal Observatory stopped at least for a few moments on the crowded paths to watch and listen, and many expressed their support for the need to take urgent actions to avoid global climate catastrophe.

Rebel Rising Royal Observatory Die-In


Close Slaughterhouses & Naked Bike Ride

Wednesday, June 8th, 2022

Close Slaughterhouses & Naked Bike Ride: I had mixed feelings about both of the protests I photographed on Saturday June 8th 2019. I began with the vegans whose ‘Close all Slaughterhouses’ march was calling for an end to the breeding, fishing and slaughter of animals and then covered the 2019 Naked Bike Ride.


Close all Slaughterhouses – London

It was a slightly uneasy gathering in Leicester Square for me as I felt rather out of place among a crowd of vegans. I’m against cruelty to animals and certainly oppose cruel farming practices, but I still eat some meat and rather more diary products as a part of a varied diet, and I think my shoes may have been leather and my belt certainly was. My lunch in my bag certainly contained both cheese and ham sandwiches and I’d buttered the bread, so I couldn’t eat it while covering the event.

Of course veganism makes a contribution towards reducing our carbon footprint, as vegetable production generally produces much lower amounts of greenhouse gases, although I think there are some exceptions to this. But I think if everyone became a vegan it would have some very undesirable consequences, not least in almost entirely removing currently farmed animals from our landscape. We might be left with just a few cows, pigs and sheep etc in rare-breed petting zoos.

I’d like to see an end to some agricultural practices which have been adopted to produce meat, and I now quite happily pay extra for free-range eggs and grass-fed beef. But some of the slogans on the banners and placards at this protest are I think over-emotional and misleading. Meat is not murder, we don’t steal milk from cows and animals are not “just like us” though they obviously share many characteristics. As I wrote “the human species is very clearly different in some respects.

Nature may sometimes be fluffy and adorable, but it is also often “red in tooth and claw”, often killing most cruelly. Many animals are carnivorous, others like us omnivores.

I’d had enough of the vegans after listening to some of the speeches at their rally in Soho Square and walked away – I was in any case getting rather hungry and found a corner away from them to eat my non-vegan lunch.

Close all Slaughterhouses


London World Naked Bike Ride – South Bank

I’ve never been quite sure that the World Naked Bike Ride is really a protest. As I wrote in 2019 “It’s more a fun ride for people who want to ride around London with no or very few clothes on”, though clearly some of them do want to protest over various issues, including the safety of cyclists on the road, reducing oil dependence and saving the planet.

Nudity doesn’t worry me, though as a photographer I spend some time trying to take pictures which show the event without producing images which might offend the more prudish of editors and publications, which is not easy. I wouldn’t take part myself in the WNBR, but largely because our climate is seldom really suitable for being without clothes; of course not everyone on the ride was entirely naked, but I do feel the cold. So were I to decide to join the ride it would be ‘as naked as you can stand’ rather than ‘as bare as you dare’.

Like most of those watching from the pavements I find the ride both entertaining and interesting showing the incredible variation of the human form rather more emphatically than any normal street crowd.

But overall the ride is in some ways lacking in diversity, with relatively little representation of London’s ethnic communities and this year their seemed an even greater than previous gender imbalance, with perhaps 10 or 20 men for every woman. This isn’t truly represented in my pictures partly because of my greater interest in them, but also because a greater proportion of them have slogans or body paint.

I’d arrived late and didn’t take many pictures before the ride moved off – there are a few more on My London Diary. I didn’t bother to follow them or try to meet them later on their route but went to a nearby pub for a drink with a friend before making my way home.

London World Naked Bike Ride


Holloway, Nakba, Refugees & Topshop

Saturday, May 14th, 2022

Holloway, Nakba, Refugees & Topshop – Six years ago, the 14th May 2016 was also a Saturday, and like today there was a protests for Nakba Day, the ‘day of the catastrophe’, remembering the 80% of Palestinians forced to leave their homes between December 1947 and January 1949, but also several others on the streets of London which I covered.


Reclaim Holloway – Holloway Road

Holloway, Nakba, Refugees & Topshop

Local MP and Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn spoke outside London Met on Holloway Rd at the start of the march by Islington Hands Off Our Public Services, Islington Kill the Housing Bill and the Reclaim Justice Network to HMP Holloway demanding that when the prison is closed the site remains in public hands, and that the government replace the prison with council housing and the vital community services needed to prevent people being caught up in a damaging criminal justice system.

Holloway, Nakba, Refugees & Topshop

A group of around a hundred then marched from there to Holloway Prison, apparently already largely emptied of prisoners, and held a long rally there with speeches by local councillors, trade unionists and campaigning groups. Islington Council would like to see the prison site and adjoining housing estate then owned by HM Prisons used for social housing rather than publicly owned land being sold for private development.

Holloway, Nakba, Refugees & Topshop

The Ministry of Justice sold the site to housing association Peabody for £81.5m in 2019 and their plans include 985 homes and offices, with 60% of so-called affordable housing as well as a women’s building with rehabilitation facilities reflecting the site’s history. The development stalled in February 2022 with Peabody saying they were unable to afford the money needed to fit out the women’s centre.

Reclaim Holloway


68th Anniversary Nabka Day – Oxford Street

Protesters made their way along Oxford St from their regular Saturday picket outside Marks & Spencers, handing out leaflets and stopping outside various shops supporting the Israeli state for speeches against the continuing oppression of the Palestinian people and attempts to criminalise and censor the anti-Zionist boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

Nabka Day, the ‘day of the catastrophe’ remembering the 80% of Palestinians forced out of their homes between December 1947 and January 1949 is commemorated annually on May 15th, but the protest was a day earlier when Oxford Street would be busier. The Palestinians were later prevented by Israeli law from returning to their homes or reclaiming their properties, with many still living in refugee camps.

The protesters included a number of Jews who are opposed to the continuing oppression of the Palestinians by the Israeli government. A small group of counter protesters shouted insults and displayed Israeli flags, accusing the protesters of anti-Semitism but the protest was clearly directed against unfair and illegal policies pursued by the Israeli government rather than being anti-Semitic. The counter-protesters tried unsuccessfully to provoke confrontation, standing in front of the marchers and police had at times to move them away.

68th Anniversary Nabka Day


Vegan Earthlings masked video protest – Trafalgar Square

Vegans wearing white masks stood in a large circle in Trafalgar Square holding laptops and tablets showing a film about the mistreatment of animals in food production, bullfighting, etc. The protest was organised by London Vegan Actions and posters urged people to stop eating meat to save the environment and end animal cruelty.

Vegan Earthlings masked video protest


Refugees Welcome say protesters – Trafalgar Square

Another small group of protesters stood in front of the National Gallery held posters calling for human rights, fair treatment and support for refugees. Some held a banner with the message ‘free movement for People Not Weapons’.

Refugees Welcome say protesters


Topshop protest after cleaners sacked – Oxford St

Finally I was back on Oxford St where cleaners union United Voices of the World (UVW) was holding one of protests outside Topshop stores around the country following the suspension of two cleaners who protested for a living wage; one has now been sacked. Joining them in the protest were other groups including Class War, cleaners from CAIWU and other trade unionists including Ian Hodson, General Secretary of the BWAFU and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell.

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, MP and Ian Hodson, Baker’s Unions General Secretary outside Topshop

The Oxford Street Topshop was heavily defended by police, as well as by illegal extra security guards wearing no ID. Several hundred protesters held up banners and placards and with the help of the police blocked the entrance to the shop, though the protesters made no serious attempt to enter the building.

Jane Nicholl of Class War poses on a BMW as they block Oxford Circus

After a while some of the protesters, led by the Class War Womens Death Brigade, moved onto the road, blocking it for some minutes as police tried to get them to move. The whole group of protesters then moved to block the Oxford Circus junction for some minutes until a large group of police arrived and fairly gently persuaded them to move.

UVW’s Petros Elia argues with a police officer outside John Lewis

They moved off, but rather than going in the direction the police had urged them, marched west along Oxford St to John Lewis, where they protested outside the entrance, where cleaners have a longstanding dispute. The cleaners who work there are outsourced to a cleaning contractor who John Lewis allow to pay low wages, with poor conditions of service and poor management, disclaiming any responsibility for these workers who keep its stores running.

There were some heated exchanges between protesters and police but I saw no arrests and soon the protesters marched away to the Marble Arch Topshop branch to continue their protest.

Topshop protest after cleaners sacked


London 14 May 2016

Friday, May 14th, 2021

Class War at UVW protest against Topshop sacking and suspensions of cleaners

May 14 has always been a special day for me, and five years ago I celebrated my birthday on the streets of London photographing various protests around town before going home to a more private event. The day’s work ended for me on Oxford St, where the United Voices of the World union were protesting against Philip Green’s Topshop after members who work as cleaners were suspended and one sacked for their union activities – demanding the London Living Wage. The protest was supported by other groups including Class War, cleaners from the CAIWU and other trade unionists including Ian Hodson, General Secretary of the BWAFU and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell. Although Philip Green makes millions, the cleaners were on the national minimum of £6.70 per hour, nothing like a enough to live on in London.

Police were out in force to prevent the protesters entering the Topshop store and there was a noisy protest on the pavement for some time facing the line of police before Class War led the protesters into the centre of the road to block Oxford St.

Police tried to clear the road, and began threatening arrests and the protesters decided to march west down Oxford St, briefly blocking Oxford Circus

before stopping to protest outside John Lewis, where the UVW have been campaigning for several years to get the cleaners recognised as a part of the workforce with similar respect and conditions of service to other John Lewis staff.

There were heated arguments as police manhandled some of the protesters there, but things calmed down a little and the campaigners moved on for a final protest outside the Marble Arch Topshop.

Things seemed to be coming to an end and I was late for dinner so I hurried away.

My day’s work had begun in Holloway, where Islington Hands Off Our Public Services, Islington Kill the Housing Bill and the Reclaim Justice Network were holding a rally and march to HMP Holloway, demanding that when the prison closed the site be used for much-needed social housing and community facilities, rather than for expensive private flats. Local MP and Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn rode up on his bike to speak at the rally.

I moved on from the rally at the end of the march outside Holloway Prison to Oxford St, where the Revolutionary Communist Group and friends were reminding shoppers of the continuing oppression of the Palestinian people, and opposing attempts to criminalise and censor the anti-Zionist boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. The rolling picket urged shoppers to boycott stores which support and fund Israel, including Marks and Spencer, and stopped for brief speeches in front of some of them for short speeches.

A small group of militant Zionists had come along to wave Israeli flags and shout insults at them. The protesters (who included several Jews and some Palestinians) made clear that this was not an anti-Semitic protest but against some actions of the Israeli government and it took place the day before Nabka Day, the ‘day of the catastrophe’, remembering when roughly 80% of the Palestinian population were forced to leave their homes between December 1947 and January 1949, and later prevented by Israeli law from returning to their homes, or claiming their property. This year the attacks on Palestinians in Jerusalem have largely been precipitated by the continuing attempts by Jewish settlers to displace the Palestinian population of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem. Founded in 1865, the area became home to Jerusalem’s Muslim elite, but in 1948 became home to Palestinian refugees from Jerusalem.

Vegans had come to Trafalgar Square holding laptops and tablets and wearing masks to show the film ‘Earthlings’ which includes scenes of horrific cruelty to animals and calling for an end to the farming and eating of animals. Some also pointed out the contribution that becoming vegan could make towards solving the climate crisis as Vegan dietts use less water, land and grain and produce less CO2.

Also on the North Terrace of Trafalgar Square were a small group of protesters standing in front of the National Gallery who held posters calling for human rights, fair treatment and support for refugees. Some held a banner with the message ‘free movement for People Not Weapons’.

More about all these protests on My London Diary:

Topshop protest after cleaners sacked
Refugees Welcome say protesters
Vegan Earthlings masked video protest
68th Anniversary Nabka Day
Reclaim Holloway

Two Parades

Tuesday, December 3rd, 2019

I can’t now remember why I was walking up Whitehall on a Saturday morning in July, but I think I must have gone to photograph a protest that had been advertised to take place in Parliament Square that didn’t happen. That would not be too unusual, as it is very easy to create an event on Facebook, but actually getting people to turn up is often harder. And although quite a few people may click to say they are interested or going they may well not actually turn up.

Fortunately in London though some things may not happen, there are others that take place which I’ve not known about beforehand, and if I have any interest in them I will stop and take a few pictures.

Fourteen years earlier, I’d photographed a Belgian commemoration of victims of the Second World War at the Cenotaph, with some veterans and their widows in attendance. Apparently this annual celebration had started before that war, following the death of King Albert I of Belgium, a keen climber who died after falling down a Belgian mountain in February 1934. Albert’s uncle, King George V, decided to grant them the annual ceremony to honour him and the Belgian contribution to the Great War.

Judging from my photographs the event back in 2005 was very much less formal than this year’s more military event, where barriers kept me off the road and behind the curious tourists lining them. This year I hardly stopped to take pictures as I was on my way along the street, a little annoyed that I couldn’t catch a bus instead of walking to Leicester Square.

The parade from Leicester Square that I was hurrying to, the The Vegan For Life Parade, was described as a fun parade through central London to promote a vegan lifestyle. While not wishing to be anti-vegan – and I certainly think eating less meat and other animal products is a good thing – fun is not a word I associate with vegans, who usually seem to be in hectoring mode, so a ‘fun’ protest seemed a good idea, and probably more effective at converting people to the cause.

And while there was just a little of that self-righteous vegan evangelistic zeal many of the posters and placards were rather more humourous and less confrontational than at other vegan events I’ve photographed.

I couldn’t stay for the march, which started late, as I wanted to go back to Extinction Rebellion’s East London Uprising where an event was about to start on Hackney Fields.

Belgians commemorate Second World War victims (scroll down the page)
Belgian Army Cenotaph Parade

Vegan for Life Parade


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.

There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, please share on social media.
And small donations via Paypal – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.


Dairy Scary?

Sunday, November 10th, 2019

I don’t know how much of our milk and cheese actually comes from industrial dairy farms like that shown in the picture above.

According to the RSPCA only around 8% of UK milk comes from cows “housed all year round regardless of milk yield, time of calving and so on”. The RSPCA has a lengthy document for farmers setting the RSPCA Welfare Standards for Dairy Cattle, and a shorter and less technical  The welfare of dairy cows information sheet – February 2017 (PDF 654KB) which very much reflects their concern for animal welfare.

Of course these documents are only advisory and again I’m not sure what proportion of our milk and diary products come from farms which follow them, though I suspect it is fairly high. It is very much in farmer’s interests to look after thier animals, and those farmers that I have know personally are very much concerned and involved with them.

I’d like to see welfare standards such as this being legally enforced rather than simply advisory. But to label the whole dairy industry as ‘Scary Dairy’ seems to me misleading. Some of the claims that Viva! and other vegans make simply make no sense; no cow produces enough calves to need the 14,000 pints of milk the average dairy cow provides each year, and there are certainly no calves starving from lack of milk.

Of course farm animals are slaughtered at some point. It is the nature of the beast; farmers breed them only for economic reasons, not to gratify animal lovers (except for those very few kept as pets. They only exist because they produce food and other animal products that farmers can sell. Of course we should have strict laws that eliminate unnecessary suffering governing how animals are killed and ensure that they are enforced.

I remain irredeemably ‘speciesist’. We are in so many respects different from all other species although of course we have much in common, including a high proportion of our DNA, having evolved over thousands and millions of years from other species (which have also evolved, but differently.)

I did my best to photograph the Viva! protest and to caption the images that I filed to represent their views, reporting as objectively as I could. Mostly I chose to photograph things that I view positively, but while I support better animal welfare I think that the approach taken in this campaign is highly emotional and both dishonest and disingenuous.

  There are a few more pictures at Viva! protest Coca-Cola Dairy Farm.


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.

There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, please share on social media.
And small donations via Paypal – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.