Hunger Strikers & Sotheby’s: Ten years ago today this protest over Palestine was about Palestinians on hunger strike in Israeli jails against the use of indefinite illegal administration. Later I went to Mayfair where cleaners and their supporters were protesting for the reinstatement of two cleaners sacked and victimised because of their trade union activities.
BBC protest over Palestinian Hunger Strikes – Broadcasting House
The hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners Muhammad Allan and Uday Isteiti held in Israeli jails under administrative detention was in its sixth week, but the BBC had failed to report this and other hunger strikes.
So Innovative Minds in cooperation with The Prisoner’s Centre for Studies in Jerusalem had come to the BBC to protest against the continuing pro-Israel bias among management and some reporters. It’s a bias that has often been confirmed by academic studies and is continuing, though the recent use of starvation in Gaza and its appalling consequences we have all seen has resulting in some toughening of the BBC reporting on Israel’s war crimes.
Administrative detention allows people to be held without any real evidence and without trial and although in Palestine it is supposedly time-limited, in practice many are immediately re-arrested when their sentence ends to begin another term and so is in practice indefinite.
As I concluded in 2015: “Many who used to regard the BBC as a great institution and praised its high standards are now disillusioned and feel that they need to listen and watch other broadcasters to get an impartial and more complete view of both overseas and UK news.”
The BBC has some fine reporters but they often come under pressure from their managers – who themselves are under pressure from powerful lobbying groups and politicians with strong sympathies for the Zionist cause, including leading figures in our government. But they also misinterpret their ideas of impartiality, often ignoring the facts of the situation in a misguided attempt to show both sides. As it has been said “there are no two sides to genocide.”
Early in 2015 the United Voices of the World union had come to an agreement with the company who then employed the outsourced cleaners at auction house Sotheby’s which had guaranteed the workers non-toxic products, reinstatements, fairer schedules and the London Living Wage (backdated.)
Sotheby’s, who make huge profits by selling art works and other items, decided to sabotage that deal by ending the contract with that company and starting a new contract with Servest, who decided not to honour the agreement that had been reached earlier.
This led the UVW to organise a series of protests, including a large and noisy one outside a “blockbuster £130m art sale” on July 1st. Sotheby’s responded by sacking four of the most active trade union members who had taken part in the protest, though later were forced by threats of legal action to reinstate two of them.
The protest on 31 July outside another auction demanded the reinstatement of the ‘Sotheby’s 2‘, as well as repeating the cleaners demands for proper sick pay, paid holidays and pensions and the London Living Wage.
The UVW continued with protests in Autumn 2015 and were able to announce in early 2016 that “ALL outsourced workers at Sotheby’s, including cleaners, caterers, porters and security guards would receive both the London Living Wage and contractual (much improved) sick pay.”
Filipino Health Workers, Coal Line, Tax Dodgers, Biafra & National Gallery: Ten years ago today, Saturday 30th May 2015, I began at the Daily Mail offices in Kensington where Filipino NHS workers were protesting about scandalous insults the rag had made, then went to Peckham to view the proposals for a linear park confusingly named and promoted as the ‘Coal Line’. From there I came back to central London for a UK Uncut banner drop on Westminster Bridge against tax dodgers, a Trafalgar Square protest by Biafrans and finally a rally there by staff on strike at the National Gallery.
Filipino Nurses tell Daily Mail to apologise – Kensington
Filipino health workers came to protest atthe Daily Mail over its reporting of the Victoriano Chua case which insulted Filipino NHS workers as a whole despite the vital contribution they make to the NHS. The demand the Daily Mail apologise for its racist comments and recognise the contribution that they make.
As a patient in intensive care in 2003 I had been very impressed by the care and attention I received from a Filipino nurse, and others when I was on the general ward had all been “competent, committed and caring” – along with those of other nationalities. We should be training more British nurses and improving conditions to keep them working for the NHS, but without staff from abroad at all levels the NHS would have collapsed long ago.
The Chelsea Fringe festival began in 2012 as an unofficial fringe, an alternative gardens festival to the annual Chelsea Flower Show and has since become an international event. Anyone can take part so long as “it’s on topic, legal and interesting, it can go in the Fringe, no matter how outlandish or odd it may seem.” It is “unsponsored, unfunded, unbranded and wholly independent, with no medals or judging committees. It relies entirely on volunteer efforts and survives on its registration fees.“
Rye Lane – the walk would start here opposite ZA Afro Foods and Peckham Rye Station
The Coal Line project began in 2014 and became a registered charity backed by many local people as well as TfL, Southwark Council, The Peckham Settlement, Sustrans and the Mayor of London for a 900 metre linear park linking Peckham Rye Station on Rye Land with Queens Road Peckham station.
Derek Jarman memorial garden
It seemed a good idea and would provide useful local short cuts for walkers and cyclists as well as a link in longer leisure walks at a relatively low cost. But its advocates over-hyped it tremendously, comparing it to the ‘High Line’ in New York.
Copeland Park
I wrote in 2015:
“More interesting than the Coal Line are both the Bussey Building in the former industrial estate Copeland Park and the multistorey car park. Saved from demolition by a locals, the Bussey Building, reached by an alley between shops in Rye Lane, houses small businesses, artists, faith groups, art spces and a rooftop bar.The multi-storey car park on its upper floors now has a cafe, a local radio performance space and another rooftop bar, next to the Derek Jarman memorial garden, as well as better views than the Bussey across Peckham and to central London.
Cossall Walk
Part of the Coal Line is already open to the public as a small nature reserve, left by the railway line after a scheme for a massive inner-ring road was fortunately abandoned. Its legacy is a hefty wall along part of the edge of the service road by the Cossall Walk line of flats.”
Protesters at Waterloo – Rich get Richer, Poor Get Poor – Osborne and Cameron
UK Uncut supporters marched from Waterloo to Westminster Bridge where they spread a large piece of cloth on the roadway and painted a banner telling Parliament that collecting dodged taxes would bring in more than cutting public services.
Painting the banner on Westminster BridgeThe message on the banner was £12 bn more cuts £120 bn tax dodged – AUSTERITY IS A LIE’.
I had to run to the southern end of the bridge and then rush down the Albert Embankment to photograph the banner hanging from the bridge along with the smoke from flares. It was perhaps the least interesting photograph of the event and it would have been rather better had they put it over the opposite side of the bridge to have the Houses of Parliament as a background.
While this was happening on Westminster Bridge, there was another protest against Tory plans to repeal the Human Rights Act closer to Parliament which I was sorry to have missed, with just a few people still standing on the roadway.
Biafrans had come to Trafalgar Square on the anniversary of their declaration of independence in 1967 which began a long and bloody civil war in which as well as those killed in fighting many Biafran civilians died of starvation.
Death follows Tony Blair of Britain
Biafrans say that the Igbo Kingdom of Nri lasted from the 10th century until 1911, although it was incorporated into Southern Nigeria by the 1884 Berlin Conference. Britain decided to unite Northern and Southern Nigeria in 1914 as the North was in financial difficulties.
Many at the protest wore t-shirts with Biafran flag and coat of arms and waved Biafran flags, still demanding independence for their country, as well as remembering those who died in the Ngerian-Biafran War.
Mass rally Supports National Gallery Strikers – Trafalgar Square
Workers at the National Gallery were on strike against plans to privatise staffing at the gallery and were supported at a rally with many trade unionists including speakers and in the body of the square.
They were also demanding the reinstatement of Candy Udwin, a PCS rep at the National Gallery, who had been sacked for her trade union activities over the privatisation. Speakers included PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka and comedian and activist Kate Smurthwaite.
Exhibitions in the Sainsbury wing have already been guarded by privatised staff, and the security there is also run by the private company. At the end of the rally the crowd moved to protest at the Sainsbury Wing. Police stopped them entering the gallery and the doors were locked.
Guantanamo, National Gallery, Elephant, Aylesbury & Lisa; Ten years ago Thursday 5th February 2015 was a long and interesting day for me, with a couple of protests, a short walk around London, an estate occupation and a memorable book launch.
Close Guantanamo – 8 Years of protest – US Embassy
A small group from the London Guantánamo Campaign was celebrating 8 years of holding monthly protests at the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square.
Among those protesting were four people who had been taking part in the protests there for 8 years.
No Privatisation At National Gallery – Trafalgar Square and DCMS, Whitehall
The National Gallery had told 400 of its 600 staff who are responsible for the security of the paintings and the public, provide information about the collection, organise school bookings and look after the millions of visitors each year that they are no longer to be employed by the gallery and will instead become employes of a private company.
They knocked at the door but management did not answer
A private company had already taken over “temporarily” to run services in a third of the gallery.
Workers at the gallery had staged a 5 day strike against the privatisation and were incensed when Candy Udwin, one of the senior PCS union reps and a member of the team taking part in negotiations with management at ACAS, was suspended, accused of breaching commercial confidentiality, and they demanded her re-instatement.
Candy Udwin
The National Gallery was then the only major museum or gallery in London still not paying the London Living Wage. Staff were already living on poverty pay and the privatisation would threaten pay and worsen the conditions – sick pay, holiday pay, pensions, hours of work etc – of these loyal and knowledgeable staff.
When nobody came to the door as they tried to deliver their 40,000 signature petition against privatisation a group went into the Sainsbury Wing to tray and deliver it. Security tried to get them to leave. Nobody from the gallery would come down to recieve the petition and eventually the strikers handed it over to the Head of Security who promised to deliver it to management personally.
Jeremy Corbyn joins the marchers
The strikers and their supporters then marched through Trafalgar Square and Whitehall to the Dept of Culture, Media and Sport, then in Parliament Street, where the minister concerned had agreed to receive a copy of the petition and three of them were allowed to take it in. Here there was a short rally with speakers including Jeremy Corbyn MP.
I made a few pictures as I walked from the Bakerloo Line station at Elephant & Castle to the Aylesbury Estate and afterwards on my way back to the station. The shopping centre has now been demolished and new buildings have sprung up on its site,
This strange building is an electricity substation which is still there, although there is no longer a roundabout around it. It was built as a memorial to Michael Faraday, ‘The Father of Electricity’ who was born a few hundred yards away in 1791.
Chartridge occupied since the previous Saturday in a protest for housing in London
Southwark Council’s Aylesbury Estate was one of the UK’s largest council estates, built between 1963 and 1977 with over 2,700 homes. Lack of proper maintenance by the council and its use by them as a sink estate had led to it getting a reputation for crime, exaggerated by its use in filming TV crime series and films there not least because of its convenient location.
Access to the occupied block – I didn’t attempt it
It was on the Aylesbury Estate that Tony Blair got in on the act making his first speech as Prime Minister promising to fix estates like this and improve conditions for the urban poor through regeneration of council estates.
‘Respect Aylesbury Ballot – Stop the Demolition Now!’ Residents voted overwhelming for refurbishment not redevelopment
The buildings were actually well-designed and structurally sound on a well-planned estate with plenty of green space, but having been built in the sixties and 70s needed bringing up to date particularly in terms of insulation and double glazing. Southwark Council had also repeatedly failed to carry out necessary maintenance, particularly on the district heating system which they had allowed to become unreliable. But many residents liked living on the estate and when given the choice voted by a large majority for refurbishment rather than redevelopment. I visited several homes on other occasions and was quite envious, and the residents clearly loved living there.
Southwark Council responded by claiming the refurbishment would cost several times more than independent estimates suggested and went ahead with plans to eventually demolish the lot. Given the large number of homes involved the process was expected to last 20 years (later increased to 25 and likely to take even longer.) The first fairly small phase was completed in 2013, and the homes that were occupied in 2015 were in Phase 2.
I wasn’t able to access the flats that were occupied as it would have meant a rather dangerous climb to the first floor which I decided was beyond me, but I did meet some of the occupiers and went with them and some local residents to distribute leaflets about a public meeting to other flats in the estate.
Many residents support the occupiers and knew that they would lose their comfortable homes in a good location when they are finally forced to move. Some will be rehoused by Southwark, though mainly in less convienient locations and smaller properties, but many are on short term tenancies which do not qualify them for rehousing and will have to find private rented accommodation elsewhere. Those who have acquired their flats will only be offered compensation at far less than the cost of any similar accommodation in the area and will have to move much further from the centre of London.
While the volunteers were posting leaflets on one of the upper floors of the largest block on the estate, Wendover, I took some pictures to show the extensive views residents enjoyed. This was hindered by the fact that the windows on the walkways were thick with dust, possibly not cleaned since the block was built and not opening enough to put a camera through. Then fortunately I found a broken window that give me a clear view.
Getting By – Lisa’s Book Launch – Young Foundation, Bethnal Green
Ken Loach, Jasmine Stone and Lisa McKenzie, author of ‘Getting By’ talk at the book launch
Lisa McKenzie’s book ‘Getting By‘ is the result of her years of study from the inside of the working class district of Nottingham where she lived and worked for 22 years, enabling her to view the area from the inside and to gather, appreciate and understand the feelings and motivations of those who live there in a way impossible for others who have researched this and similar areas.
Jasmine Stone speaks about Focus E15 and Lisa and others hold a Class War banner
On the post in My London Diary I write much more about the opening – and of course there are many more pictures as well as a little of my personal history.
Cleaners protests, UK father in Israeli Jail – On Friday 18th November 2016 I went with members of the Independent Workers Union CAIWU to protests at three companies over their treatment of cleaners before a protest over the abduction by Israel, torture amd imprisonment of a British national father of five.
Cleaners In Lloyds Against Racist Sacking
CAIWU, the Cleaners & Allied Independent Workers Union is an independent grass roots workers union helping to improve the lives of cleaners across the UK. Many of the workers who clean the offices of London’s many prestigious offices are employed by cleaning companies who pay minimum wage and treat their workers abdominally with bullying and arbitrary management and lousy conditions of service, often failing to provide safe working conditions.
Respectable and prestigious companies who would never employ people on such terms nevertheless contract out their cleaning to companies who do so on their behalf. Many cleaners who tried joining our major unions found that these were more concerned with taking their union dues than fighting for their rights and set up several grass roots unions to represent them more actively in the workplace.
CAIWU is one of these and has had considerable success in getting workers a living wage and improving their conditions, as well as defending them against discrimination.
Following the sacking of two members who cleaned Lloyd’s but were employed by Principle Cleaning Services, a company which Lloyd’s outsources its cleaning to, members of CAIWU went with posters, vuvuzelas and a powerful megaphone to protest noisily inside the foyer of the Lloyd’s building at lunchtime.
The security officer who was pushing Alberto suddenly dives to the floor, pretending he has been hit
Two black workers were disciplined and dismissed from the site by Principle Cleaning Services following a window cleaning accident. CAIWU say that white workers involved in a similar accident were left off without even a warning and that this is a clear case of racist discrimination. They also say that another African worker, a CAIWU member, was also recently dismissed for trivial reasons because of his trade union activities.
After a brief protest inside the building in which a security guard began to assault some of them and then dived to the floor claiming falsely he had been hit they left and continued their noisy protest outside.
Next the CAIWU group made its way to Mace in Moorgate, where they again rushed into the lobby for a protest against the cleaning contractor there, Dall Cleaning Services.
Here they complained about nepotism with a cleaning supervisor roster made up of five members of the same family. The also say that after Dall had promised cleaners the London Living Wage they promptly reduced the working conditions and also dismissed two cleaners without notice or proper procedures. They had come to demand the reinstatement of the two workers dismissed and also proper conditions of service and working conditions.
Again after a brief protest inside the lobby they left and continued the protest outside for a few minutes before catching a bus to Holborn.
Again at Claranet’s offices CAIWU briefly occupied the lobby for a brief protest leaving when security began pushing them around to continue their protest on the pavement outside.
The cleaners here are employed by NJC under a contract by Claranet, and both NJC and Claranet have ignored the union’s attempts to negotiate for the London Living Wage and have confirmed they have no intention of considering to pay this.
The union has called on Claranet which claims to be an ethical company to insist the cleaners are paid the London Living wage now.
Release British father from Israeli Jail – G4S HQ, Westminster
Protesters pose for a selfie with Laila Sharary, wife of the British father held by the Israeli military
Human rights group Inminds were protesting outside the headquarters of British security company G4S over the abduction by Israel and subsequent torture of British national and father of five, Fayez Sharary.
The protest took place at G4S because the company trains Israel’s police forces and was at the time responsible for the security of Israel’s prison. Protests like this and pressure by the BDS movement led to G4S ending its contracts with the prisons in December 2016 and in June 2023 the world’s largest private security company Allied Universal, which owns G4S, announce it was selling all its remaining business in apartheid Israel.
An image projected on the neighbouring building shows Fayez Sharary with his daughter
Sharary had gone to the West Bank for a family visit and was arrested by Israeli forces when leaving on 15th September and tortured for 3 weeks by Israeli secret police Shin Bet to force a confession.
Laila Sharary and their 3 year old daughter were also arrested but released after 5 hours
At a military trail an Israeli judge declared this confession worthless and pointed out that several of the charges against him were for activities which were not illegal, ordering his release. But he was instead held in a G4S secured prison and a few days later the military returned him to court and got the judge’s order set aside.
Torture is not a crime in Israel and the insist the UN Conventions Against Torture which they have signed do not apply to Palestinians. The UN treatment centre for victims of torture in the occupied Palestine territories treated 845 Palestinians in 2014, including 317 women and 135 children.
Laila Shahary reads out a statement
Sharary is a British citizen who has lived in this country for over 23 years but he has received no support from the British Embassy and had no legal support at either of his military trials.
March 8th – Women Strike And Protest. Last year on International Women’s Day I published a long post, International Women’s Day Marches with images from my coverage of them from 2002 until 2020. This year I look back five years to Thursday 8th March 2018 when I covered a wide range of protests, most of which were linked to International Women’s Day
Shut Guantanamo at new US Embassy – US Embassy, Nine Elms
This was the first protest outside the new US Embassy where they intend to continue the regular monthly protests which they have had outside the old embassy in Grosvenor Square since 2007 until the illegal and immoral US prison camp is shut down and all the prisoners released.
Normally these protests take place on the first Thursday of every month, but in March 2018 the protest scheduled for March 1st was postponed for a week because of snow. Because of the change of date some regular protesters were unable to attend and the protest started a little later than usual as some had problems finding the new location. This was the only event not connected with International Women’s Day I covered on the day.
In March 2018, 41 prisoners remained held at Guantanamo. There was no evidence against most of those held and tortured there that would stand up in any court of law, often simply a matter of suspicion or hearsay or desperate statements made under extreme torture. Many were simply foreigners in the region seized to gain cash rewards from the US forces.
Global Women’s Strike had organised a mock trial of the UK Family Courts in an International Women’s Day protest in front of Parliament.
Among those who spoke were mothers whose children had been unjustly taken away, and statements from others were also read out, along with some shocking comments made in court by judges.
The UK has the highest rate of adoptions in Europe, almost all without consent of their birth family. Families of colour, immigrants and disabled are all disproportionately affected and in some working class areas 50% of children are referred to social services.
Poverty, often the result of benefit cuts and sanctions and poor housing conditions especially in temporary accommodation is often mistaken for neglect and the help mandated under the 1989 Childrens Act is seldom available. Children are often simply taken into care and then put up for adoption even though they have mothers or grandmothers who are capable of good parenting and only need support.
The campaigners say that victims of domestic abuse are often accused of ‘failing to protect’ their children and vague charges such as putting children at risk of future emotional harm and neglect are used by the secret courts to remove children from mothers and grandmothers. They want hearings with proper public scrutiny and an end to the gagging of mothers and familys, a great use of kinship carers and the proper implementation of the 1989 Children Act, and the Care Act 2014 which entitles disabled mothers to extra help.
Parliamentary officer Black Rod sent police to try to shut down the protest, but the organisers showed them documents to say they had permission for the protest and to use a megaphone. They seemed puzzled but left.
This was the big event of the day and included speeches about a wide range of causes. As the organisers said the “Women’s Strike is a strike for solidarity between women – women of colour, indigenous, working class, disabled, migrant, Muslim, lesbian, queer and trans women” and “is about realising the power we already hold – activating and nourishing resistance.“
Many of the women present went on to other protests elsewhere including several protests in support of cleaners at the TopShop and The Royal Opera in Covent Garden, and cinema workers at Picturehouse, calling for an end to immigration detention an in solidarity with the Yarl’s Wood hunger strikers, for Unilever to withdraw its investment in Myanmar where its presence supports a government that has brutally raped, tortured and killed many Rohingya, and supporting sex workers by calling for the decriminalisation of prostitution and I also went to cover some of these
Solidarity with Yarl’s Wood hunger strikers – Home Office
At the Home Office protesters showed solidarity with those held in Yarl’s Wood on International Women’s Day, in particular with those who had began a hunger strike 15 days ago against their imprisonment and the conditions and treatment by the detention centre staff and the Home Office.
Since then the strike has gathered momentum and escalated into an all-out strike: work strikes, occupations, and a general refusal to cooperate, and long lists of the detainees demands have been published by Detained Voices.
Reinstate the Royal Opera House 6 – Royal Opera, Covent Garden
Six members of grassroots independent workers union CAIWU were fired by cleaning services company Kier for their jobs at the Royal Opera House, another disciplined and a sixth was on final written warning. They were clearly being victimised folloing successful trade union action which had forced Kier to pay its workers there the London Living Wage.
The large and loud action with union members augmented by women from the Women’s Strike blocked Drury Lane for some minutes. Police arrived, talked to the protesters and then went inside to talk to the managers inside before emerging, carefully removing poster and fliers the protesters had left on their car before driving off. The protesters later moved back into Covent Garden Market leaving the road free.
Women from the Women’s Strike called on Unilever to disinvest from Myanmar where they have a $667 million investment.
The military government there are committing systematic rape and other torture with total impunity as part of their genocide against the Rohingya people. Unilever claims, especially in its marketing for Dove products to respect the dignity and rights of women and girls and says it “aims to improve safety for women and girls in the communities where they operate.”
On Wednesday 13th February 2013, ten years ago today, I photographed three protests in Westminster and one on Holloway Road in north London outside London Metropolitan University.
Shaker Aamer – 11 Years in Guantanamo – Parliament Square
Opposite Parliaments people gathered to mark 11 years since London resident Shaker Aamer was flown to Guantánamo from Afghanistan. He was still being held and tortured there daily despite having been cleared for release by the US over 5 years ago.
Shaker arrived at Guantanamo on 14th February 2002, having been captured by bandits and sold to the US military while working for a charity in Afghanistan. He was still held and routinely tortured in Guantanamo despite being cleared for release five years earlier as there was no case against him. His youngest son had been born the same day in London where his wife and four children were living.
A line of protesters held banners across the whole long frontage of Parliament Square facing the Houses of Parliament, with others around the edges of the square handing out fliers. Many people passing were surprised to find that prisoners were still being held there after Obama’s promise to close the camp down, which he appears to have made little effort to keep.
Continued torture in the camp meant that his health was rapidly failing. Among those at the protest organised by the Save Shaker Campaign and the London Guantánamo Campaign as Green MP Caroline Lucas who held a banner before dashing back to the Commons for Prime Minister’s Questions. The protesters s were still standing there in the freezing cold when I left an hour and a half after the protest had started.
Prison Officers Protest Against Cuts – Old Palace Yard
A hundred or so prison officers protested against prison closures, overcrowding and privatisation outside the Houses of Parliament after briefing MPs on the dangers of the prison closure programme.
Prison doesn’t work because our prisons are overcrowded and underfunded. It punishes people but almost entirely fails to reform them, to provide them with skills, support and opportunities for when they leave prison – and too many soon return. Our prisons are a training ground for criminality. Government cuts and handing over prisons to be run for profit simply make things worse.
London Met is a much maligned university largely because it has prided itself on giving chances to many of the more deprived members of the community. It has often ranked high for its teaching quality and giving students greater personal attention than better regarded universities.
The protest outside its Holloway Road buildings in North London was against the suspension of Max Watson, Unison branch chair and Jawad Botmeh, the elected staff governor on false charges. The university had also threatened to de-recognise Unison.
No reasons were given for the suspension which was said to be over a ‘serious matter of concern’ relating to ‘gross misconduct’, but it was thought to relate to the appointment of Botmeh to the staff of the Working Lives Research Institute five years earlier.
Botmeh, a London-based Palestinian science graduate, was arrested in 1995 in connection with a bomb attack on the Israeli embassy the previous year. There was no direct evidence connecting him to the bombing but he was sentenced to 20 years in what was widely seen as a miscarriage of justice. His convictions were declared when he was appointed as a researcher by London Met after his release. The two men, along with another man suspended later were re-instated the following month.
Christian peace activists and friends held their annual Ash Wednesday liturgy at the Ministry of Defence in London, calling for repentance and taking symbolic actions including some who risked arrest by marking the buildings with charcoal.
During the service in front of the Ministry people tied purple ribbons on a cross and prayers were said for the victims of ware and the warmongers called on to repent and change their ways.
There was then a march around the war minstry before the group returned to write the word ‘REPENT’ in water and ashes on the pavement outside and the liturgy continued,
ending with a large circle in the adjoining Embankment gardens.
As the service ended, police briefly held a woman who had jumped over a fence and begun to write a cross and the word Repent on the Defence Ministry wall in charcoal. She was stopped with the word half written, and after a few minutes was released.
Friday 7th November 2014 was an unusually long and busy day for me in London.
Brent Housing Sit-in – South Kilburn Housing Office, Friday 7th November 2014
My day began outside the South Kilburn Housing Office where campaigners were calling for Brent to end selling properties to overseas investors while rehousing local residents outside the area. They accuse the Labour council of social cleansing and say people need to be put before profit. Soon they moved into the office and sat with their posters in the lobby.
There is a huge amount of ‘regeneration’ taking place in council estates in Brent, but the new properties are is largely advertised and sold off to people from outside the borough – including to wealthy investors abroad who often will leave the properties empty while London house prices rise, selling them after a few years at a high profit. It’s easier to sell empty properties than to have the bother of sitting tenants, though generally these can be easily evicted.
The campaigners included Isabel Counihan Sanchez and other members of the Housing 4 All campaign which grew out of the Counihan family campaign and Unite Community members. The result of profit-led regeneration process is social cleansing – with people from Brent having to move to outer London or away from London altogether because they cannot afford properties in the area. Often they have to move into private rented accommodation with little or no security of tenure on short-term contracts, where landlords often fail to do repairs and evict tenants who complain.
What residents of Brent (and other boroughs need), as the campaigner’s posters stated is ‘Social Housing Not Social Cleansing’, as in the previous century when philanthropic schemes – such as Peabody – and councils built houses and flats as social housing at rents that are actually affordable to people on low or minimum wage.
Fukushima Nuclear Protest – Japanese Embassy, Friday 7th November 2014
From Brent I travelled to the Japanese Embassy on Piccadilly, where a small group of Japanese and English protesters were handing out bi-lingual Japanese/English fliers about the continuing danger from radioactive leaks from the Fukushima nuclear power station.
Their weekly lunchtime protests here call for an end to the building of nuclear power stations worldwide because of the safety risks that Fukushima has highlighted, and for a proper investigation of the failures of TEPCO, the owners of the Fukushima power plant in running the plant and reporting and tackling the catastrophe. Later they left to protest at the nearby offices of TEPCO in Berkeley Square.
Taiji Dolphin slaughter protest – Japanese Embassy, Friday 7th November 2014
I remained outside the embassy where a crowd of several hundred as calling on Japan to halt the annual slaughter of 20,000 dolphins, porpoises and small whales each year in Taiji Cove, which had been taking place annually for around 40 years.
Those protesting included Ric O’ Barry, founder of the Dolphin Project and the maker of the film ‘The Cove’ which has shown the shocking reality of the dolphin slaughter to audiences around the world. Here he holds a poste ‘Enough Is Enough’.
The protest was remarkable for the number of hand drawn and painted posters and placards, as well as some 3D artworks. Many of those present accepted the offer of having their hands covered in red paint to represent the blood of the dolphins, which turns the water in the bay red during the slaughter.
Most of the protesters remained behind the barriers on the opposite side of the road to the embassy, but there was some tension between the police and a few who crossed the road to protest closer to the embassy doorway.
Trafalgar Square Poppy Memorial – Friday 7th November 2014
On my way to the next protest I changed buses at Trafalgar Square and stopped to look at Mark Humphrey’s brass ‘Every Man Remembered’ which had been unveiled there earlier in the day. Later I wrote about this bland and idealised image of an unknown soldier in Remembering the Dead on this site. To truly remember and honour the sacrifice our memorials might better show – in Seigfried Sassoon’s words – ‘Young faces bleared with blood, Sucked down into the mud‘. In my article I linked the another by Paul Mason in which he reminds us that the First World War actually ended when German sailors, soldiers and workers refused to fight.
IWGB protest at Deloitte, Friday 7th November 2014
Another bus took me in into the City, where the IWGB (Independent Workers of Great Britain trade union) were protesting around Shoe Lane at Deloitte’s City offices. The cleaners in these are outsourced and employed by Serco who have suspended to workers for taking part in earlier protests over working conditions and staff shortages which have led to cleaners suffering from stress and back problems.
The cleaners had hoped to take security by surprise at the first of the offices they arrived at, but they were obviously prepared, and the cleaners could only play their drums, blow their horns and whistles, shout slogans and wave their flags in the courtyard outside, unfurling a large banner with the message ‘Solidarity. We Are Performing a SercoExorcism’.
Security managed to keep ahead of them as they visited and protested outside three nearby Deloitte offices. At the third, two City of London police officers grabbed Alberto Durango as he was speaking and tried to stop him protesting. IWGB members surrounded them, insisting that they had a right to lawful protest and eventually the police backed down. The IWGB marched on to protest at a fourth office, then marched back to Fleet St.
IWGB protest at Royal Opera House, Friday 7th November 2014
By now I was rather hoping to say goodbye and go home, but as we arrived on Fleet St, Alberto Durango announced that the group would be marching on to pay a surprise visit to the Royal Opera House, were outsourced IWGB cleaners are in dispute with cleaning contractor Mitie over victimisation, trade union recognition and working conditions.
The cleaners moved quietly through the streets and rather surprised me as we arrived at the opera house by rushing into the foyer. A security guard grabbed hold of Alberto Durango but he pulled away from here and the rest of the group followed in and I went with them.
There they held a short protest with Alberto making clear their demands and calling on the Royal Opera House to support their cleaners and pressure Mitie who they have given the contract to to treat the cleaners properly. Opera House staff stood and listened and then the IWGB walked out. And at last I could go home.
Five years ago on Saturday 23rd September 2017 I photographed a lively march in North London against council plans for a huge giveaway of council housing to developers before rushing down to Brixton in South London where low paid workers at the Ritzy cinema had been on strike for a year.
Haringey against council housing sell-off
When Labour came to power in 1997, Tony Blair made his first speech as prime minister in the centre of London’s Aylesbury Estate, declaring that “the poorest people in our country have been forgotten by government” and promising that housing would be at the centre of his government’s programme.
But their policy of estate regeneration has proved a disaster, leading to the demolition of social housing and its replacement by housing for the rich and overseas investors, along with small amounts of highly unaffordable ‘affordable housing’ and a largely token amount of homes at social rents.
As an article in the Financial Times by Anna Minton in January 2022 pointed out, Labour’s continuing support for Thatcher’s ‘Right-to-Buy’ and for ‘buy-to-let mortgages’ together with the pegging of housing benefit to market levels encouraged an enormous growth of buy to let properties from previously council flats and houses. In 2019 a Greater London Authority report found that 42 per cent of homes sold under Right to Buy were now privately let, with average rents in London of £1752 in the private sector compared to social rents of £421 a month.
As Minton also points out, under New Labour there were only 7,870 new council homes built during their 13 years in office, a miniscule number compared to Thatcher’s period as Conservative prime ministers when the lowest annual number was 17,710 homes.
Under New Labour the average was 562 per year compared to 41,343 under Thatcher – though numbers dropped steeply during her tenure. Housing Associations have provided some social housing, but have become increasingly more commercial in their operations.
Labour’s housing policies were disastrous and largely continue, with Labour councils in London continuing to collude with developers to demolish council-owned homes. A prime example of this was the proposed ‘Haringey Development Vehicle’, HDV, under which Haringey Council was making a huge transfer of council housing to Australian multinational Lendlease.
The protest in Haringey was a lively one involving many local residents as well as other housing activists from across London. The council’s deal would have led to the destruction of many of the council’s estates over a 15 year period, and led to a revolt at local elections which replaced many of those backing the scheme by more left-wing Labour members supported by Momentum.
Under new management, the council has produced an updated version of its redevelopment plans, although some activists see these as still representing a give-away to developers. But there does seem a greater emphasis on collaboration with the local community over redevelopment schemes and on providing a greater element of social housing.
Local government is still subject to restrictions imposed by national policies, and in particular policies that encourage rising house prices, rents and subsidise private landlords, while still making it hard for councils to build new council properties.
I left the march close to its end at Finsbury Park to catch the tube down to Brixton.
Strikers at the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton were celebrating a year of strike action with a rally supported by other trade unionists, including the United Voices of the World and the IWGB and other union branches.
The BECTU strikers were demanding the London Living Wage, sick pay, maternity and paternity pay and for managers, supervisors, chefs and technical staff to be properly valued for their work. The also demand that four sacked union reps are reinstated.
BECTU had been in dispute with the Ritzy since 2014, and had called for a boycott of the cinema, which was only finally called off in 2019. The Ritzy is one of a network of cinemas operated by Picturehouse Cinemas Ltd and owned by Cineworld, the world’s second largest cinema chain, based in London and operating in 10 countries including the USA.
The Ritzy was closed for the rally, After a number of speeches there was a surprise with the arrival to cheers of a newly acquired ‘Precarious Workers Mobile’ bright yellow Reliant Robin, equipped with a powerful amplifier and loudspeaker. After more speeches this led the protesters in a slow march around central Brixton.
National Gallery, Tate, Sikhs, Kashmir, Iran, Sewol & Sotheby’s. I thought to myself “nothing much ever happens in London in the middle of August” as I began to think about writing this post for August 15th. Then I looked back in my diary to 2015 and found out just how wrong I was, and there were also some other years where I’ve photographed several events. But on August 15th 2015 I photographed seven protests as well as taking a few pictures as I walked around London.
Three of the protests in 2015 were about labour disputes, all in the cultural sector, at the National Gallery, Tate Modern and Sothebys, while the other four were over things outside the UK, in India, Kashmir, Iran and South Korea. Just another day in London.
National Gallery 61st day of Strike – Trafalgar Square
Candy Udwin, PCS rep
It was the 61st day of the strike by PCS members at the National Gallery against the privatisation which will outsource the 400 galley assistants in what is called “modernisation” but which actually is just a cost-cutting exercise.
People who work at the gallery would no longer be employed by the gallery and would lose the terms and conditions they currently have from a responsible employer. Outsourcing companies cut costs and extract their profits from the contracts by increasing workload and reducing pay and conditions for the workers, treating them extremely poorly in ways that a public body such as the National Gallery itself never would.
The dispute had also become one demanding the reinstatement of PCS union rep Candy Udwin, sacked for her trade union activities. The PCS picket who had arrived earlier as on every strike day were joined by supporters from other unions.
Equalitate at Tate Modern – Bankside
From Trafalgar Square I took a bus to St Paul’s Churchyard and then walked across the footbridge to Bankside and Tate Modern. There and at Tate Britain visitor assistants whose work has already been outsourced get £3 an hour less than directly employed colleagues, are on zero hours contracts and get far inferior employment rights.
This was the first public demonstration by Equalitate, who supported by the PCS are fighting to get equal pay and conditions for all staff doing the same job. They stood on the busy public riverside walkway in front of the gallery and handed out fliers. Many who took them were shocked to hear about the unfair treatment, but mainly they were tourists and not UK residents.
Sikhs call for release of political prisoners – Indian High Commission
A shorter bus ride took me back to Aldwych and the Indian High Commission. It was Indian Independence Day and Sikh protesters from Dal Khalsa were there supporting the call by hunger striker Bapu Surat Singh, for the release of Sikh political prisoners and for the ‘2020’ campaign for a referendum for an independent Sikh state, Khalistan. He is 82 and began his hunger strike on 16th January, 8 months ago.
The Sikhs are the “indigenous people of Punjab” and say they “have a historical homeland, a separate religion and have the right to self-determination” which was ignored at the time of the 1947 partition of India, with their land being split between India and Pakistan. They intended to hold the referendum in the state of Punjab and among Sikh diaspora living in America, Canada, United Kingdom, European Union, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Kenya and Middle Eastern Countries.
Kashimiris Indian Independence Day call for freedom – Indian High Commission
Kashimiris were also protesting at the Indian High Commission on what is celebrated in Kashmir not as ‘independence day’, but as ‘black day’ against the Indian military occupation of much of their country. There are also areas of this disputed country occupied by Pakisatn and China.
There is one Indian soldier for every 14 Kashmiris in the country, and more than 100,000 people have been killed since the current uprising against Indian occupation began in 1987. Many Kashmiris, including women and children have been tortured and some deliberatly maimed or blinded by the Indian Army. Pakistan has been less repressive with fewer human rights violations in the areas it controls, but also has a policy of continuous suppression, exploitation and bullying of Kashmiris.
Kurdish PJAK remembers its martyrs – Trafalgar Square
Another short journey took me back to Trafalgar Square, where on one part of the North Terrace Iranian Kurds from the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) were remembering its fighters killed in the fight against Iran and ISIS for self-determination.
There are a bewildering array of Iranian Kurdish political groups listed on the UK government web site, including the PJAK. Like the PKK, PJAK owes allegiance to Abdullah Öcalan and the ideals of the Rojava revolution and was possibly an offshoot of the PKK, but unlike them is not banned in the UK as its activities are directed largely agains Iran. It operates from northern Iraq. According to the UK government site it reached a ceasefire with the Iranian authorities in 2011 but is still engaging in underground activities in Iran.
A small group, mainly Koreans continute its monthly silent vigils to remember the victims of the Sewol ferry tragedy, mainly school children who obeyed the order to ‘Stay Put‘ on the lower decks as the ship went down. The call on the Korean government to raise the ship for a thorough inquire, to punish those responsible and bring in regulations to prevent similar tragedies in future.
United Voices – Reinstate the Sotheby’s 2 – Mayfair
I met members of the United Voices of the World trade union at Oxford Circus, along with other supporters including Paula Peters of DPAC and Candy Udwin, the victimised PCS rep from the National Gallery and some of the other PCS strikers, Class War and others.
They marched from there to protest against Sotheby’s who had sacked two union members, Barbara and Percy, for protesting for proper sick pay, paid holidays and pensions.
Police harassed the marchers and stopped them outside Sotheby’s attempting to move them onto the pavement on the opposite side of the road. The marchers sat down and blocked the road, ignoring the police requests. It’s a very minor route with plenty of alternatives but in a very wealthy area.
Finally they got up and marched around the block, with union officials Vera and Petros going into shops on the way and handing out leaflets explaining why the UVW were continuing to take action against Sotheby’s and asking shop owners and workers to complain to them. Police harassed them and tried to stop them doing this.
They returned to the street in front of Sotheby’s for a short rally – with again police trying without success to move them off the road – and then set off to march around the block again. This time police made an effort to stop them marching, holding UVW leader Petros Elia, and blocking the road, but other protesters simply walked past them on the pavement and marched around the block again.
They returned for a final short rally in front of Sotheby’s before deciding it was time to finish and marching back to an alley close to Oxford Circus, where and I was pleased to at last be able to go home.
You can find more pictures and text on these at the links below on My London Diary, where there are also a few more ‘London Views’, mostly taken from the top of buses, my favourite way of travelling around the city when it is too far to walk. But London’s traffic congestion means the Underground is often much faster.
City Cleaners Strike, Cyclists mourned – A rally on Wood Street on Friday 10th June 2016 marked the third day of what became the longest strike ever in the City of London, and later at City Hall a vigil remembered 11 road users killed on London streets since the mayoral election last month, including three cyclists.
Day 3 UVW Wood St Cleaners Strike – 100 Wood St, City of London
Cleaners belonging to the United Voices of the World union employed by anti-union cleaning contractor Thames Cleaning to clean the 100 Wood St offices managed by CBRE held a rally at the end of their picket on the third day of their strike.
The picket
The offices there are mainly used by Schroders and J P Morgan, both large and highly profitable companies, but the cleaners are on poverty wages and several union members had been sacked and others served with notice by Thames Cleaning for organising the workers to demand a living wage.
Measuring the 10m required by the injunction
Rather than talk with the UVW, Thames’s response to the strike threat had been to spend over £20,000 in the High Court trying to get an injunction to prohibit the strikes and protests. Although the court would not stop them, they issued an injunction which set down strict conditions for the picket and protest and this left the UVW with crippling legal costs.
The UVW is a small grass roots union supported only by dues from its members and unlike the large established trade unions has little or no money to run its activities which include educational workshops as well as supporting its members in the workplace and at employment tribunals. Those who perform duties for it are paid the London Living Wage for the time spent and there are no highly paid union officials. The union had to issue an emergency appeal for cash – and received support from people and union branches across the trade union movement.
Candy Udwin, PCS Rep at the National Gallery holds a banner
One aspect of the injunction was that any protest connected with the strike had to keep at least 10 metres from the doorway of the offices. Of course picketing is covered by strict trade union laws and a lengthy code of practice that requires it to be as reasonably close as possible to the entrance and exit, and limits it to six or less clearly identified pickets with a supervisor (and possibly also a union organiser) behaving in a peaceful manner.
The protest took place over a carefully measured 10 metres away on the opposite side of the street after a picket which had begun in the early morning when the cleaners would normally have arrived for work. The strike continued for 58 days before the UVW was able to announce that a satisfactory agreement had been reached with the employer and all further action was ended.
Although London had an impressive purpose-built County Hall on the south bank just downstream of Westminster Bridge, this was sold off when Margaret Thatcher vindictively disbanded the Greater London Council, leaving London rudderless for 14 critical years. After the Greater London Authority was created in 2000, it was without a proper home for two years before leasing and moving into a purpose-built oddly spherical building by Norman Foster in the misleadingly named ‘More London’ currently owned by the Kuwait sovereign wealth fund who disguise themselves as St Martins Property Investments Limited.
Many saw the move to the new building as a failure of purpose by the Labour government in noy re-acquiring County Hall for the new London-wide authority – but then Labour under Blair continued most of Thatcher’s policies rather than move away from her individualist greed-based approach towards one getting back to the social welfare which had been at the heart of post-war Labour.
London’s City Hall moved in 2022 to Kamal Chunchie Way, Newham, E16 into the former ‘The Crystal’ exhibition centre beside the northern end of London’s ‘Dangleway’ cable car, though this is expected to close fairly soon as no replacement sponsor has come up to keep it running.
Sadiq Khan had retaken London as a Labour Mayor on May 5th 2016, with a decisive win over Conservative Zac Goldsmith and the Green candidate Siân Berry trailing badly in third place. Since then, 11 people had died on the streets of London, roughly around the average for that period in Greater London (in 2019, the total for the year was 125.)
Siân Berry
Protests are – at least theoretically – not usually allowed in ‘More London’, but this one was hosted by Green Party London wide Assembly Member Caroline Russell, a member of the GLA Transport Committee and organised by London Women on Bikes (LWOB), #LondonBusWatch, Westminster Living Streets and BMX Life. Of the 11 who died, 3 were cyclists and the others were on foot.
Most road deaths are not ‘accidents’ but “happen because road users make mistakes, often made harder to avoid because of poor vehicle or road design. Many of them result from a lack of proper facilities for pedestrians and cyclists in a road system which prioritises getting motorised vehicles from A to B as fast as possible rather than safety. Some are caused by the failure of police to enforce road traffic law – for example on advanced stop lines at traffic lights.”
One of the cyclists killed was BMX rider Dan ‘Cash’ Stephenson, hit by a bus on the Strand during a BMX Life charity ride and many other BMX riders had come to the vigil, wearing tartan ribbons in his memory as he always rode in tartan. There were a number of speeches and then the names of those killed were read, followed by an eleven minutes of silence when those at the vigil were invited to stand in silence or to lie down, with or without bikes, in a silent ‘die-in’.
As the vigil came to an end and people were beginning to leave we were all called back for a highly emotional moment when Dan ‘Cash’ Stephenson’s daughter spoke through tears about her father.
