Dolce & Gabbana, Sanctions & Poor Doors Thursday 19th March 2015 -protests at a Mayfair fashion store, the Department of Work and Pensions and another of Class War’s long series of protests at One Commercial St, Aldgate.
Dolce & Gabbana Boycott – Old Bond St
Domenico Dolce and his business partner Stefano Gabbana are apparently well known fashion designers and have a range of over 200 shops in plush areas of cities in 41 countries dedicated exclusively to selling their overpriced clothing. In London I think they have one in Sloane Square as well as the Mayfair store this protest took place outside.
For some reason our media treats anything to do with fashion as important news, and there were more photographers and TV crews packing the narrow pavement than protesters when I arrived making covering the protest difficult, particularly for those of us who prefer to work at close range.
The Peter Tatchell Foundation and the Out and Proud Diamond Group had called the protest in support of the international boycott over homophobic statements by the two designers. Almost certainly a much higher proportion of the shop’s customers are gay than in the general population and Dolce & Gabbana have profited massively from sales to the gay community over the years.
Unite protest against Benefit Sanctions – Caxton House, Westminster
Gill Thompson, whose brother died after being sanctioned holds her 211,822 signature petition
Unite here and at Job Centres around the country were having a day of action against punitive benefit sanctions on over 2m people which had led to increased poverty, misery and even death. They say the are a ‘grotesque cruelty’ and are often imposed for trivial reasons.
People have been sanctioned because postal delays meant they never got notification of an appointment they missed, or because they were 5 minutes late as a bus was cancelled. Often job centre staff are under pressure to issue sanctions and may be penalised if they do not sanction enough of their clients.
At the protest was Gill Thompson, whose brother, David Clapson, a diabetic ex-soldier, died after being sanctioned. She had brought her 211,822 signature petition calling for an inquiry into benefit sanctions to the protest to present to the DWP.
Among others who spoke was Rev Paul Nicholson of Taxpayers Against Poverty.
Poor Doors Protest Blocks Rich Door – One Commercial St, Aldgate
When Class War read a newspaper article about the separate entrances for rich residents and those in social housing in a new block at One Commercial Street in July 2014 they were disgusted and decided to launch a series of weekly protests outside the block every Thursday evening.
I missed the first of these but you can find reports of almost all of the rest of them, at least 29 in all, on My London Diary. For an overview you can read John Bigger’s article on Freedom in which he gives an insider’s view and assesses the impact of these protests, and the ‘zine’ I published Class War: Rich Door, Poor Door with over 200 photographs from 29 protests is still available. But though this is reasonably priced, postage costs roughly double this – so you really need to buy half a dozen copies or more and give or sell some to your friends. Be warned the print quality in what Blurb calls a MAGAZINE is pretty low.
The protest on 19th March was a lively one and the management at One Commercial Street had locked the rich door and were I think telling the rich residents of that section to enter and leave instead through the hotel at the Commercial Street side of the building. Class War held up banners and posters and some stuck stickers onto the glass of door and large windows. Someone lit a red smoke flare and threw it onto the pavement. There was a lot of loud chanting and some short speeches.
Some younger anarchists present took plastic barriers from the works taking place on the pavement and piled them in front of the locked door. Others took them onto the busy Whitechapel High Street and blocked the traffic.
A man and a woman who had been watching suddenly grabbed one of those present, threw him to the floor and handcuffed him, holding up their warrant cards to show they were plain clothes police. I didn’t recognise the man they arrested who was not one of the regular Class War protesters, and as usual they refused to answer questions about why he was being arrested. But their arrest effectively blocked the only lane of the road which the protesters had not already blocked.
More uniformed police arrived and dragged the arrested man away to a police van, removed the barriers and protesters from the road and the protest continued with Class War holding up flaming torches in front of the rich door.
There were a few more short speeches and then the protesters left as usual after about an hour, leaving their posters attached to the glass on the front of the building by Class War stickers.
Blizzard, Education and Hunger Strike – London hasn’t had a great deal of snow for some years, but when I got off the bus on Wednesday 28th February 2018 close to London University I found myself walking into a blizzard. There was a couple of inches of snow underfoot and the biting wind was driving dense snowflakes into my face making it both difficult to walk and hard to see where I was going.
I slipped a few times and almost fell as I walked through Byng Place, only just managing to stop myself and my camera bag falling into the snow, and for the first 15 or 20 minutes after I reached the meeting point for the march it was difficult to take pictures, with snowflakes landing on the lens surface as soon as I took away the cloth I had stuffed against it inside the lens hood and raised the camera to my eye.
Most of the pictures from the start of the protest were ruined by snow on the lens making some areas soft and diffuse. It might sometimes have been an arty effect but wasn’t what I wanted. Fortunately after a while the snow died down and I was able to work more normally, though the occasional flake kept coming and there were a few thick flurries later on the march.
HE and FE march for pensions and jobs
The UCU was on the fifth day of a strike to try and get the universities to talk with them about pay and pensions. On this march to a rally in Methodist Central Hall in Westminster, close to the Houses of Parliament, they were joined by staff from London FE colleges on the first day of a two-day strike over pay and conditions. And plenty of their students had come along to show their support.
Although students are now paying high fees for their university courses, the pay of university teachers has not benefited from this, and has not kept up with inflation. Much more teaching at universities is also being done by graduate students and others on part-time or often zero hours contracts.
What particularly inflamed the situation was the intention of the universities to end the long-established pension scheme, replacing it with one that would greatly reduce pensions, and their refusal to discuss this with their union, the UCU.
The 5 day strike was supported overwhelmingly by UCU members and had shut down 61 UK universities, despite draconian threats by the management at some of them such as Royal Holloway (RHUL). Pickets had stood in the freezing weather and few people had crossed the picket line.
The move away from the pension scheme was largely driven by a small number of universities, particularly the Oxbridge colleges. Many of these are extremely wealthy, some owning huge areas of land including large parts of London and having vast reserves, not least in their wine cellars. A number of college principals had given their support to the union.
The dispute between the employers and the UCU continued for five years and was only ended in October 2023 when the employer body UUK made an offer of full restoration. This came after 69 days of strikes by the UCU and was a historic victory for UCU members and reversed further cuts made in 2022.
University teachers continue to fight for better pay, more appropriate workloads and job security. FE teachers, marching because of the loss of 15,000 jobs in the sector particularly as adult education has been savaged by austerity, and whose wages had been cut by 21% since 2009, continue to be treated unfairly.
I went into the rally in Central Hall largely to try to get warm after the freezing march, and was fortunate to arrive early enough to get inside – many of the marchers were left outside the the cold where the speakers went outside to speak after making their contributions in the hall.
The event was running late because of the larger than expected number of people on the march, and by the time the main speakers, John McDonnell and Frances O’Grady had performed I’d missed the time for another event I’d planned to cover, the handing in of some NHS petitions at the Department of Health. I But I was pleased to be able to stay longer in the warm.
Solidarity with Yarl’s Wood hunger strikers – Home Office
I left the Methodist Central Hall and walked down to the Home Office where an emergency protest was taking place to support the hunger strike and refusal to work by the 120 women and a few men in immigration detention at Yarl’s Wood.
They had begun their action a week earlier to demand the Home Office respect the European Convention of Human Rights and end the separation of families, end indefinite detention with a 28 day maximum detention period, end charter flights which deport people without notice, and end the re-detention of those released from detention.
Their statement also called for an amnesty for those who have been in the UK for more than ten years and for the Home Office to stop deporting people before cases and appeals have been completed, as well as making full disclosure of all evidence to immigration tribunals.
They called for those in detention centres to be treated with dignity and respect and be given proper health care and an end to the detention of highly vulnerable people. They also want an end to employment in detention centres at ‘prison wages’ of £1 an hour.
Among the groups supporting the protest were the Movement for Justice, All African Women’s Group, Queer Strike and No Borders. Some of those taking part in the protest had previously served time in detention centres and knew first hand about the shameful way the UK treats them and some spoke at the event and several of those taking part in the hunger strike were able to speak to the protest from inside Yarls Wood by mobile phone.
Shaker, Job Centres, Firefighters, Tube, Lambeth – On Wednesday 25th February I photographed a number of protests in London, starting in Westminster with the Free Shaker Aamer campaign, striking firefighters and welfare rights activists, then with tube workers at Edgware Road and finally outside Lambeth Town Hall in Brixton.
Free Shaker Aamer – Parliament Square
A protest opposite Parliament called for the urgent release of London resident Shaker Aamer from Guantanamo, where he has been held and regularly abused for 13 years without charge or trial.
The Free Shaker Aamer Campaign had been holding weekly protests opposite Parliament whenever it was in session to remind government of the need for act over his release. He had long been cleared for release but was still held in the illegal prison camp with both US and UK governments dragging their feet as his testimony would be embarrassing to their security agencies, making clear their involvement in torture.
The protest was longer than usual as an international event was taking place at the nearby QEII centre and they wanted to remind delegates there of Shaker’s torture and imprisonment. Eventually the long campaign of protests by this and other groups led the UK government they needed to back his release in practice and he was finally released on 30th October 2015.
Firefighters in England held a 24 hour strike on 25th Feb 2015 against the unworkable pension scheme the government intended to implement. They say that the devolved governments had recognised the problems in the scheme and made improvements but in England government ministers were refusing to talk with the union, simply ignoring requests for meetings. They accused the government of lies about the union, saying they were being labelled as militants despite them being ready and willing to enter into negotiations at any time.
After a rally in Westminster Central Hall, several thousand striking firefighters protested on the street outside Parliament before marching to Downing St. Their protest brought all traffic in the area to a standstill until they marched away.
They stopped outside Downing Street and refused to move, saying they would wait there until someone came out to talk to them. A senior police officer come to talk with Matt Wrack and the other FBU leaders there and was extrememly politie, taking Wrack’s mobile number before going away to see if anyone could be persuaded to come out from Downing St to meet the protesters.
I left them leaning on the barriers and looking into Downing Street waiting for someone to come and see them, though I doubted if anyone would ever emerge.
The Fire Service has also suffered like other public services from government cuts; in London these led to Mayor Boris Johnson making dangerous reductions, closing some fire stations and reducing equipment and staffing, which left the London Fire Brigade ill-equipped to deal with major disasters such as the Grenfell fire.
The FBU union later won a number of legal cases against the government over the changes that were made to the pensions scheme, leading to significant compensation for some members.
Welfare activists protested outside the Dept of Work & Pensions in Caxton Street as a part of the national day of action over the arrest of welfare rights activist Tony Cox. He had been arrested when he tried to accompany a vulnerable claimant to her job centre interview to argue for a fairer claimant agreement.
As well as several banners, one man was gagged in protest. By law claimants are allowed to have and adviser present with them at the interview, but when a claimant turned up with Cox, his interview was cancelled.
Cox and the claimant then left the job centre, but later in the day police arrived at his him and arrested him, charging him with threatening behaviour.
RMT protest Underground Job Cuts – Edgware Road Station (Bakerloo)
Around 20 RMT members handed out fliers at the busy Edgware Road Bakerloo Line station against the proposed 50% cut in station staffing and the closure of the ticket offices which they say will endanger the safety of both passengers and staff.
They got a very positive reception from many of the public going in and out of the station or walking past, although a PCSO came to harass and try to stop their picketing. Most of the public seemed to realise that staff do far more than sell tickets and offer service and protection to the travelling public.
Many promises were made to Underground staff and the public about how they would be protected when cuts were made, but most were later broken.
Lambeth against £90m cuts – Lambeth Town Hall, Brixton
After taking some photographs of the protesting RMT staff I got on the Underground there, changing at Oxford Circus to take me to the end of the Victoria Line at Brixton.
There I walked down to Lambeth Town Hall on the corner of Acre Land to join around a hundred trade unionists, pensioners, library and other council staff, social housing tenants and other residents who were gathering for a lively rally outside Lambeth Town Hall.
A lively rally took place urging councillors who were arriving for the council meeting to reject library closures and other £90 millon cuts which were being passed there by the large Labour majority on the council. Labour then held 59 of the 63 council seats. Among the speakers at the rally was the only Green Party councillor, Scott Ainslie, who was to vote against the cuts. The Green Party gained four more seats in the 2018 council elections but lost three of these in 2022. Right-wing Labour councillors still have an overwheming majority and the council continues its policies which fail the community.
Lambeth’s finances were stretched by the development of a new Town Hall or Civic Centre the cost of which roughly doubled from the original contract of £55 million ot £104 million. Policies such as the closure of libraries and the demolition and sale of popular and well-built council estates like Cressingham Gardens had already produced a great deal of protest in the borough.
The £90 million cuts passed at the council meeting later that evening have had a disproportionate impact on children, old people and the disabled who always rely on local services more than the average person. Council employees at the rally opposed the cuts not only because they feared for their own jobs, but because they knew those that remain in post will not be able to offer the public the same quality of service that they do at present.
Christmas Greetings From My Flickr Albums – There are only 17 pictures out of the roughly 30,000 on my Flickr account which have the tag ‘Christmas‘, and some of those are only because I’ve mentioned the festival in my description rather than for anything in the picture. Although I’ve taken many pictures of Santas on the streets of London, almost all of these have been in the last 25 years, and so far I’ve mainly put pictures from earlier times onto Flickr – mostly from 1970-1994 and mainly of London. Wishing you all a happy Christmas. But if you get too fed up with the nonsense on TV or even with family and friends there are plenty of pictures on-line to look at!
Former Cobblers, Hackney Road, Cambridge Heath, Tower Hamlets, 1983 36u-62
I took this in 1983, looking through the window of a cobblers shop which had recently closed but still had posters with the message ‘It wouldn’t be Christmas without Pirelli’. Santa Claus wasn’t entirely the invention of Coca-Cola though his popularity and appearance owes much to their Christmas advertising from the 1930s. The article on the link to Wikipedia above has more about Santa than you will ever want to know. This year I produced a short run of poorly printed versions of this picture as Christmas cards for selected personal friends, mainly photographers. This picture is in my album London 1983 and also appears in Tower Hamlets – Black and White.
Auto-Sparks Ltd, Electric Harness Manufacturers, Wincolmlee, Hull, 1982 33g21
In my Hull Black and White album you can find this picture and the long description below:
An unprepossessing 20th century industrial building on or close to Wincolmlee where electrical harnesses – bundles of cables and connectors – for various makes of cars and other vehicles were made. Apparently Auto-Sparks Ltd Hull dates back to an electrical business founded by Mr Henry Colomb on Beverley Rd in the 1920s. Auto-Sparks Ltd was incorporated in April 1942 and a history page on the web site of its successor company, Autosparks reproduces the original company logo from 1954 when it was registered as a trade mark.
After the original owner and manager retired in the 1980s Auto-Sparks got into difficulties and collapsed in 1991. It was bought and moved to Sandiacre Nottingham by R D Components who were specialists in classic motorbike and car harnesses and they took over the name as Autosparks, and in 2005 became Autosparks Ltd.
This picture was taken in December, and my attention was drawn to the building by the Christmas decorations drawn on its first-floor windows. And by wondering whatever an electric harness was.
The SI unit of electric charge is of course the Coulomb, named after Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, so this electical business founded by Mr Henry Colomb would appear to be a remarkable example of nominative determinism.
Father Christmas, High Rd, Willesden, Brent, 1990, 90-12c-55
In 1990 in Brent I took two Christmas pictures in 1990, one in black and white in the album 1990 London Photos of a Santa holding a number of figures and with a Harrods tag ‘£22’ standing on a box containing a caravan TV aerial kit.
The second picture from 1990 Brent was a café window in colour with Christmas decorations and an advert posted in it for flats to let in Station Road. Also in the window is a poster for Sickle Cell Awareness Day, 15th December 1990, to the left of which you can see part of me reflected as I made the image, along with reflections of a parked van and the shops and flats on the opposite side of the road. This is one of many pictures in my album 1990 London Colour.
Christmas, Car Sales, High St, Norwood, Croydon, 1991, 91-1b-22
From a South London used car showroom in the album 1991 London Photos is a 1987 car with its features and price described in notices on the windscreen complete with Christmas decorations. Usually when photographing interiors through windows I tried to work close to the glass and eliminate reflections so far as possible, but here I deliberately moved the black glove I was wearing to include the church across the road.
Christmas Lights, West End, Westminster, London, 1986, 86c123-32
Pictures at night are so much easier now with digital cameras as you can work with much shorter exposures – this was probably taken on ISO400 film, while now at night I often work and get better results at 4 stops faster – the ISO6400 setting on my camera. Also being able to see what you have taken immediately makes it much easier than having to wait until the film was processed and printed.
In the same albums and taken within a minute or two of the previous picture was this picture of Eros and the advertising display. The clock tells us that I made this at 16.06, around 15 minutes after sunset. Of course Eros isn’t really Eros, but Anteros, designed by Sir Alfred Gilbert to commemorate the philanthropic work of Lord Shaftesbury and called by him ‘The God of Selfless Love‘ – “as opposed to Eros or Cupid, the frivolous tyrant.”
But Piccadilly is a place at Christmas where some like to come and celebrate drunkenly and Anteros needs boarding up for protection and instead of seeing the fountain we see the hoardings with vintage Christmas images and greetings from The London Standard which featured Eros on its masthead.
Finally in 1988 in Shepherds Bush and now the first image in my album 1988 London Colour. This shop was a pet shop and the window is full of Christmas Stockings for cats and dogs and boxes of ‘Good Boy’ treats. Even the scratching post has some green ribbon attached. Along with some rather horrible artificial tree-like objects complete with blue and silver hanging balls. It seemed a particularly bleak image of the capitalist commercialisation of a religious festival.
Solidarity With Gaza, Save Lewisham Hospital – On Saturday morning, 24th November 2012 I joined marchers against the then recent Israeli attacks on Gaza and the continuing blockade which makes normal life there impossible. Although still a clearly disproportionate response, the death toll in 2012 was minuscule compared to the current ongoing destruction. In the afternoon I went to Lewisham for a march against proposals to close A&E and maternity services, and possibly also the the children’s wards, critical care unit and emergency surgery by the Trust Special Administrator Matthew Kershaw.
Solidarity With Gaza, End the Seige Now – Downing St
Despite persistent rain, several thousands turned up to protest at Downing Street before marching towards the Israeli Embassy following the start ten days earlier of ‘Operation Pillar of Defense‘ by the the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
In the eight days before a ceasefire, Wikipedia states “the IDF claimed to have struck more than 1,500 sites in the Gaza Strip, including rocket launchpads, weapon depots, government facilities, and apartment blocks” with the UNHCR reporting “174 were killed and hundreds were wounded. Many families were displaced.”
There were also deaths and casualties among Israelis, but on a much smaller scale, with 6 Israelis being killed and 240 injured by rockets fired from Gaza.
As in this year, “Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, and other Western countries expressed support for what they considered Israel’s right to defend itself” , or condemned the Hamas attacks, while some other countries condemned the Israel attacks. Human Rights Watch said both sites committed war crimes.
As in 2023, many of hose killed in Gaza in 2012 where children, and at the front of the march, ahead of the main banner were a group of children, each carrying a placard hanging around their neck with the names and ages of some of the dead children.
And as in the recent marches I’ve photographed, both the National Marches calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and those in Camden and Lewisham, among those taking part there were many individual Jews and Jewish groups including Jews Against the Siege of Gaza, Jews for Justice for Palestinians and a group of Jewish Socialists.
Before the march began 163 while balloons printed with the Palestinian flag – one for each of the Palestinians then known to have been killed – were released. The march then moved up Whitehall and I went with it as far as Trafalgar Square where I took pictures for the next 15 minutes or so as the crowd moved past before catching a train from Charing Cross to Lewisham.
Thousands of protesters – perhaps as many as 15,000 – formed a human chain to hold hands around Lewisham hospital after a march from the centre of Lewisham to oppose plans to close its A&E department to pay debts from mismanagement at other hospitals in south London, which have huge PFI debts.
The march had seemed rather smaller than expected when I arrived at the start close to Lewisham station, but the numbers grew greatly as we got closer to the hospital and Ladywell Fields, with the road still packed with people coming to join this as the human chain began to form.
At Ladywell Fields the march divided into two, with hospital workers making their way to the front of the hospital in an anti-clockwise direction and the others going clockwise to meet them. Soon people were filling the whole thre-quarters of a mile ring around the hospital and holding hands in a human chain. The organisers had asked people to go in single file, but there were far too many in most places for this and in some areas the pavements were filled ten deep.
Traffic around the hospital was brought to a stop with people still flooding in on the High Street and Ladywell Road and nothing was moving on the roads by the time I left and caught a train home, except for ambulances which police and stewards were ensuring could still reach the hospital, clearing a route through the crowds.
Lewisham Hospital is well run and well used by people in the area around, and has played no part in the financial problems faced by the South London Hospitals Trust, which were largely caused by disastrous private finance schemes entered into to build the trust’s hospitals in Orpington and Woolwich. The planned closures would drastically cut health services in the area and almost certainly lead to many deaths as well as huge inconvenience for millions and are driven entirely by the financial gain in selling off 60% of the site.
But even this makes little sense as the expected £17 million this would raise would be only a minor one-off contribution towards the over £60 million the Trust has to find each year for its PFI debts which were then expected to total around £1,200 million before they were paid off.
The problem of PFI debt is not of course limited to this trust. Government figures in 2018 were that the total value of PFI investments in the NHS was then £12.8 billion – and that by the time these were paid off the NHS will have paid over £80 billion for them – more than six times as much. The figures have worsened since then as many contracts include inflation-based cost increases – leading to an extra £264 million in payments in the past 2 years. Some trusts now have to spend 10-13% of their total income on their PFI debts, and these payments cannot be cut and are prioritised. over other expenditure such as than on staff costs and drugs.
Lewisham Hospital’s campaign against the cuts was successful. They were ruled unlawful by the High Court and eventually dropped by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt after he lost an appeal.
AxeDrax Wood Burning & Student Housing: Today, 19th October, is the International Day of Action Against Big Biomass (IDoA) calling for an end to climate-wrecking tree burning in power stations, and I hope to be attending a protest in London at Barclay’s Bank in Canary Wharf at noon calling for an end of the £billions in subsidies given to the world’s biggest tree burner, Drax, for burning trees and polluting communities. In 2016 I photographed a protest against Drax and another against providers of high cost (and high profit) housing for students.
AxeDrax protest against Biomass & Coal – Westminster
Back on Wednesday 19th Oct 2016 protesters came to the newly formed Dept of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to urge the government to end the green subsidies to Drax as scientific research had make it clear that producing electricity from Biofuels is harmful to the climate, forests, biodiversity and people.
Biofuel Watch and London Biomassive, both part of the Axe Drax campaign had brought with them posters, banners and a cooling tower and were accompanied by the Draxosaurus dinosaur.
They demanded the government end the £600million a year subsidy Drax gets for its polluting activities and spend the money on measures such as building insulation to cut demand for electricity and to support the use of real low-carbon renewable electricity generation.
Drax is an old and inefficient power generator, built for coal, still used in two of its six boilers in 2016, though in April 2023 they announced using coal had come to an end. The four boilers converted to wood pellet use waste 60% of the energy created in waste heat to the atmosphere and into the cooling water taken from and discharged into the nearby river Ouse. Without the huge annual subsidies it gets from our electricity bills it would not be viable. It should be closed as soon as possible and its workers trained for new green jobs which the huge subsidies currently spent on keeping this highly polluting facility open could provide.
As well as being generously awarded for adding excessive amounts of carbon and thus increasing global temperatures, Drax also creates large amounts of highly dangerous particulates, releasing over 400 tons a year into the environment in the UK. And Drax also creates environmental havoc in the areas which supply its wood – and until 2023, coal.
Much of the wood comes from destroying forests in the Southeast of the United States, and Drax also supplies wood to be burnt in other countries. It has mills to turn freshly cut trees into wood pellets in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Planting the monoculture pine forests needed to supply these has been at the expense of the clear cut felling of older diverse forests and replacing them with sterile plantations with little undergrowth and wildlife.
Drax also buys wood pellets from the world’s largest pellet producer Enviva which cuts down large areas of highly diverse coastal hardwood forests in the US with an incredible loss of bio-diversity. Similar environment degradation and destruction of habitats is taking place in other countries around the world where Drax sources pellets. Their transportation to Drax also produces large amounts of carbon dioxide.
The pellet plants which produce wood largely from whole trees and complete felling of large forest areas to be burnt at Drax also generate huge amounts of air pollution both at Drax in Yorkshire and Drax at the US pellet plants were Drax has had to pay large fines for this. Most of these plants are in deprived, majority-Black communities.
At the protest at the BEIS we heard a from a Colombian woman about the calamitous effect of open-cast coal-mining at the giant open-pit Cerrejón coal mine in La Guajira, northern Colombia. jointly owned by Anglo American, BHP Billiton and Glencore Xstrata.
Drax may now have ended burning coal and imports ended in 2020, but following the closure of UK mines all of the coal burnt there came from abroad, including from Colombia.
The Cerrejón mine is in Wayúu indigenous territory and the local people were not consulted when mining began there 30 years ago. Their land was simply seized and communities forcibly displaced in violation of their constitutional land rights and there was no proper compensation. Pollution and dust from the coal mine continues to contaminate the air and water supplies badly affecting traditional lifestyles; soil pollution leads to failed crops, and fishing areas have been contaminated.
Drax also had a carbon capture and storage project for its biomass plants, but this is only based on very limited trials and seems highly unlikely to ever have a significant effect, not least because the necessary infrastructure for the removal and storage of any carbon dioxide captured seems unlikely ever to be available. And by the time both the removal and disposal could possibly be implemented on any scale there will be absolutely no economic justification for retaining expensive sources of power such as wood burning rather than very much cheaper renewable generation.
I went on from the BEIS protest to Russell Square where students were meeting to discuss student housing. Once halls of residence were largely an at-cost service provided by universities, but have now become big business for private developers.
After some speeches they marched behind the #RENTSTRIKE banner to briefly occupy the nearby office of Unite Students, a FTSE 250 company housing around 50,000 students in the UK.
The event was a part of a nationwide series of protests taking place as investors and developers were discussing the rich profits to be made from students at the MIPIM conference, the world’s largest real estate market event in Cannes.
Many of the large new blocks of student housing have flats with rents larger than the entire student loan, higher than all but students from very wealthy families can afford, and are largely for letting to rich overseas students studying here.
Israel, Palestine & Syrian Refugees: On Tuesday 13th October 2015 supporters of Israel and Palestine faced each other on the street in Hammersmith. From there I went to a candlelit vigil at Parliament calling for the UK to resettle Syrian Refugees.
Zionists and Palestinian protests over killings
The Zionist Federation had come to protest outside the Palestinian Authority UK Mission following a number of stabbings of Jews in Israel. Jewish and other groups supporting Palestinian resistance to the occupation and Israeli terror against Palestinians came to oppose them, calling for an end to Israeli occupation and all violence against both Jews and Palestinians in Israel.
Police kept the two groups well apart though both had powerful sound systems so they could each hear what the others were saying. But while the Palestinian ambassador to the UK Professor Manuel Hassassian quite clearly spoke condemning violence on both sides, a speaker at the Zionist Federation protest continued to insist as the main point of his speech that Palestinians refused to condemn violence against Jews.
I commented then:
“There is of course a great assymetry between violence against Israel and Palestine, with much smaller numbers of Israelis being killed, largely in suicide bomb attacks and knifings. Palestinians have been killed in much larger numbers, by the attacks of the Israeli army, by Israeli police shootings and by the Jewish settlers occupying parts of Palestine; Israeli army and police turn a blind eye to their raids on Palestinian villages in which people are sometimes killed as well as the olive trees on which they depend being uprooted.”
My London Diary
Many of those in both groups were Jewish, with the pro-Palestine counter-demonstration being organised by Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods and supported by The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and the British Committee for Universities of Palestine, as well as other Jewish protesters. There were also some Palestinians and others from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the British left which also includes many Jews.
Supporting the Zionist Federation were some right-wing British Groups including some extremist Christian groups. The shouting match was continuing when I left to go to Westminster.
Citizens UK Vigil for more Refugees – Old Palace Yard, Westminster
Although the British public has been greatly moved by stories of refugees fleeing Syria drowning as they cross the Mediterranean and struggling as they cross Europe the UK government has so far made only a trivial commitment and limited this to admitting a small number from those still in refugee camps in the countries around Syria. Overwhelmingly when people see the actual numbers they think this is nothing like enough, with many individuals, organisations and local authorities making offers to take in refugees.
People fear that many more will freeze to death in the bitter European winter and Citizens UK were calling on the government to take urgent action. Their demand for the UK to take a thousand more Syrian refugees by Christmas and then 10,000 a year for the next five years seemed rather low given the huge numbers now in the refugee camps – where six children froze to death last winter and so many trying to make their way across Europe.
Among the speakers calling for the government to take urgent action to save refugee lives were SNP MP Angus Robertson, Labour MP Yvette Cooper, a leading East London Imam, The Right Reverend Paul Butler, Bishop of Durham, Bosnian refugee Zrinka Bralo of Citizens UK and Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron.
Labour MP Yvette Cooper
Protests like this fall largely on deaf ears in the government, who are scared of doing anything that might anger the right-wing press and the racist bigots in their own party. But Cameron did later agree to resettle 1000 by Christmas and considerably large numbers were admitted from 2015 to 2019.
Tim Farron
The Tories keep making pledges to cut immigration and keep harassing migrants and imprisoning in detention centres sometimes for several years those who have come to the UK to claim asylum rather than attempting to process their claims in a timely manner. According to a House of Commons Research Briefing there are currently around 140,000 people awaiting an initial decision, a small number appealing there refusal and over 40,000 “Subject to Removal” having had their claims rejected.
Now they complain about the huge costs of housing asylum seekers and resort to extreme plans such as sending them to Rwanda or housing them in crowded barges. Many of those who are currently prevented from working have skills which we need and could be making a contribution to our country – and paying taxes.
Between 2014 and 2020, 20,000 Syrians were resettled in the UK – compared to around 180,000 Ukrainians in 2022-3. The total number of asylum applications in the UK in 2022 was only a little over half the average based on population for the 27 EU countries.
Arms Trade Die-In at Parliament: On Thursday 12th September 2013 Campaign Against Arms Trade brought their protests against the DSEi arms fair then taking place in East London to Old Palace Yard opposite the Houses of Parliament in Westminster.
Their protest and die-in opposite Parliament was much more visible than those out in the fairly deserted streets of East London where the arms fair takes place at the ExCel Centre on the north side of the Royal Victoria Dock.
There the protest is directed against those taking part in the arms fair, both the exhibitors who are coming to sell their deadly weapons and those arriving to view and buy them.
They came to Westminster as MPs were arriving to take part in a debate on the role of United Kingdom Trade & Investment (UKTI), including its controversial Defence & Security Organisation (DSO), the government’s arms sales promotion unit.
The DSO sends out official invitations to the arms fair to 67 countries including many of the worlds most repressive regimes. Those on the invitation list included Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Oman, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, Libya, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Arms sold at the arms fair in East London would inevitably fuel the civil war taking place in Syria and other armed conflicts around the world. The was in Yemen began the year following this arms fair, and Saudi Arabia has used weapons bought in East London in its fight against the Houthis there.
Also taking part in the protest were a number of campaigners from Bahrain where weapons sold at DSEi in Newham have been used to repress internal dissent.
Among the MPs who visited the highly visual protest was Jeremy Corbyn who stopped to speak briefly on his way to take part in the Parliamentary debate. He praised the protesters for their protests today and for their continuing events to stop the DSEi arms fair.
Trump Not Welcome in UK: There were huge protests against the July 2018 visit by US Presdent Trump to the UK, said to be a ‘working visit’ and he was kept well away from most of them, but some protesters made their way to still protest outside the official reception at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire and when he took tea with the Queen in Windsor. But apparently he did find the time to tell Prime Minister Theresa May she was making a mess of Brexit.
I photographed the following two protests on Thursday 12th July 2018, the day he arrived in the UK, but there was much more to come the following day.
Climate activists marked Trump’s visit to the UK by dropping a giant banner 100 meters long on the river wall of the Thames opposite the Houses of Parliament. The banner carried the message ‘TRUMP: CLIMATE GENOCIDE’ in fluorescent orange letters around 15ft high.
This wall directly faces the terrace where MPs and their guests could clearly see and read the message across the river a little over 250 yards wide at this point. Having photogrphed them bringing the huge banner to the scene and beginning to hang it over the wall I rushed up onto Westminster Bridge photograph it from there.
Trump derided and ignored the clear science on climate change, supporting his fossil fuel supporters and donors in their bid to destroy human life on earth for the sake of their short-term profits. Every year now the effects of these policies in destabilising global climate become clear. US policies – not just under Trump but certainly since their refusal to get behind the 1997 Kyoto Protocol if not before, have played a major role in our current dire situation. Trump worsened this, and his actions and failures have condemned billions to death and are a major crime against humanity.
Trump’s jet landed at Stanstead Airport and a helicopter was flying from there to the US Ambassador’s residence, Winfield House in a large private estate at the northwest corner of Regent’s Park before taking him on to dinner with Theresa May at Blenheim Palace.
Hundreds of campaigners with drums, whistles, megaphones, pots and pans, recordings of the cries of migrant children and some very loud shouting had come to the nearest public part of Regent’s Park to show their feelings about him and the visit. Among them were a number of Armericans living in Britain as well as various groups on the UK left.
A 10ft wire fence separated the protesters from the large lawn and there was a high police presence at the protest. It was watched from behind the fence by a small group of police some yards away, and doubtless rather more police and others were behind them screened by the bushes and trees closer to the house.
Almost certainly the protest organisers would have wanted to protest closer to the house on the Outer Circle, from where the house is visible, though largely screened by trees. But Regent’s Park is a Royal Park, owned by the Crown Estate and they and the police will have made clear a protest there would not be tolerated. As the Royal Parks state “the location of the demonstration will be agreed through discussion between the Park Manager, the police, the organisers, and other relevant authorities.”
Although the protest was some distance from the lawn where his helicopter was taking off and landing, the noise it was making would have been audible from there and the house. Some of the protesters were intending to remain making a noise all night, but I went home soon after his helicopter landed the first time.
But, as I wrote then, “it seems likely that Trump will have been aware of them as he flew in and out and before reaching the presumably well double or triple-glazed security of Winfield House. Though he will probably have convinced himself they were welcoming him and dismissed the TV and newspaper coverage as ‘Fake News!’“
People’s Assembly, Class War, Anonymous, ENA & Dykes: Saturday 22nd Jone 2013, ten years ago today, was a rather odd day for me. It began with an event I didn’t go to and instead photographed groups outside, was followed by an meeting to which I had been invited by the extreme right English National Alliance who needed a police escort to lay flowers at the Cenotaph and ended with a Dyke March.
People’s Assembly – Methodist Central Hall, Westminster
I had decided not to attend the People’s Assembly being held in Methodist Central Hall. It was a large event but was being managed so that any criticisms of the Labour Party and trade unions were banned from the main event, with people including Ken Loach being relegated to a hall down the road.
Others had expressed the opinion that this event was intended to “disperse some of the head of steam that had built up among the rank and file” for more direct action against the government. It reminded me of events following the huge ‘Stop the War’ protest in Feb 2003, at which Tony Benn and others had called for decisive action, but Stop the War had failed to do more than call instead for just another protest a while after Blair had declared war. It was hardly surprising that this was much smaller than the previous event and had absolutely no effect.
I commented in 2013:
It was a feeling reinforced by the statement ‘We will work together with leading experts and campaigners both here and abroad, and friendly think tanks, to develop rapidly key policies and an alternative programme for a new anti-austerity government‘, which seemed to make it clear that after the assembly it was the long grass for any ideas, and an end to any action.
And there seems to have been nothing that has happened as a result of this event; for a few years Corbyn gave the Labour Party some hope, but he was stopped from winning a general election by the right in the party. Nothing in Labour policies now suggests they would offer any real alternative should the Tories lose the next election. Or that they can win if the Conservatives don’t defeat themselves.
One of several groups protesting outside was Class War. Ian Bone had called for “a f**king big mob outside” (my asterisks) the People’s Assembly, but as I wrote, only around enough for a football team turned up for their alternative event, though there were several other groups around also opposed to the “pointless jamboree” taking place inside the hall.
So although there were a series of speeches by Bone and others, all amusing and in parts thought-provoking and certainly more interesting than most inside the hall, these were largely made to a mainly empty street.
Outside The People’s Assembly – Anonymous Occupy the Grass
A small group of ‘Anonymous’ and Occupy London supporters handed out leaflets, offered free hugs, and had a picnic outside the People’s Assembly Against Austerity.
Police kept a close eye on them but didn’t interfere with them.
The English National Alliance is one of a number of small ‘patriotic’ groups on the extreme right who I’ve photographed over the years, with some members who have also been involved in other similar groups. Their leader is a former BNP member who was expelled from the EDL in 2011 apparently for extremist statements.
Although I’ve made no secret of my disagreements with their views, I’ve always tried to present them clearly and accurately as a journalist, as with other groups I’ve photographed. I’ve felt it was my job, and one that informs the wider public who I think can be trusted to see them for what they are.
Many in these groups complain about the unfair press they receive, and they had a particular gripe that some pictures of people at protests who were just waving being captioned as making Nazi salutes. It certainly has happened, but as they agreed there are also some people at protests by extreme-right groups who will make Nazi salutes.
The ENA had decided to march to the Cenotaph to lay flowers on the way to taking a statement of their views in to Downing Street and I had been invited to join them at the pub where they were meeting for the march. I was surprised how few of them had come, as was the event organiser, and there were a number of phone calls made to try to get more to turn up, but eventually they decided to march.
I was surprised when the small march and its police escort turned down in front of the hall where the People’s Assembly was taking place and small groups of left-wingers were still protesting outside. I’m not sure whether the marchers or police had decided to take this route, but the response was entirely predictable.
Some of the marchers shouted “No Surrender” and they were almost immediately surrounded by people shouting back at them “Fascist scum!”, “Racists!” and there were some minor scuffles. Police managed to push a way through for them and made one arrest before the ENA march, now accompanied by a few counter-protesters was able to continue towards the Cenotaph and Downing St.
By now it was time for me to be at another event, and said goodbye to the ENA and left, with a copy of the long statement they were about to take in addressed to David Cameron from the “Patriots of England who are supporters of every street activist and political party in the United Kingdom.”
Well, no. The last half mile had been clear about that. But you can read my précis of their statement with a number of quotes along with more about the march on My London Diary at ENA Meet Left Opposition.
Dykes March – Berkeley Square to Soho
The Dyke March the previous year in London had been the first such event for many years, and this year’s event was on a rather smaller scale, but there were still around 300 who turned out to march.
The event began with a rally with speakers who included Roz Kaveney, (above), writer, critic, poet and deputy editor of the trans digital magazine META who read one of her poems and long-standing LGBT activist and historian Sue Sanders who tested the crowd on their knowledge of lesbian icons including suffragette composer Dame Ethyl Smyth. I think I recognised more of them than most of the crowd.
The route the march took was based in part on that taken – though in the opposite direction and ending in Hyde park by the 1908 Votes For Women March.
The march was to end with a rally in Soho Square, but I left it to go home from Piccadilly Circus.
