IWW Demand ‘Reinstate Alberto’, Occupy & London: On Friday 10th February 2012 I came to London to photograph a rush hour protest calling for the reinstatement of an office cleaner sacked for his union activities. I came early to wander a little from Waterloo and pay a visit to Occupy London on the way there, and also took a few pictures on my way home after the protest.
Cleaners were protesting outside the 230 metre tall Heron Tower (now Salesforce Tower) at 110 Bishopsgate, completed in 2007 when it then was the tallest building in the City of London.
Alberto Durango speaks outside Heron Tower
The protest called for the reinstatement of IWW Branch Secretary Alberto Durango who had been sacked, victimised for his trade union activities, after the cleaning contract for the building had been taken over by a new contractor, Incentive FM Group Ltd.
NTT Communications threw out their cleaners “like rubbish” because they organised and joined the union
Alberto who worked as a cleaner in the Heron Tower had become well known for his campaigning activities in and around the City of London, which have helped to secure better working conditions and the London Living Wage for many of the cleaners who work in London’s prestigious offices. He was then the Industrial Workers of the World Cleaners and Allied Trades Branch Secretary and in 2011 had won the fight for workers at Heron Tower to be paid the London Living Wage and an agreement with the then employer that there would be no redundancies there with any staff reductions needed being made by transfers to alternative posts.
Under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations (TUPE) the new employer should have continued to recognise this agreement. Instead they refused to do so and picked on Alberto, making him redundant.
The same management also controlled Exchange Tower where the IWW were carrying out a campaign to get cleaners the London Living Wage and where they have taken a very aggressive stance against the union, threatening the union members. The protesters connected Alberto’s sacking with his role there as union Branch Secretary.
This was a very loud protest with speakers using a powerful megaphone and drummers from Rhythms of Resistance adding their loud beats as office workers from Heron Tower and the many other offices in the area were making their way home in the evening rush hour.
The pavement outside the area owned by Heron Tower on Bishopsgate is relatively narrow and police rightly insisted that there needed to be a clear route along it for workers to get past without having to step into the busy road. So my 15mm fisheye lens was extremely useful, though it does make the area look much more spacious than it was.
In February the protest began a quarter of an hour after sunset, and light was fading fast. Although the City streets are generally well light both from street lighting and by the light from the huge areas of glass on the front of modern buildings I used added lighting for many of the pictures, either with a hand held LED light or flash on camera. But neither light source can cover the 180 degree diagonal view of the fisheye and those pictures rely on available light only. Its f2.8 maximum aperture helped – and it was a stop faster than the wide-angle zoom used for almost all the other images. In some at least of the pictures I think the fish-eye effect works well too.
Occupy London & Other Pictures – St Paul’s Cathedral
Although there were still plenty of tents in St Paul’s Churchyard as I walked through they were all tightly closed and the occupiers were still out protesting the music anti-piracy proposals at the British Music House in Soho.
I was a disappointed at not meeting any of them, although I hadn’t arranged to do so and it did allow me to take a few pictures of the site without any distractions, though by the time I’d wandered there taking a few pictures on the way including from the Millenium footbridge I was in a hurry to get to the Heron Tower.
After the protest at the Heron Tower I took a bus back to Westminster and made a few pictures in the subway leading from the station to the Houses of Parliament and under the Emabankment towards the Thames before walking across the bridge and to Waterloo Station.
Serenading the Bomb Makers: Given the current increased tension over the possible nuclear escalation of the Ukraine war – something that would be disastrous to us all and totally insane and irrational, but if NATO keep poking the Russian Bear with a stick could be provoked – it seems appropriate to remember the lunchtime tour around the London offices of some of the companies involved in making the UK’s nuclear weapons on Friday 12th December 2008.
I don’t think I can improve on the piece I posted on My London Diary in 2008 – except by adding the odd word that somehow got missed out, so I’ll copy that here, with some of the pictures from the event. I got too cold standing around and left after an hour and went to take a short look at the work taking place on the Olympic site at Stratford Marsh as the light was beginning to fade.
‘Muriel Lesters’ Serenade the Bomb Makers
Lockheed Martin, Carlisle Place – A man sprawls in memory of the many deaths caused by atomic weapons; security men look bored.
Ten activists turned up in Victoria, London on Friday for a festive protest outside the offices of the US company behind the production of the UK’s nuclear weapons and the huge expansion of bomb production facilities at Aldermaston – costing £6,000,000,000 – which has never been debated or approved by Parliament.
They were the ‘Muriel Lesters*’, a London affinity group of Trident Ploughshares. Dressed in Santa suits, white nuclear inspector overalls and festive hats they called for an end to bomb production at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE).
Appropriately, their renditions of festive songs and carols with modified anti-nuclear lyrics were largely less than tuneful (one taking part was hear to say “I’m a Quaker, we don’t sing” and who could contradict him?) They called for a stop to the illegal activities of these companies in making weapons.
First to be serenaded by the group were the offices of the US arms giant Lockheed Martin, makers of ‘bunker buster’ and ‘cluster’ bombs, the worlds largest exporter of weapons and the leading member of the consortium set up to produce the nuclear warheads for the UK Trident replacement at Aldermaston.
After an hour or so of leafleting and displaying banners on Vauxhall Bridge Road just around the corner, the group moved to the front door of the building housing Lockheed Martin and several other companies in Carlisle Place for their half hour carol ‘concert’. It was a site I knew from the ‘Merchants of Death‘ tour by CAAT earlier in the year. A number of people came in an out of the building while this was going on and some took leaflets while others hurried past, often to waiting taxis.
Half way through the performance, a police car pulled up and dropped off two constables who came to talk to the protesters. They asked who was in charge (and of course nobody was) and for a mobile number they could use to contact the group, saying “it’s standard practice for protests“. Oh no it isn’t! They were handed a leaflet with the Norwich details of Trident Ploughshares, but that wasn’t what they had in mind.
The police were informed that the real criminals were in the Lockheed Martin offices, carrying out the vast expansion in UK nuclear arms, a breach of the UK’s obligations under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that they were involved in an illegal conspiracy with some groups we could name down the road in Whitehall. The police chose to ignore this vital evidence but eventually they went away, reminding the protesters that while they supported the right to demonstrate, it was important to keep the pavement clear.
As they left, one member of the group stretched out “dead” on his back on that pavement as a symbol of the many victims of nuclear weapons, including those killed in nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, “bomb test veterans, and victims of leukaemias, lymphomas and cancers caused by exposure to radioactive discharges from AWE Aldermaston and AWE Burghfield in Berkshire, Sellafield in Cumbria, Rolls Royce Raynesway in Derby and other sites“
I left the group as it packed up and decided to take a short break before going on for a similar protest at the London offices of Jacobs Engineering and Fluor Corporation, two other US companies who are competing for the stake in the AWE bomb-making contract currently filled by the British Nuclear Group. The third player in the contract – the only remaining UK involvement – is SERCO.
Muriel Lester, (1883–1968), born in Leytonstone, was a leading Christian peace campaigner and writer. Among many other things she founded Kingsley Hall in Bow, was a friend of Gandhi, Travelling Secretary of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation and was detained for ten weeks in Trinidad and then several days in Holloway Prison for her activities during the Second World War.
Westminster & Waterloo: I’m not sure now why I was in London on Wednesday November 1st 1989, but probably I had been to see an exhibition at the Photographers Gallery during my half-term holiday. I took a slightly longer walk than usual to get back to Waterloo from Soho through Trafalgar Square and then along to Waterloo Bridge and across it to get back to the station.
Trafalgar Square, Westminster, 1989 89-10j-65
Back in 1989 there were still people feeding the pigeons in Trafalgar Square and I made this rather atmospheric “contro-jour” image – not my usual kind of thing – I generally try to make pictures about substance rather than effect.
Trafalgar Square, Westminster, 1989 89-10j-66
My next frame was a little more like my normal work, though still making use of the backlit water in the fountains.
Royal Society of the Arts, John Adam St, Westminster, 1989 89-10j-56
Adelphi, the district south of Strand was developed by the Adams brothers (Robert and James), and the name is the Greek for brothers. The area here had been the London palace for the Bishop of Durham which had gardens going down the the River Thames and this was demolished for the new buildings. Financially the project was a disaster and they were only saved from bankruptcy by the Adam Buildings Act 1772 which enabled a public lottery to be run to save them.
The headquarters of the Royal Society of the Arts, then the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, was built by the brothers between 1768 and 1772 and is said to be London’s first neoclassical building.
Adelphi Building, Robert St, Savoy Place, Westminster, 1989 89-10j-44
Parts of the area were demolished in the early 1930s for the building of the massive Art Deco New Adelphi Building by Collcutt & Hamp finished in 1938. A speculative office building it has since been occupied by a number of well-known companies. The Grade II listed building with sculptures by Gilbert Ledwood has been internally refurbished since I made this picture. There is a public right of way, Lower Robert Street, beneath the building.
Outpatients, Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women, Waterloo Bridge, Stamford St, Waterloo, Lambeth, 1989 89-10j-35
I took a few more pictures in the area (not online) before making my way across Waterloo Bridge and onto Waterloo Road where I photographed the decoration on the former Outpatients Department of the Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women.
This had been set up in the City of London in 1816 and was at the time one of very few hospitals that would treat children, though still only as outpatients. It gained the Royal in its title in 1821 when the Duke of York became a patron and moved to this new larger site three years later in 1824. The hospital was rebuilt to designs by Charles Nicholdson in 1903-5. It became part of the NHS in 1948 and closed in 1976.
In its later years it had a notorious psychiatric ‘Ward 5’ which carried out a number of highly dangerous treatments on its patients which led to deaths and other deleterious effects. On my 1990s map it is a part of King’s College.
St John’s Waterloo, Waterloo Rd, Waterloo, Lambeth, 1989 89-10j-21
This fine building was built in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars when the population of London was expanding rapidly and the Houses of Parliament voted a sum not exceeding a million pounds for the building of new churches to serve areas with large populations “more particularly in the Metropolis and its Vicinity.”
It was one of three churches designed by Francis Octavius Bedford in this project, and they were all built in what was then becoming an unfashionable Greek Revival style, completed in 1824.
St John’s Waterloo, Waterloo Rd, Waterloo, Lambeth, 1989 89-10j-23
The church was badly damaged in the Second World War in 1940, and stood without a roof and with much of the interior destroyed for almost ten years, with services taking place in the crypt. It was restored in 1950 with its interior in a ‘Festival of Britain’ style though some original parts remain, and was rededicated as the Festival of Britain Church. It is Grade II* listed.
I went across the road to Waterloo Station in time to catch my train home.
DPAC Court Vigil, a Poet Arrested, Musical Poor Doors & More: Wednesday 22nd October 2014, ten years ago today was a busy day for me. You can read my full accounts of the various events I photographed on the links to My London Diary, along with many more pictures, but here I’ve only space for a short outline. Below is my day more or less in order.
DPAC High Court Vigil for ILF – Royal Courts of Justice,
When disabled people won a court case over withdrawal of the Independent Living Fund the government simply put back the closure of the fund. Today’s protest by Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) supported a second case against the closure. Speakers at the vigil included three MPs, John McDonnell, Andy Slaughter and Jeremy Corbyn, as well as many from various disability groups.
At the end of the protest, DPAC carried out their usual direct action, blocking Strand outside the court with their wheelchairs.
End UK shame over Shaker Aamer – Parliament Square, London
Protesters were continuing their regular vigils opposite Parliament for Shaker Aamer, imprisoned and tortured for over 12 years and cleared for release in 2007. They believe he was still being held because his testimony would embarrass MI6 as well as the US.
I took the tube from Westminster to Canary Wharf to visit the Bridges exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands, later returning to Westminster. I paused in Westminster Station to take some panoramic images of the interior, designed as Piranesian, though sometimes I get more of the feeling of Escher as you seem to walk endlessly up escalators and around the interior.
I found the show a little disappointing, but took advantage of my visit there to take a few more panoramic images.
I made a couple of visits to the Democracy Camp in Parliament Square both before and after going to Canary Wharf. Although the camp had been ejected from the main grass area workshops and rallies were still taking place throughout the day, and Danny, the ‘Plinth Guy‘ was still up there with Churchill since the previous day – and there were cheers when he completed 24 hours.
Earlier someone had been arrested for throwing him a bottle of water, and when performance poet and activist Martin Powell arrived with a plastic tub of food he was warned he would be arrested if he tried to give it to Danny.
He replied it could not possibly be a crime to feed a hungry person and threw it extremely accurately over police heads and into Danny’s waiting hands. Arrested and marched away he loudly recited his poem ‘The Missing Peace’.
Danny was still in place when I returned at 5pm but the police had called in their climbing team. I listened while its leader talked with him, and Danny told him he would not resist arrest if they came to take him down peacefully. But I had to leave before they started to do so.
This was Class War’s 14th weekly protest at the ‘rich door’ of Redrow’s One Commercial St flats and it was a lively affair with the banners dancing to the music of Rhythms of Resistance, a poetic performance and some rousing speeches against social apartheid.
There ws strong police presence but there was no trouble, with a carnival atmosphere and banners dancing up and down the wide pavement in front of the rich door. Most of the police appeared to be enjoying the event too.
As usual after an hour of protesting people dispersed and I went into Aldgate East station to begin my journey home.
Make Seats Match Votes – Old Palace Yard, Westminster, London. Saturday 25th July 2015
In our recent UK general election there were a little over 48 million registered voters, although only around 29 million bothered to vote. Of these marginally over a third voted Labour who ended up in a landslide victory with 411 of the 650 Parliamentary seats – around 63% – almost two-thirds of our MPs.
The Tories got 23.7% of the votes – almost a quarter of the votes and gained 121 MPs, around 18.6 % of seats. The Lib-Dems did rather better with their 12.2% of the votes gaining 72 seats, 11% of MPs, but as a whole the smaller parties did extremely badly.
The three main parties together got just under 70% of the votes, leaving 30% to the other candidates. Together these resulted in around 40 MPs, around 6% of the total.
Worst hit by our crazy first past the post electoral system was Reform, who actually polled more votes – 14% – than the Lib Dems, but only 5 seats.
It’s also worth pointing out that Labour’s vote share and total vote of 9,708,716 under Keir Starmer was considerably less than in 2017 when Labour under Jeremy Corbyn got 40% of the votes, a total of 12,877,918 on a higher turnout. Corbyn was not only more popular, but his candidacy increased the interest in politics in the UK.
It’s clear from the figures that Labour did not win the 2024 election, but that the Tories lost it, with Reform splitting the right-wing vote to produce the Labour landslide.
The result was a Labour government which at least seems likely to be far more competent than the Tories who had clearly lost the plot. They seem to have hit the ground running, if not always in the correct direction and I’m concerned about their plans for the NHS, housing, poverty, Israel and more.
But we desperately need an electoral system that more clearly reflects the will of the people. There can be arguments about what would be the best way to do that, but I think something using a single transferable vote system – marking candidates in order of preference 1,2,3.. etc, perhaps with a party list for the Upper House (which clearly should no longer be the House of Lords) would be preferable.
I have only ever voted once for a candidate who ever became an MP although I’ve voted in every election since I was old enough to vote in 1966. A year or two before his death in 2017 I met Gerald Kaufmann MP and amused him by telling him he was the only MP I had ever voted for back in 1970 when he was first elected as MP – for Manchester Ardwick.
This year as usual for where I live we got another Tory MP, though he only got 30% of the vote. Labour could have won had they had a good local candidate, and the Lib-Dems and Reform were not that far behind. On any sensible voting system we would now almost certainly not have a Tory MP. Though at least he seems likely to be a rather better constituency MP than our previous absentee member.
My account of the protest on Saturday 25th July 2015 considers the results of the 2015 General Election, “the most disproportionate UK election ever” until 2024 and the pictures demonstrate the problems of photographing the kind of photo-opportunity that looks great to its art director but is highly problematic to us photographers with feet on the ground.
A map of the UK made with coloured balloons to show the constituencies in different colours sounds a good idea, but as I commented, it “would have looked quite impressive from a helicopter, but seen at ground level was rather disappointing.”
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.