youth services | >Re-PHOTO

Give Our Kids A Future – 2011

Give Our Kids A Future – Dalston to Tottenham. A week after the police killing of Mark Duggan and the disturbances which followed in Tottenham, across London and in other towns and cities, community groups in North London came together on Saturday 13th August 2011 with around 1500 people marching from Dalston to Tottenham Town Hall pleading “Give Our Kids a Future.”

These disturbances were seen by many without surprise as tensions were rising in the more deprived areas of London and across the country as a result of the cuts to youth services and other support begun under New Labour and continued more savagely by the Coalition government.

Local Authorites were being starved of resources and had little choice but to make cuts where they could, cuts which disproportionately affected young people, the elderly and the disabled who rely more on their services. In particular many youth clbbs and other facilities had been closed.

Young people had also been hit by the announcement that the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA) which enabled many in lower icnome homes to continue their eduction was to end this summer. Many school students had been radicalised and had taken part in sometimes disorderly student protests, joining in the protests over university fee rises and other changes in education.

On these protests they had seen and suffered from heavy-handed policing with kettling, excessive use of batons and charges into crowds by police horses. And on the streets where they lived many had experienced police harassment, with racially discriminatory stop and searches and being moved away from areas where they met with friends.

People in these areas were becoming more aware of unexplained deaths in police custody, with anger and resentment “multiplied by the lies told by police to the press, and the various cover-ups and white-washing by the IPCC, CPS and other authorities that have been used to prevent bringing those responsible to justice. “

Some saw the shooting of Mark Duggan as an execution by police, and the undisguised glee of some of our right-wing media at his death, having taken the police lies and convicted him, clearly raised tempers. It was the total failure of Tottenham police to engage with the family members and others who held a peaceful vigil last Saturday and the police attack and beating of 15 year old girl that sparked the outbreak of rage that spread rapidly.

The march was not organised to condone any illegal behaviour but was an attempt by a long list of local organisations with the support of some wider political groups (a long list on My London Diary) “to bring all sections of local communities together to promote unity and to urge for positive action working together to find solutions to some of the long-standing problems of the area which made it fertile ground for the disturbances.“

“They want an end to the cuts in public services and for investment to be made into regeneration of the communities, with housing, jobs, education and leisure facilities and a restoration of all the youth services that have been cut”.

“More specifically about the riots they want a community led regeneration of the damaged areas and support for those affected, including the immediate rehousing of those made homeless and grants for small businesses.”

“But perhaps the most important of their demands was one for a cultural change, moving away from the demonisation of youth and the unemployed towards a culture of valuing all people.”

Their leaflet ended with the statement:

“Let’s work together for a decent society, based not on greed, inequality and poor conditions, but on justice, freedom, sharing and cooperation.“

More, including many more pictures, on My London Diary at Give Our Kids A Future.

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Stand Up To Lambeth, Brixton Arches, Trafalgar Square & Iran

Saturday 8th October 2016 in London

Stand Up to Lambeth Council – Windrush Square, Brixton

Stand Up To Lambeth, Brixton Arches, Trafalgar Square & Iran — *Rapper Potent Whisper with the Andrew Cooper’s four Lambeth villains*

Lambeth is on some measures one of the most unequal boroughs in the whole of England, with some areas of high deprivation and others with well above average incomes. It is ethnically diverse, with almost two thirds not describing themselves as White British and schoolchildren coming from homes in which 150 languages other than English are the first language. There are large Portuguese, Spanish and Somali speaking communities and almost a quarter of the population identify as Black.

Lambeth Council is run by Labour who have almost 60 councillors, with just three Lib-Dems and two Green Party councillors (there were 3 Conservatives and no Lib-Dems in 2016.) It is dominated by right-wing Labour councillors and has many links with property developers, estate agents and others, and seems determined to follow policies which are not in the interests of the people of Lambeth, closing libraries, ending many vital services and getting rid of council estates and the people who live there.

*Lambeth works with Savills, are a leading agency in social cleansing*

Activists in the borough accuse the Labour council of financial waste and “destroying our communities, racial and social inequality” and “stealing the people of Lambeth’s future.” The borough’s motto is ‘Spectemur Agendo’, Let us be judged by our acts, and many in Lambeth have judged the council and found it guilty of selling out its people.

*Police come to protect a Lambeth Labour stall supporting the council*

The protest was planned to be ‘family friendly’, a ‘big, pink, determined’ event to ‘Stand Up To Lambeth Council’ and oppose its “destruction of services, homes, jobs and the rights of residents.” As well as speeches there was a small brass band. But the protesters were clearly angry and a Lambeth Labour stall in the square needed police protection after it refused to take part in the protest or move. There were Labour members taking part in the protest, but Lambeth Momentum later appeared to deny supporting it, hoping to avoid the kind of purges that have been highlighted in the recent truly shocking Al Jazeera ‘Labour Files’ documentaries.

Council business is largely decided by a small inner cabinet, and the four major villains were represented at the event by a large four-headed monster made by Andrew Cooper with the faces of Lambeth Labour leader Lib Peck, Cabinet Member for Housing Cllr Matthew Bennett, Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Business and Culture Jack Hopkins and Sue Foster, Strategic Director, Neighbourhoods and Growth.

Eventually the march set off for Clapham Common, though it came to a partial halt almost immediately for a protest outside Lambeth Town Hall opposite Windrush Square, before setting off slowly towards Clapham.

I walked with the march roughly halfway to Clapham Common before turning around and going back to Brixton to catch the Victoria Line to central London.

More on My London Diary:
Stand Up to Lambeth March
Stand Up to Lambeth Council

Brixton Arches & More – Windrush Square, Brixton

Both on my way to the protest and during the march along Acre Lane I took a few pictures of Brixton. One of the actions of Lambeth Council has been to cooperate with Network Rail to force out traders from the railway arches in the centre of Brixton.

Network Rail intend to refurbish the arches and will then re-let them at three or more times the current rents, which will mean the distinctive local businesses being replaced by chains which can be found on every high street across the country. The campaign to keep the businesses there received huge support in the area, but the council wasn’t listening.

I rushed a few yards away from the march to photograph the mural Big Splash, painted in 1985 by Christine Thomas and still looking well (details here), though I doubt if anything like this ever existed on Brixton’s river, the Effra.

Trafalgar Square

I’d left the Lambeth protest to come back to photograph a protest that was supposed to be happening in Trafalgar Square which quite a few people had said on Facebook they would be attending. But nobody had turned up, and I had time to wander around the square.

One of the four 18ft square square bas-reliefs on the base of the column was of particular interest as the picture showing Nelson’s death includes one clearly black face. These panels were supposed to be made with brass from captured French cannon, but one led to a court case with the makers being jailed for having added some much cheaper iron and it had to be completed by others. The builders of the column also got away with fraud, as when it was restored in 2006 it was found to be 16 ft shorter than it should have been.

There were problems with the lions too, as they were first commissioned to be sculpted in granite, but the sculptor had a disagreement with the architect and abandoned the job. took years for them to be re-commissioned in bronze from Sir Edwin Landseer and Baron Marochetti and they were only added in 1867. And like most large projects while the costs were intended to be covered by private finance (or rather public subscription) the government had to step in and cover much of the cost.

Trafalgar Square

Iranian vigil on Anniversary of 1988 Massacre – Trafalgar Square

I’d stayed in Trafalgar Square to photograph a vigil by the Iranian People’s Fadaee Guerrillas in London and the Democratic Anti-imperialist Organisations of Iranians in Britain on the 27th anniversary of the massacre of an estimated 18,000 political prisoners held in Iranian jails by the Iranian regime following its defeat in the Iraq/Iran war in the Summer of 1988.

The 3 months of killing by the Iranian regime of communists, progressives, patriotic activists and intellectuals of all ages ended at the beginning of October 1988 but details only began to emerge years later. The protest also called for the release of the many political prisoners still held in Iran and called for a society there were all would be free and equal.

Iranian vigil on Anniversary of Massacre

Shutdown Knife Crime

Operation Shutdown is a campaign to end the deaths from knife and gun crime on our streets, which have been rising over the last few years. Most of those in the campaign are people who have suffered the pain of losing a relative – brother, son, nephew, uncle – or friend to knife crime.

The great majority of the victims are young men, in their teens or twenties, and although many are black what they virtually all have in common is that they come from working class families mainly living in deprived areas.

Almost certainly the biggest driver behind the increase in deaths has been austerity, with the huge cuts this has forced councils to make in youth services and other vital support for families. Some of the violence on the streets is certainly gang-related, often concerned with drugs, but those killed are often people on the periphery or innocent bystanders.

It would be impossible not to empathise with the suffering of mothers, fathers and other relatives as they talk about their loss, but I don’t always feel that some of the measures they suggest would do anything to curb the growth of knife crime. I have very little faith in their idea that the government’s emergency committee COBRA considering the problem would have any real impact, and it could well worsen the situation.

Of course there are things that they call for that would help. Restoring the cuts in vital community services is an obvious need, and reversing the cuts in police numbers could help too, though perhaps only if this led to more sensitive and informed community policing.

We need also to look at ways to reduce the power and influence of gangs, which would almost certainly include an evidence-led reform of our laws about drugs, something which succesive governments have resisted.

After a rally opposive Downing St, Operation Shutdown marched to Westminster Bridge, where they presented wreaths to a police officer and hold a silence in memory of PC Keith Palmer, killed outside Parliament by terrorists before going on to block the bridge and hold a further rally.

More at Knife crime Operation Shutdown

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