{"id":17256,"date":"2025-04-01T09:11:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T08:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=17256"},"modified":"2025-03-29T10:38:41","modified_gmt":"2025-03-29T10:38:41","slug":"fools-paradise-parade-2006-police-state-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=17256","title":{"rendered":"Fools Paradise Parade 2006 & Police State 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Fools Paradise Parade Against London Exclusion Zone<\/strong>: Another of my old posts on My London Diary that I’ll capitalise appropriately and make minor corrections is on the Fools Paradise Parade Against London Exclusion Zone which marched from beside the London Eye to Parliament Square on 1st April 2006. As well as the few pictures I’ll post here there are many more on My London Diary<\/a>. And I’ll end with a dramatic illustration of our shift towards a police state as we have moved over my lifetime fromthe welfare state to a warfare state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n

April Fools Day was a good day to demonstrate against the Serious Organised Crime And Police Act 2005<\/a> exclusion zone, which bans democratic protests within a kilometre of the the Houses of Parliament unless they have previous permission, as well as greatly restricting what protesters can do. It’s a peculiarly foolish piece of legislation, rushed through to try and tidy up Parliament Square and protect the government from the embarrassment of seeing Brian Haw and other peace protesters on their patch of grass in Parliament Square.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n

Even more foolish in that, at least so far, it hasn’t worked, although the authorities have appealed against Brian’s legal victory to be allowed to remain.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
Attacking the pinata in Parliament Square, Westminster, London<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n

April Fools were those who stuck their head in the sand and ignored the Calendar Change in 1752, which was accompanied by a shift in the New Year from March 25th (the Feast of the Assumption) to Jan 1st (the Feast of the Circumcision, latterly renamed the Solemnity of St Mary, Mother of Jesus.) The Inland Revenue still celebrates the old date (augmented by the 11 lost days of the Calendar Change and another that got lost in 1900) by starting the new tax year on April 6th.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n

The Fools Paradise Parade started on the Victoria Embankment next to the London Eye, with police taking only a friendly interest, but an argument with security men who told us we were on private property. Nice to know that its yet another bit of London that someone has flogged off, but it is public right of way, and we weren’t doing anything that could legally be objected to.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
Tony Blair won the vote to lead the march<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n

The main problem they had seemed to be that people were photographing them, which demonstrated their lack of training in their job, as did their attitude to the members of the public.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
The Queen was soon telling Mr Blair exactly what he could do.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n

Eventually the parade made its way along the riverside path and across Westminster Bridge to Parliament Square, where there was a bit of a party, with a pinata stuffed with presents being attacked and destroyed by the children.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
Charlie <\/em>X<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n

In Parliament Square the parade was greeted by Brian Haw<\/a>, still continuing his protest despite SOCPA. April 1st also marked the start of our very own FBI, the Serious Organised Crime Agency which seems likely to be used against political opposition as well as serious crime.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Parliament’s incompetence in drafting the law so it failed to ban Brian Haw was corrected in a rather concerning court appeal decision where basically the judgement said that it didn’t matter what the law said as it was clear what parliament had intended. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
An illegal political placard just somehow slipped out in front of the houses of Parliament<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But the provisions on protests in the area around parliament were later repealed and replaced by the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011<\/a>, which instead “restricts certain “prohibited activities” in Parliament Square garden and the adjoining footways. The police have used these powers to confiscate pizza boxes, tarpaulin and umbrellas from protesters in Parliament Square<\/em>.” It was rather a case of one step forward, two steps back and almost killed Barbara Tucker who had by then taken over from Brian Haw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Since 2006 we have seen many further restrictions on our right to protest and draconian prison sentences given to peaceful protesters. Some of the restrictions have been brought in by the Tories prompted by the success of protests by grass roots unions against companies particularly in London paying poverty wages and badly treating workers while others reflect the success of protests in promoting public awareness of issues including climate change and Israeli genocide in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

More pictures on My London Diary<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

The move towards a police state we are now witnessing was dramatically illustrated last week when when on 27th March more than 20 uniformed police, some equipped with tasers, forced their way into the Quaker Westminster Meeting House<\/a>, searched the entire building and arrested six young women holding a meeting over concerns for the climate and Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the Quakers state:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 have criminalised many forms of protest and allow police to halt actions deemed too disruptive.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\n

Meanwhile, changes in judicial procedures limit protesters’ ability to defend their actions in court. All this means that there are fewer and fewer ways to speak truth to power.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Their statement concluds:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cFreedom of speech, assembly, and fair trials are an essential part of free public debate which underpins democracy.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Flickr<\/a> – Facebook<\/a> – My London Diary<\/a> – Hull Photos<\/a> – Lea Valley<\/a> – Paris<\/a>
London’s Industrial Heritage<\/a> – London Photos<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All photographs on this page are copyright \u00a9 Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fools Paradise Parade Against London Exclusion Zone: Another of my old posts on My London Diary that I’ll capitalise appropriately and make minor corrections is on the Fools Paradise Parade Against London Exclusion Zone which marched from beside the London Eye to Parliament Square on 1st April 2006. As well as the few pictures I’ll … Continue reading Fools Paradise Parade 2006 & Police State 2025<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[3387,20014,3959,20013,20015,4234,9411,127,20018,20016,15726,17,244,20019,83,628,12732,1811,16,20020,4242,5085,4239,8646,4785,20017,20021],"class_list":["post-17256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-own-work","category-political-issues","tag-3387","tag-all-fools-day","tag-april-1st","tag-april-2006","tag-april-fools","tag-brian-haw","tag-charlie-x","tag-climate-change","tag-cnd-placard","tag-fools-paradise-parade","tag-israeli-genocide","tag-london","tag-march","tag-not-aloud","tag-peter-marshall","tag-police","tag-police-raid","tag-police-state","tag-protest","tag-quaker-meeting-house","tag-right-to-protest","tag-soca","tag-socpa","tag-the-queen","tag-tony-blair","tag-victoria-embankment","tag-westminster-meeting-house"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17256"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17258,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17256\/revisions\/17258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}