Camden Lock, South Bank & Soul in the City: I didn’t write much about my day on Saturday 7th August 2004 – and I’ll reproduce it in full at the end of this post.
I didn’t then mention that I started the day in Camden taking half an hour wandering around Camden Lock before walking along, past a secret garden near Regents Park (and I can’t remember where that was) to Park Square East where I took a picture of the Diorama “built in 1823 to show large, dramatized tableaux paintings as entertainment.“
Next I took the tube to the South Bank where at the National Theatre I found the Caesar Twins swimming around in a goldfish bowl, but with apparently relatively few people paying much attention.
On the beach at Gabriel’s Wharf
From there I went onto the beach beside the River Thames at Gabriel’s Wharf where people were relaxing and enjoying the warm weather. The tide was out revealing a remarkably wide area of sand.
In Bernie Spain Gardens on the bank above a festival was taking place and I photographed a few Romanian musicians before walking back across the new Jubilee (Hungerford) bridge to Trafalgar Square – where my 2004 account below describes what was taking place.
Romanian music in Bernie Spain Gardens
“Saturday I spent wandering around London, mainly getting to things too early. I did manage to take a few pictures of a Romanian group performing at Bernie Spain Gardens, before leaving for Trafalgar Square which had been taken over for the final event of a two week ‘Soul In The City’ mission for young people.
Worship in Trafalgar Square to celebrate the end of two weeks of work and witness.
The fountains in the square were full of young people, mainly girls, waving in ecstasy to rather tame gospel music in a slickly managed event. As I was photographing a woman was praying out loud into my left ear, filling it with sycophantic nonsense, but otherwise there seemed to be little real fervour.
I went back to the Romanians, where at least there was Urquell Pilsner on sale (its advertising says ‘In the beginning there was darkness, then in 1842 we found the light.)”
The larger images are ones I took then but didn’t use in my original post. There are a few more pictures on My London Diary, beginning here.
Hiroshima Day in London: Most years when I’m in London on August 6th, Hiroshima Day, I go to the annual commemoration in Tavistock Square, and that on 6th August 2011 was memorable, with an address by Hetty Bower along with speeches by others including Tony Benn, Bruce Kent and others as well as poetry and song.
Hetty Bower, 105, holds up a Peace Card given her by a primary school class
The ceremony on 6th August is organised by London Region CND and takes place at noon close to the Hiroshima Cherry Tree planted by then Mayor of Camden Millie Miller “in memory of the victims, past and present, of the atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki“. Everyone is welcome to come today.
Tony Benn and the Mayor of Camden
That tree has had to be replaced after being killed by fungus, and last year I took part in the planting of its replacement, a new Prunus ‘Kanzan’ cherry tree planted on the 80th anniversary of the first nuclear attack.
Some brought flowers to lay at the event
As well as the bomb which devastated Hiroshima on August 6th 1945, three days later a second bomb was exploded over Nagasaki.
There will be a Pax Christi Ecumenical Service at 4pm on Sunday August 9, 2026 at Holy Redeemer Catholic Church, Cheyne Row for the 83rd anniversary of the death of Blessed Franz Jagerstatter who was executed in 1943 for refusing to serve in Hitler’s army. After this there will be a peace walk at 5pm to the London Peace Pagoda in Battersea Park for the annual Nagasaki Day commemoration ceremony, beginning at 6pm.
Rev Nagase
Hosting the commemoration will be Reverend Gyoro Nagase of the Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhist order.
At a moment when countries across Europe including the UK are increasing spending on arms and Russia is still at war with Ukraine it seems more important than ever to remember the dangers of nuclear war.
Hetty Bower speaking
You can read more detail about the ceremony in 2011 on My London Dairy and much more about the terrible events both in other posts here and on My London Diary. If you’ve never read John Hersey’s Hiroshima, first published in August 1946 as a complete issue of New Yorker magazine and here 3 months later as a Penguin paperback, it remains a compelling read and has never since been out of print. Hersey insisted all copyright fees were donated to the American Red cross.
She holds up a picture of her grandson saying she wants him o grow up in a world of peace
Here I’ll just repeat one paragraph from what I wrote in 2011 about the remarkable Hetty Bower (1905-2013):
“Hetty Bower started her anti-war campaign in 1914 when she was almost nine. She got an extra holiday from school when the premises were used as a recruiting centre, but at she said “it didn’t take this young schoolgirl very long for the reality of war to become evident. This child saw men with one trouser leg rolled up because there was no human leg to go in it…” She held up a photograph of her great grandchild, one year old on Tuesday (Nagasaki Day) and said that she wanted “him to grow up and live in a world of peace.” It was a remarkably powerful performance for a 105 year old who still takes part in every major anti-war march.”
Foil Vedanta & Black Lives Matter: On Friday 5th August 2016 I photographed Foil Vedanta protesting outside the AGM of mining giant Vedanta Resources in the City and later went to Whitechapel where Black Lives Matter UK were a rally as a part of a “national shutdown”, the first major Black Lives Matter events in the UK.
Black Lives Matter had begun in the US in 2013, founded by three Black women, and grew around the Twitter hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. Of course it came from a broader history of civil rights movements and struggles, both in the USA and here in the UK.
Foil Vedanta at mining giant’s AGM
Ironmonger Hall, Aldersgate
City of London Police stop Samarendra Das and the Vedanta Monster at the entrance to the Ironmongers Hall
Foil Vedanta staged a noisy and colourful protest outside the Ironmonger Hall in the City of London where Vedanta, then still listed in London were holding their AGM.
This protest was in support of the fight by communities around the world where the mining company and its subsidiaries had polluted rivers, displaced communities, killed workers in accidents and destroyed the environment, as well as defrauding governments by tax evasion.
The mining giant was 69% owned by billionaire chairman Anil Agarwal and his family, but when listed on the London Stock Exchange had to hold an annual meeting for shareholders. Some of those protesting had become shareholders so they could attend these meetings and ask questions about the company activities.
The protesters came with many placards about the company’s crimes and with statements from some of those who had suffered from them, and lobbied shareholders as they arrived for the meeting. A team from Vedanta carrying documents for the meeting got a very noisy reception, but police escorted Mr Agarwal to the meeting by a side entrance, though the protesters spotted him and shouted loudly.
The campaigners had come with a large inflatable ‘Vedanta Monster’, its various heads representing Vedanta companies – and with a resemblance to Anil Agarwal
When fully inflated the Vedanta Monster made a dash for the entrance but was stopped by police. It was too large to enter the hall, but did for some time block the doorway.
Police escorted shareholders past the monster and tried to get those holding it to move away – and eventually they withdrew a few yards.
It was soon time for Samarendra Das and other protesting shareholders to go into the AGM while the noisy protest continued outside.
Some shareholders who left the meeting early were escorted by politc past the noisy protest where protesters were still shouting and drumming
BLMUK, Black Lives Matter UK, had called for a national day of action on August 5th to commemorate the many UK victims of state violence, including Mark Duggan, Sarah Reed, Mzee Mohammed, Jermaine Baker, Sean Rigg, Leon Patterson, Kingsley Burrell and over 1500 others, disproportionately black, since 1990. The day of action was five years and a day after the police killing of Mark Duggan.
Marcia Rigg, whose brother Sean Rigg was killed by police in Brixton in 2008, raises her fist in saluteStephanie Lightfoot-Bennett whose twin brother Leon Patterson was battered to death by police in a Stockport cell in 1992A relative of Sheku Bayoh, killed by police in Scotland in 2015
The London event took place in Altab Ali Park, renamed in 1998 in memory of Altab Ali, a 25-year-old Bangladeshi Sylheti clothing worker who had been murdered in May 1978 in Adler Street which runs along the east side of the park. He was killed by three teenage boys in one of the many racist attacks taking place in the area then.
BLMUK had recently come together as a community movement of activists from across the UK who believed deeply that #BlackLivesMatter but are not affiliated with any political party. They called for justice and an end to racialised sexism, classism and homophobia and a new politics based on community defence and resilience.
The rally ended with meetings by those present in four large groups to discuss future community organisation in North, South, East and West London, and I then went home.
The East London meeting begins in one corner of the park
No Glory No More War: Monday 4th August was the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War – and campaigners marked the anniversary with a ‘No Glory – No More War‘ event in Parliament Square.
My father was 14 when the ‘Great War’ began and had just left school. Soon after was working in a factory making munitions close to Kew Bridge. Although his only formal qualification was his school leaving certificate he worked in the drawing office rather than on the shop floor – though the only work he ever mentioned doing there was sharpening pencils. Years of working with his father in their car-building workshop as a carpenter and wheelwright had made him a dab hand with a chisel.
The only war worth fighting is the Class War – “WW1 was a rich man’s war in which 15 million poor men died“
After some months he was out of a job, and fed up and decided – as he put it – “he might as well join the army” before he was conscripted. He went to join up and had a medical where the officer examining found he was severely deaf in one ear – and told him he could be excused military service. “Do you want to go?” he was asked and he said he did. “Good man!” he was told and signed up to the army.
Jeremy Corbyn
Then came military training, which he didn’t much like after which he was sent to barracks. At some point when he was ordered to do some particularly time-wasting job he told the officer concerned what he thought of it and was put on a charge. Fortunately his senior officer was a sensible man, and after telling Dad he could be shot for disobeying an order told him not to be stupid again and sent him back to his unit.
Dad’s skills were not being used in the Army and he requested a transfer to the Royal Flying Corps as a mechanic. He went first to France and later to Germany, helping to repair the planes when they came back damaged. The airfields were well behind the front line and relatively safe. On April 1, 2018 the RFC became the RAF but I doubt if it made a lot of difference on the ground. And he was on the ground, and would never say if he ever went up in the air during his service.
WW1 Veteran George Charles had stated “It was such a complete waste of lives”
After the end of the war Dad was one of the last of his unit to be demobbed, ending up as stores quartermaster, only coming home in 1919, bringing with him some odd iron German coins and fond memories of fraternising with the German people. He had not seen the true horror of the war, though many he knew and served with had died. And of his five sisters, only two ever found men to marry.
A L Kennedy
At the event there were much more dramatic stories of the war and the truth about it, with a number of well-known speakers including historians and others. Among them was Neil Faulkner, author of the pamphlet No Glory, which gives a real history of WW1.
Neil Faulkner. a historian who wrote that WW1 was “a rich man’s war in which 15 million poor men died.”
Far from being the “war to end all wars” and a “victory for democracy“, it was a military disaster and a human catastrophe, “driven by big powers’ competition for influence around the globe, and caused a degree of suffering all too clear in the statistical record of 16 million people dead and 20 million wounded.“
WW1 Veteran Harry Patch told Tony Blair ‘War is Nothing Better than legalised Mass Murder’
I concluded my account: “While we remember the bravery and sacrifice of those who took part, we should also be aware of the pointlessness of the war and make use of its anniversary to promote peace and international cooperation.”
Police Prevent Peaceful Protest: On Thursday 30the July 2026 Defend Our Juries had arranged a static peaceful protest on the wide pavement in front of Westminster Magistrates Court on Marylebone Road. It was to begin at noon with an hour of speeches, music and poetry.
I arrived at the starting time to find several surrounding roads full of police vans and squads of police standing waiting while others were in the crowd making arrests.
There was a large crowd present, perhaps around a thousand demonstrating against the government ban on Palestine Action. They included many who had been arrested at previous events for holding signs in support of Palestine Action.
Over 1500 of these arrestees had earlier received letters from the court stating that their cases would be dealt with on this day – but most at least had been told they need not attend. Clearly magistrates cannot hear that many cases in a day and the intention had been to simply rubber-stamp the great majority without allowing those arrested to make any defence.
Defend Our Juries had in fact been told that because of administrative problems, the ‘non-hearing‘ of these cases would not be going ahead on this day. But they had decided to go ahead with the protest and after the hour of entertainment had invited all those charged – if they wanted – to come up the the small platform they were bringing and make a further statement of their support for Palestine Action and their intention to encourage others also support the banned group.
Most of those previously arrested had been charged under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act, but by making the intended statement would also be in breach of Sections 11 and 12 which carry more serious penalties – and would lead to a jury trial. Defend Our Juries were clearly intending to ramp up their challenge to the authorities in what they called a ‘Graduation Day’ ceremony.
Before I arrived police had already seized the platform and the public address system as well as several protesters – including one who who had been testing the sound system. Perhaps they will now argue that ‘1.2.3.4 …testing‘ is now a terrorist chant.
The Court of Appeal had surprised many by overruling the High Court’s decision that the ban was unlawful. It was was pushed through Parliament by combining them with a genuinely terrorist organisation, and would probably have met with considerable opposition otherwise. As the protest was taking place on Thursday the Supreme Court announced it would hear a further appeal in September which could quash the ban. Andy Burnham could end this nonsense now.
A Day In Manchester: Manchester isn’t everyone’s idea of a holiday destination, but it is a place with many largely happy memories for my wife and myself. We met there and lived there on the upper floor of a small house in a working-class area for the first two years of our marriage. Since then we had passed through it a few times but had hardly been back for almost 50 years when we decided to book a hotel and revisit the city in for a few days in August 2018,
All of these pictures were taken on one day – Thursday 2nd August 2018 – and show a little of what we found – and you can see many more pictures from the day and a couple of others we were there on My London Diary. As you can see it was a very full day.
Manchester: City Centre
New Islington, Whitworth St, Castlefield
After breakfast we walked into the City Centre aiming to view the memorial to Alan Turing and then go on to the the Manchester Museum of Science and Technology. Our route took us past Piccadilly Village, Manchester’s tallest building Beetham Tower and a number of interesting late Victorian buildings.
New Islington from the window of our hotel room
This memorial to Alan Turing is in Sackville park, Fairfield St, close to where I worked for several years. He committed suicide in 1954 with an apple containing cyanide after being hounded for being gay. His work in Cambridge and later from 1948 to his death at Manchester University made him recognised as the father of modern computing and artificial intelligence.
Manchester is still full of interesting older buildings. Medlock Mill was built in 1801 as a cotton warehouse. From 1982-2011 it housed Percy Brothers – The Hotspur Press
The Great Northern Warehouse connected the railway, roads and the Manchester and Salford Junction Canal which ran underneath it.
But there is also a great deal of modern architecture, including Manchester’s tallest building, Beetham Tower.
The platform for the first passenger railway station in the world
Manchester Liverpool Road station opened as the terminus of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in September 1830 and it only finally closed in 1975, although passenger services had ended in 1844 with the opening of Manchester Victoria station. It was still connected to the main line until 2015, and a few heritage services ran into it until then.
The station building and Liverpool Rd
After it was sold by British Rail the station and its goods yard were used for a short time by Granada Television, who filmed some scenes of Coronation Street there, but in 1978 it became a museum. It is now part of the Science Museum, with the space to display some of the exhibits which could not be shown in its old building in South Kensington, and is a model of what a science museum should be.
1830s railway warehouses on the site
We had come to see a special exhibition of the world’s first stored program computer, ‘Baby’, built at Manchester University, which ran its first program on 21 June 1948. We did finally see it, but only after we had walked past the area it was in and explored much of the rest of the museum – which was photographically more interesting. But we had to leave before we had time to really go around the museum – to which we returned later.
We had only intended a short visit to the museum as we had planned to visit Bramhall Hall, a fine old building now owned by Stockport Council. Somehow we had spent years in Manchester seeing buses going past with the destination Bramhall but had never gone there to visit it.
I’m not a huge fan of visiting stately homes though I’ve been to plenty, but this one turned out to be rather more interesting than most and I recommended a visit if you’ve never been. But we made a bit of a mess of the bus trip – the buses were then sorely in need of a Greater Manchester mayor to lick them into shape.
We returned to Manchester and our hotel for a short rest and then went out for another walk by some of the canals, hoping to find a pub where we could have an evening meal.
H A Howard & Sons Ltd – Gileric Gowns – Ducie St
The walk was fine, but we didn’t like the look (or perhaps it was the menu) of the first pub we tried; the second bar looked interesting but then we found it didn’t serve real meals; another pub looked promising, offering ‘home cooking’ but when I went in to ask I was told they only served food at lunchtimes.
Rochdale Canal from Great Ancoats St
Eventually we gave up and made for one of central Manchester’s Wetherspoons on Deansgate. It’s in a splendid former cinema, worth a visit to view its interior, and the food, if not exciting is dependable and certainly cheap.
Ashton Canal
After relaxing with food and drink we enjoyed a leisurely walk – more canals – and made our way back to the hotel.
Rastafari, Vedanta & De Beers: Pictures from protests I covered on Friday 1st August 2014.
August 1st is Emancipation Day, celebrating the effective date of the abolition of slavery across the British Empire in 1834, and 2014 also marked the centenary of the foundation of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) by Marcus Garvey and Amy Ashwood Garvey in Jamaica in 1914.
In Brixton I photographed a rally by Rastafaris preparing to march to Parliament to demand reparations for the slave trade. I left to go to Lincoln Inn’s Fields to a protest outside the AGM of mining group Vedanta, responsible for killings and environmental destruction in various countries around the world.
Finally in Piccadilly campaigners were outside De Beers asking people to boycott diamonds cut and polished in Israel which fund war crimes against Palestinians.
Rastafari Demand Reparations For Slave Trade
Windrush Square, Brixton
On the centenary of the foundation by Marcus Garvey of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, Rastafaris met at Brixton to march to Parliament demanding reparations for the descendants of those taken from Africa by the Atlantic Slave Trade.
Demands for international reparations have been increasingly made in recent years, some for huge sums. As I wrote:
“In 2004, a group of Jamaican Rastafari movement groups argued that European countries, particularly Britain, should pay £72.5 billion to resettle 500,000 Jamaican Rastafarians in Africa, but the British government rejected their claim. Other claims have been lodged in 2007 by Guyana, in 2011 by Antigua and Barbuda.”
No government has yet agreed to any financial reparations to the descendants of slaves or the countries affected. The British Government at the time of abolition paid out huge sums over many years to the owners of slaves – equivalent to 40% of the national budget – and this payment was only completed in 2015. Among those who have received payments were powerful British families, including current business and political elites in the United Kingdom.
The event go off to a slow start with drumming and dances and then some speeches. It was still continuing when I left to go elsewhere and I missed the march which only began an hour and a half later.
The protest on the opposite side of the road from the Vedanta AGM was organised by Foil Vedanta who say:
“Vedanta Resources is a FTSE 250 British-Indian mining company guilty of thousands of deaths, environmental devastation, anti union action, corruption and disdain for life on earth. They have become one of the most hated and contentious companies in the world.”
MP John McDonnell was among the protesters
A number of the protesters had bought shares in the company so that they could go into the AGM and ask questions while others continued the protest outside.
As well as protesting Foil Vedanta have also carried out a great deal of research into the activities of Vedanta and is subsidiary companies. These include Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) in Zambia which has poisoned thousands of people causing ongoing birth deformities in major pollution spills in 2006 and 2010. They had claimed to be unable to pay their fines or their tax bill while actually making around around $500 million/year.
Protests against Vedanta here where the company is listed and on a much larger scale in India and elsewhere where they operate have so far stopped Vedanta from destroying the Niyamgiri mountain in Odisha, sacred to the indigenous Dongria Kondh. The protests in London led the company to decide to de-list in 2018. They have also attempted unsuccessfully to de-list from Indian stock exchanges.
Protesters lined the front of the shop both here in Piccadilly and around the corner in Old Bond Street
Protesters at De Beers in Piccadilly asked people to boycott diamonds cut and polished in Israel which contribute around a billion dollars every year to the Israeli military and security industries and fund Israeli war crimes against Palestinians.
Pakistani Christians & a ‘Patriot’ March: On Saturday 21 July 2010 I photographed a protest against the persecution of Christians in Pakistan and then a march by right wing extremists against Sharia Law and calling for a referendum on leaving the EU and an English Parliament.
Christians Protest Pakistan Persecution
Pakistan High Commission & Whitehall
Only just over 1% of the population of Pakistan are Christians, a total of around two million, mainly members of lower castes, many working in sanitation and garbage collection. They were discriminated against at partition, when over 300,000 were made homeless and have been severely discriminated against ever since, including in the Pakistan Constitution.
Strict blasphemy laws have been used to persecute Christians (and other minorities) and many have been attacked by Muslim religious extremists, with some horrific cases of murders about many of which the authorities have refused to take action, even at times encouraging the mobs.
Christian schools and houses have been burnt and suicide bombers have attacked Christian gatherings.
The Wikipedia article Persecution of Christians in Pakistan details a few of these events. It also includes information about forced conversions and the abduction of “upwards of 1,000 Christian, Hindu, and Sikh girls” each year into forced marriages and forced conversions.
The situation of Christians in Pakistan has worsened since 2010 and regular reports of atrocities continue.
The protest in 2010 began outside the Pakistan High Commission in Kensington with a rally. A petition was handed in calling for the end of persecution. Officials received it politely and told them that that the Pakistani government supports the rights of minorities. But as the continuing persecution shows, it does little if anything in practice to protect these rights.
The protesters, led by a man carrying a heavy wooden cross then made their way along the pavements to Whitehall, stopping at three points on the way for prayers. Opposite Downing Strreet they joined others waiting for them in a further rally.
Former Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir Ali
There were more prayers and some singing, and an address from Pakistani-born former Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir Ali. London Green MEP Jean Lambert also spoke and a delegation delivered a letter to 10 Downing St.
In May 2010 a couple of hundred people from the English Defence League and others marched through London on what they described as a ‘Patriot March to Challenge Parliament’ organised by ‘British Citizens Against Muslim Extremists‘. Most were from the EDL and they delivered a letter to Downing Street.
They were dissatisfied with the reply they got to that letter and so the English Nationalist Alliance organised this further march. Like the earlier march in May it was largely peaceful and relatively restrained – except in some of the responses to a group of counter-protesters who accused them of being “racist scum”.
Opposite Downing St were a group of around 20-30 counter protesters, chanting “racist scum off our streets”One protester was held by stewards and police as he tries to cross the road to confront themCounter-protesters are stopped by police as they try to follow the march
At Downing Street they handed in a letter signed by the ENA and ten other groups, the EDL, Shieldwall, The British Society for Freedom of Speech, Christians for Democracy, England United (Weiran Ce Angelcynn), England St George, Acacia Freedom Fighters, Sikhs against Shariah, English Jewish League and Parents Against Shariah.
Another group on the march was March for England, and along with the St George’s flags and Union Jacks there were also a couple of Israeli flags and a placard from ‘One Law for All.’
At the rally at the Duke of York Steps I had a rather concerning moment when one of the speakers, Blackburn with Darwen English Democrats Party councillor Michael Johnson, pointed me out as an unwelcome guest and police stepped in as a number of people moved rather menacingly towards me.
On the Duke of York steps
As I posted:
“A couple of days earlier the ENA web site had published a feature which – among other things – wrongly accused me of publishing lies about the previous march, along with my picture and the statement “he must be confronted and chased away in all future events as a socialist collaborator who cannot tell the truth.”
Police stepped in front of me and requested me I move back a little to quieten the situation, and I complied.
The ENA feature had confused me with another photographer and earlier on the march I had received both a couple of apologies by the mistake and also several compliments from those on the previous march who had read my report.
Though I certainly don’t support the EDL I had tried to report the event and their demands objectively. The article on the ENA web site was an attack on press freedom,”suggesting that the ENA should attempt to impose censorship and limit reporting to those who support it.“
Police persuade one of the protesters that he should moderate his language
Like other photographers I have no control over how my work is used in the mainstream press, largely owned by billionaires with editors imposing right-wing views. It makes no sense to blame – as did the ENA – “socialist journalists” for the sins of a capitalist press.
And as I point out, the march was largely if not entirely ignored by the mainstream press and broadcasters. My account, published both on my own My London Diary and in shorter form on Demotix was one of only a few to appear.
Muslim Extremists Call For Sharia Zones: On Saturday 30th July 2011 I photographed the march by around 70 men from ‘Muslims Against Crusades’ who marched from Leyton to Walthamstow calling for the setting up of Sharia Controlled Zones in the UK which ‘Islamic rules’ would be enforced by Muslims.
Who are the Christian Terrorists?’ I asked. USA and NATO forces I was told
As I stated, “Muslims Against Crusades are a very small extremist fringe Muslim organisation led by Dr Anjem Choudary, a follower of the jailed Omar Bakri and co-founder with him of al-Muhajiroun, banned by the UK in 2005, spokesman for Al Ghurabaa, proscribed in 2006, and former leader of Islam4UK, banned in 2010.”
I go on in my post on My London Diary to briefly examine the other ten or so organisations that were claimed to support the march, all of which were linked to Choudary. They included some set up after al-Muhajiroun disbanded when threatened with a UK ban in 2005, though the actual ban only came in 2010. Muslims Against Crusades were banned shortly after this march in Novermber 2011.
I’d been photographing Choudary, at other extremist Muslim events for some years, and listening to his speeches and like many others had concluded that he was allowed to continue (and perhaps even funded) by our security services as someone who let them easily keep tabs on other Muslim extremists in the UK.
The authorities patience with him finally ran out in 2015 when he was charged with inviting support of Islamic State, a proscribed organisation and sentenced to five years in prison in 2016. Released on licence in 2019, by 2021 he was again involving himself in Muslim extremism.
The 70 men marched in two lines with a gap between them
In 2023, Canada and the US became involved, and he was charged with “membership of a proscribed organisation and directing and encouraging support for a proscribed organisation” and in 2024 he was found guilty of “directing an organisation concerned with the commission of acts of terrorism” and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 28 years.
It seemed to many of us that this trial could have been held in 2010 when the UK government banned Al-Muhajiroun.
Police marched in lines on each side
Muslims Against Crusades (one of a whole string of organisations set up by Choudary as others were proscribed) had told the press before the event that there would be around a thousand of them on the march, but only around 2 arrived by the time it was due to start, with another 70 or so turning up later – some having had problems in finding Leyton.
Before the event there had been for some weeks “a poster campaign in several East London Boroughs including Waltham Forest, with small posters being stuck on bus stops and lamp posts declaring the area a ‘Sharia Controlled Zone’
These stickers stated that the area was now under ‘Islamic rules’ and that these prohibited drinking alcohol, drug taking, smoking, prostitution, gambling, musics, concerts and pornography.” Of course
A picture showing one of these became one of my most pirated images, published without permission or payment on right-wing extremist web sites around the world as if these zones every really existed. Unfortunately although I was able to get a few taken down by Internet Service Providers they simply appeared again on other hosts; getting payment for my work proved financially unfeasible.
A speech by Choudary before the march made clear that Law in these Sharia zones would be enforced by the kind of cleric-led officers and vigilantes that we see in countries such as Iran, although he did not make clear if we could expect to see stoning, hanging and amputations.
The march was through an area with a high Muslim population and many stopped to watch it, though I saw no expressions of support. As one shopkeeper told me, activities such as this give Muslims a bad name.
Police kept some who wanted to protest against the march shut in a pub
There were a couple of places where a few right-wing extremists had come to oppose the march though many had followed the advice on most right-wing web forums to ignore it. Police kept them away from the marchers and I saw no incidents.
Bill Baker of the English Nationalist Alliance
Police did allow a few members of the English Nationalist Alliance to protest on the opposite side of the street as the march reached central Walthamstow and I went across to photograph them and talk with their leader Bill Baker who was holding several placards. He asked me to make clear that they are not an anti-Muslim organisation but simply opposed to the kind of Muslim extremism represented by Choudary, and proposals to bring Shariah law to Britain.
Again, more about them on My London Diary, where I quote one of their placards:
Sex, Drugs, Beer & Rock and Roll, it’s our Western way of life, so get over it or leave, simple as that.
As I commented, ” I’d prefer to leave off those last five words and simply call for toleration.”
The march ended with a lot of shouting between the two groups, but was generally peaceful, and I think the few scuffles at the rally involved young Muslims objecting to the extremists.
Trans+ Pride: Some of my photographs from the huge Trans+ Pride march last Saturday – 25th July 2026.
It was a hot day and after the march had been going past me for two hours on upper Regent Street I was exhausted and went home. Standing on a bench before I left I could see there were still people with trans flags coming round past the BBC to start the march.
I’d thought that it might be smaller than last year’s event when an estimated 100,000 took part, but it was larger – perhaps the 150,000 figure could even be an underestimate. Certainly it was huge.
It seemed as if the whole gay community had come out to support trans people, as well as many others who respect the dignity and differences of human beings.
Trans people have come under increasing attack in the past year since the Supreme Court decision that the definition of a “woman” or “man” in the Equality Act refers strictly to biological sex.
It was a decision that surprised many of the MPs who had voted for the Act, and the subsequent Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) guidance has created huge problems for trans people – and for organisations open to the public.
These problems have been amplified by some of our politicians and by the media who have often given a great deal of attention to small and highly vociferous groups opposed to trans people and their human rights.
I went to London’s First Trans+ Pride March in September 2019 (the idea had come from Brighton) attended by only a few hundreds and commented:
“The event aimed to increase visibility for the trans+ community and to protest against the discrimination that continues around the world against trans people, with increasing transphobia in the British media, attacks on trans people on the streets, hate speech by trans-exclusionary feminists, and by right-wing national and state governments.“
The situation has worsened since then, but the marches have certainly made trans people more visible. They have always been a integral part of the gay community – and were important in the 1979 ‘Stonewall Riots’ which marked a new beginning for the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.
