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Posted on October 16 by mudlark121
On 2nd July 1798, officers of the West India Merchants and Planters Marine Police Institute, the UK's earliest organised police force proper, launched their first patrols of the crowded waters of the River Thames, based at a HQ at Wapping New Stairs.
The new force was at first privately funded, and had been launched by Patrick Colquhoun, a Scottish businessman and statistician. Colquhoun had made his name and money in the lucrative commercial trade in Virginia, and later made more cash trading linen. When the American Revolution broke out, Colquhoun took the side of the British government against the rebellious colonists, and helped fund a Glasgow regiment to contribute to the war effort.
The British defeat saw him relocate back his energies to Britain. Colquhoun was interested in statistics, and collected economic data, which he used to lobby the government on behalf of the employers in various industries, particularly cotton and muslin (his background in textile dealing had made him a lot of contacts). He wrote numerous pamphlets and treatises promoting legal reform and changes in business practice – usually in the interests of powerful employers. Colquhoun was increasingly in political and government circles, and he aspired to a government position. In the late 1780s he was appointed a Magistrate in the East End.
The London docks were then the East End's major industry; vast amounts of cargo were unloaded here, from all over the world. This was how the capital was supplied with food, cloth, sugar, raw materials… anything to supply what had become the most powerful and richest city in the world.
But there was a major problem for the dock owners and traders whose goods travelled through them – theft. Merchants were losing an estimated £500,000 worth (million in our money) in stolen cargo annually from the Pool of London on the River Thames. Many ships were unloaded on open docks or on the open river, accessible to looting; however, organised or individual theft by dockers, sailors and other workers was responsible for large amounts of disappeared cargo. There were any number of ways of making items vanish for resale on the many East End markets. The authorities had relatively little manpower to exert any force to prevent or detect theft or track missing goods down.
In 1797 Colquhoun, John Harriot, an Essex Justice of the Peace and master mariner, and utilitarian philosopher of repression Jeremy Bentham collaborated on a plan to remedy the losses to thieves. Harriot and Bentham drew up a proposal for a new police force on the docks, and Colquhoun went to work to lobby the West India Planters Committees and the West India Merchants to fund the new organisation, and applied to the government for permission to operate. The merchants stumped up £4,200 (about £543,000 in today's moolah), and the state agreed to a one-year trial of the embryonic force. On 2 July 1798, the Thames River Police began operating with Colquhoun as Superintending Magistrate and Harriot the Resident Magistrate.
The very idea of a police was considered an affront by many in England; English folk of various classes held it outraged 'the liberties they held dear'. Some in positions of power and wealth also thought the idea of a government-controlled police force ( as it existed in France) would be an expensive burden on the public purse. Colquhoun cleverly re-framed the political debate on policing, drawing on his economic statistics to try to demonstrate show that a police dedicated to crime prevention was not only "perfectly congenial to the principle of the British constitution" but also had potential to be cost effective.
The new force began with about 50 men, whose job was to police more than 30,000 workers in the river trades. Of these workers Colquhoun claimed a third were known criminals and "on the game".
Whether these figures were reliable, the new river police inevitably received a hostile reception from the riverfront workers. For many of the workers on the docks, lighters and ships, and in the warehouses, a little bit of lightfingeredness supplemented what was usually low and irregular pay. Most of these jobs were casual, badly paid, seasonal; survival for these men and their families was generally a matter of daily worry. Meanwhile huge profits were being made on the tobacco, food, sugar, coal and myriads of other imports. The merchants at the top lived in luxury the dockworkers could only imagine. The temptation to help yourself to some of the profits passing through your hands had grown by tradition and struggle into a perk of the job. A lot of cracking down on 'theft' took the form of changing (or enforcing tighter interpretations of) perks and traditional right to take offcuts, spilled goods etc, which workers had established over decades of struggle and negotiation. Workers fighting to extend those perks ,and bosses pushing to restrict the, was part of a constant war between workers and employers; the creation of the river police could only be seen as an attack on a part of the workers' income. And the London dockworkers were often prepared to fight to protect their interests.
The embryonic Thames River Police was organised very differently from what we might think of as a modern police force. The men who made up the river police were described as watermen, surveyors and lumpers – dockworkers enlisted to also police the job. There were only a very few constables in the force (five initially) – they were mostly employed patrolling the dockside. The rationale behind employing workers to police their workmates was that a considerable amount of crime, committed by those people employed in unloading vessels arriving in the Port of London, could be prevented if you could guarantee the honesty and integrity of those men employed in 'lumping' cargoes off the ships. 'Lumpers' employed in unloading vessels under the protection of the Marine Police Office were those with a reputation for honesty – and they were paid above the usual rate. These men were seen to be as much a part of the Marine Police Office as, say the watermen, surveyors or even the magistrates themselves. A clever process of internalising policing into the mentalities of workers, setting some workers to spy on others.
The River Police was aimed not only control of the mass and endemic nicking of goods arriving at the docks, but also breaking any form of organisation by the workers. It was paid for by the bosses, and expected to serve their interest, and workers getting together was on its radar as part of the 'crime' it had to keep an eye on. Colquhoun was a magistrate, and the East End magistrates had powers over labour and wages; they set wage levels, and even had a hand in organising the trade itself, for instance organising coalheaving gangs. Rival views as to how this was to be interpreted had played a crucial and divisive part in the 1768 'river strike'– a cataclysmic strike for higher wages that had ended up in pitched battles, murder and hangings… Alderman William Beckford, an East End magistrate, had backed gangs of scabs collected to fight strikers and smash the strike; Beckford was also a major importer of goods through the docks. The same men were employers, law enforcers and politicians, and use these connections to their own profit, and to attack working people on a multitude of levels – as well as being slave traders and plantation owners in the West Indies. Beckford, for instance, was known as the 'king of Jamaica' for the size of his plantations, and was determined to protect the profits from his goods from the Caribbean that came through the docks.
Like Beckford, Colquhoun was deeply involved in both the East End dock trades and the Atlantic triangular trade. Historian Peter Linebaugh identifies Colquhoun as a crucial product of, and contributor to, the economic and social power networks that drove the Atlantic trades.
"He was a planner of the trans-Atlantic cotton economy compiling stats of the workers, wages, factories, and imports in order to assist the prime minister and cabinet of England maximise profits from the cycle of capital in England, India, America, Ireland, Africa. That work was interrupted by the revolutions in France and Haiti. In the 1790s he criminalised custom. He led the hanging of those committing money crimes. He led the apprehension of those in textile labour who re-cycled waste products to their own use. He organised political surveillance by spies and snitches of those opposing slavery. In addition to his Virginia cotton interests he owned shares in Jamaican sugar plantations." There was a direct link in terms of goods arriving from Caribbean and the interests of planters, shippers, etc, in seeing maximum of profits from them and less 'attrition' by working people. The West India merchants and planters were major contributors to the funds raised to pay for the new police.
Transport of coal was at the heart of the docks, and theft of coal a crucial battleground. Houses, industry, offices – coal was vital for heating and came into the docks on a colossal scale. Possibly more than any other commodity, coal was ripped off by the dockworkers, often on an individual scale. Coalheaving was dirty, hard and backbreaking work, paid badly. As the 1768 strike had shown, the coalheavers were often the most volatile group of workers, with a potential for collective action and violence.
Coal was also to cause an early battle between the dockworkers and the new River Police. Harriott and Colquhoun were both determined to stop the 'coal markets', selling of nicked coal from the docks, which were openly held in the streets of Wapping.
On the evening of 16th October 1798, three men stood trial at the Thames Magistrates Court, which was attached to the Marine Police Office. They were two coal heavers and one watchman's boy, all accused of theft of coal (in fact of having coal in their possession and giving no reasonable explanation as to why), and were all convicted and each fined forty shillings. As they left the building, some friends arrived at the court and paid the fines. Upon leaving, one of the three, Charles Eyers, was met by his brother, James, who said "Damn your long eyes, have you paid the money?" Charles said "Yes, I have." James then took his brother by the collar, dragged him toward the door and said "Come along and we shall have the money back or else we shall have the house down!"
Constable Richard Perry later testified: "I opened the door to let Charles Eyers out, when there was a voice cried, you b-y long thief have you paid the money? I saw there was a riot going to be, and I shoved the door of the office to immediately: then there was another voice said, here goes for the forty; with that the fan-light of the door was instantly knocked all over me, I suppose with a stick, they could not have reached it without; I went into the Magistrate's room, and immediately the next light was beat, shutters and all, into the office, by large stones, I suppose twenty pounds weight, such stones as the streets were paved with; they then proceeded to the next light, that was beat in also with great stones.
– Q. Was the street quiet at this time?
– A. No, there was crying and shouting, and a great noise, and saying they would have the b-y Police-office down; they then proceeded to the third window, and beat that in also, and a large stone came in, which took me over the shoulder, and passed Mr. Colquhoun, the Magistrate."
Within a very short period of time a hostile crowd – some reports reckoned it at around 2000 men – had gathered outside the police office and stones and rocks were being directed against the windows. There was talk of burning down the police office, with the police inside.
The action that was to follow was to leave two men dead and another wounded.
The police inside the office secured the building. When a large stone smashed through a window, officer Perry took a pistol and fired a shot into the crowd, that shot killed a rioter (who was never identified at the trial). The crowd seemed to quieten and withdraw slightly. Perry asked the magistrates to leave the building where he obviously felt at great risk. Having gone into the street, Colquhoun read the Riot Act to the crowd, ordering them to disperse. They did not.
Gabriel Franks, a master lumper employed by the Marine Police Office (later described as 'not a sworn constable but occasionally assisting in the Office') was apparently drinking in the nearby Rose and Crown pub. Hearing the commotion, he made his way to the police office with two other men named Peacock and Webb, and asked to be admitted, but was told that nobody was being allowed in or out of the building. Franks returned to the main street, possibly to observe the disturbance and gather information and evidence. He told Peacock to keep tabs on one particularly active rioter, whilst he himself went off, telling peacock he would try and secure a cutlass for their protection. However, someone obviously recognised Franks as a Police Office agent, as according to Peacock, about a minute after Franks walked off, a shot rang out from the direction of the Dung Wharf, and Franks cried out that he had been shot. The shooting from inside the Police Office that killed the rioter and the shot that killed Franks apparently happened in quick succession.
Franks did not die immediately. He lived on for several days, drifting in and out of consciousness. During this time Franks was questioned about the shooting, but had no idea as to who had fired the shot. The actual identity of the person who pulled the trigger and fired the fatal shot was never discovered; however, the motive would clearly seem to be hatred of the Marine Police, Franks being known as someone associated with the police office. He might have been deliberately singled out as he walked towards the Dung Wharf, or, he may simply have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Could it have been friendly fire – ie was he killed by a shot from inside the Police Office? Witness Elizabeth Forester later tried to persuade the court that both Franks and the unnamed rioter had been killed by the one shot fired from the police office, but her evidence was discredited by the court. However, there doesn't seem to have been any other evidence of rioters carrying or using firearms.
Failing to identify anyone who might have really shot Franks, the authorities plumped for a blatant frame-up on the loosest of justifications. James Eyers, whose behaviour at the court was the initial spark that kicked off the riot, was eventually arrested and charged with the murder of Gabriel Franks.
No one produced any evidence to suggest that Eyers had actually fired the fatal shot, or even seriously tried to suggest he had anything to do with the shooting. The prosecution's case was that his actions in starting the riot, therefore he was responsible for Franks' death, under the law of 'common purpose' (today this might come under the 'Joint Enterprise' concept). This was conveniently also useful in removing an obvious opponent of the Marine Police and setting a grim example to the coalheavers that resistance to policing would reap the harshest of rewards. Eyers greatest crime, the judge freely admitted, was that he had called for the Police Office to be torn down, "in breach of the peace, and in open violation of the laws of the land, in the pursuit of a very wicked purpose, namely, the demolition of the house in which the Magistrates administered the justice of the country, and the destruction of the Magistrates themselves…"
Eyers was convicted of murder on the 9th January 1799, and sentenced the following Monday morning to be hanged.
Despite – or because of – the riot and resulting deaths, the success of the police force in reducing theft on the docks was enough to guarantee the Marine Police's future. After its first year, Colquhoun reported that the force had "established their worth by saving £122,000 worth of cargo and by the rescuing of several lives".
The government passed the Marine Police Bill on 28 July 1800, transforming it from a private to public police agency – making official the police as a centralised, armed, and uniformed cadre of the state. Colquhoun later published a book on the experiment, The Commerce and Policing of the River Thames. It found receptive audiences far outside London, and inspired similar forces in places in other countries, notably, New York City, Dublin, and Sydney.
Historians of policing credit Colquhoun's innovation as a critical development towards the creation Robert Peel's "new" police three decades later. Along with the Bow Street Runners, the Marine Police Force was eventually absorbed by the Metropolitan Police in the 19th century. Colquhoun's utilitarian approach to the problem – using a cost-benefit argument to obtain support from businesses standing to benefit – allowed him to achieve what previous magistrates had failed – for instance the Bow Street detectives. Unlike the stipendiary system at Bow Street, the river police were full-time, salaried officers prohibited from taking private fees.
The Marine Police Force continues to operate at the same Wapping High Street address. In 1839 it merged with the Metropolitan Police Force to become Thames Division; and is now the Marine Support Unit of the Metropolitan Police Service.
Today in London racist policing history, 2001: Ricky Bishop killed by Brixton cops
On the afternoon of Thursday 22nd November 2001, 25-year old Ricky Bishop was driving through Brixton with a friend. The police stopped them on Dalyell Road (as part of 'Operation Clean Sweep') Ricky and his friend were taken to Brixton Police station. They supposedly volunteered to go along, though they were then handcuffed. There Ricky was attacked – the officers claiming that he had escaped his cuffs(?) – and was held down by cops, while he had a heart attack. He was still cuffed when he arrived in the Hospital.
It is alleged that while in detention, drugs were pushed into Ricky's mouth and elaborate stories made up by the officers to justify the arrest and a violent assault of him.
Ricky's mother was told by police that he was in King's College Hospital, later that evening. She had to make her own way down to the hospital, and shortly afterwards she was told that her son had died.
None of the 8 cops present did anything to help, sending for a paramedic too late. None were suspended.
The 11 policemen involved in the killing of Ricky Bishop were PC Simon McDanial, PC Richard Atkins, PC Christopher Rees, PC Michael Lane, PC Daniel Wood, PC Richard Luke, PC Nicholas Wilson, PC Paul Gittins, PC Shane Molyneux, PC Christopher Davies, PC Mark Johnston. The family also ideintified & then Lambeth Borough Commander Brian Paddick as holding responsibility as being the man in charge.
There were numerous unanswered questions. If Ricky had offered to go to the police station voluntarily and was not arrested, why was he handcuffed?… Ricky had cuts around his mouth and wrists, and injuries to his legs. How did he get these injuries? Why was there no medical attention provided at the police station for his injuries? Why was Ricky searched in the interview room and not on his admission to the custody suite? Was Ricky handcuffed whilst on the way to the hospital? What time was Ricky admitted to the hospital? What was the reason for Ricky's admission to hospital?
Ricky's sister Rhonda said, "Two police officers held Ricky to the ground whilst he was having a heart attack, only then did they go and call for a paramedic." The family have never had an explanation as to why it took several hours for police to notify them of Ricky' arrest and admission to hospital, and had grave concerns that the police issued a misleading press release before informing the family of its contents.
At an inquest into Ricky's death, the Coroner concluded that he had died from "misadventure," a verdict which exonerated the police and angered his family and supporters. They believe that the inquest was flawed as vital evidence was withheld by the Metropolitan Police. The jury were only given a choice of three verdicts; death by misadventure, narrative, and an open verdict. The latter two are methods of arriving at a verdict without assigning blame to anyone.
None of the eight police officers involved in this death were suspended or prosecuted.
A small demonstration marched through the streets of the London suburb of Brixton on November 22 2003, to protest police racism and brutality. The demonstration took place on the second anniversary of the killing of Ricky Bishop, following the recent Inquest verdict.
"We are calling for the police officers that were involved to be charged," organisers of the Brixton march said in the flyer publicising the action. "We are calling for an independent and external inquiry into Black deaths in custody."
Protesters braved a pouring rain and marched through Brixton High Street to the location where Bishop had been stopped and arrested by the police on Nov. 22, 2001. Others joined the protest as campaigners drew bystanders to march towards the Brixton cop shop, where Bishop had died four hours after his arrest.
"We are here today to make everyone aware that we can fight for justice," Doreen Bishop, Ricky Bishop's mother, told protesters. "We need to build a movement to stop police brutality. If it takes the rest of my life that's what I'll do."
Doreen Bishop, Ricky's mother is still campaigning for a Public inquiry into his death 17 years later
Check out the campaign's facebook page
Today in London policing history: cops shoot Harry Stanley dead, Hackney, 1999
Posted on September 22, 2018 by mudlark121
Harry Stanley was a 46-year-old Scottish painter and decorator, who lived in Hackney, East London. In September 1999 he was recovering from a successful cancer operation.
On September 22nd Harry left home, went to visit his brother, who had been fixing a table leg after it had been damaged earlier in the year. On his return home he went for a drink in a local pub.
Another punter in the pub, mistaking Mr Stanley's accent for Irish rather than Scottish and noticing that he was carrying 'something long in a bag', telephoned the police to say that a man with an Irish accent was leaving the pub with a sawn-off shot gun in a plastic bag.
Within a few minutes PC Fagan and Inspector Sharman, an armed response unit from the Metropolitan Police service specialist firearms unit SO 19, arrived in the area. The officers approached Mr Stanley from behind. They shouted, "Stop, armed police!" Mr Stanley (who had no reason to imagine that the police wanted him or having any idea that they were police officers) did not stop at that command.
The police say that they shouted again, to which Mr Stanley responded by turning around. The police officers opened fire, killing him. One shot hit Harry Stanley in his head, the other hitting him in his left hand.
In the bag he was carrying was the repaired two-foot table leg, which he had collected from his brother.
Surrey Police carried out a criminal investigation under the supervision of the Police Complaints Authority (which was replaced in April 2004 by the IPCC).
In June 2002, after the CPS decided the officers should not face criminal charges, an inquest was held. HM Coroner for Inner North London Dr Stephen Chan refused to allow the jury at the inquest into the shooting by Metropolitan Police officers of Harry Stanley to consider Unlawful Killing as a verdict, they returned instead a unanimous "Open" verdict rather the only alternative left to them of "Lawful Killing".
This verdict was, however, quashed by the High Court and a second inquest was held in October 2004. The second inquest jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing, but this was also later quashed by the High Court.
However, the officers were arrested by Surrey Police in June 2005, after new forensic evidence emerged. The damage caused to the rear of the left shoulder of Harry Stanley's jacket indicated that the fatal shot DID come from behind him before entering the left side of his head, above his ear.
When Surrey Police and the officers obtained expert opinions about the new forensic evidence a reasonable doubt was nevertheless raised that the officers and Harry Stanley both had time to perceive a threat to each other before the fatal shot was fired. Therefore, in October 2005, the CPS announced that they had advised Surrey that there was insufficient evidence to charge the officers with any criminal offence, including perjury. Both officers had claimed Harry Stanley had pointed the table leg at PC Fagan in a threatening manner – neither inquest jury accepted this, and neither did the IPCC.
Harry Stanley's widow Irene and other friends and family organised as the Justice for Harry Stanley campaign. The campaign succeeded in getting the initial inquest's "open verdict" overturned. In November 2004 a new jury returned a verdict of "unlawful killing".
The two officers who shot Harry Stanley were then suspended from duty. This resulted in a protest from fellow armed Metropolitan Police officers, 120 of whom handed in their gun permits. Since the stare really can't afford to piss of its own armed wings, this lead to a "a review of procedures for suspending officers" concluding that the two officers could return to work, although on for "non-operational duties".
In May 2005 the verdict of "unlawful killing" was itself overturned in the High Court, reinstating the original "open verdict".
The two officers were arrested and interviewed, but in October 2005 the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to press charges because there was insufficient evidence to contradict the officers' claims that they were acting in self-defence.
Evidence, like a chairleg, perhaps?
The investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission also recommended that no further disciplinary action be taken against the two officers, but was critical of the way that they had conferred in the process of making their notes about the shooting. Indeed the IPCC recommended that police officers should give video recorded statements immediately after events rather than making their own notes in collaboration with others.
How many more?
Mainly taken from Inquest's briefing on Harry Stanley
You can read the very lovely self-justification of the cops who shot him. You really couldn't make this up…
Today in London anti-racist history: demo protesting police raids on Notting Hill's Mangrove Restaurant, 1970.
Posted on August 9, 2018 by mudlark121
"Mangrove, smell of hashish, swirling clouds of ashen smoke, weave in, around, away, palms like giant fingers, sounds of laughing, belly deep and penetrating, wise words and indiscretions, deep canary yellows, matted reds and browns, a tropical tapestry of colour, light and sounds." 'All Saints and Sinners', Jenneba Sie Jalloh,
On August 9, 1970, a group of 150 (or 500, depending on your sources) protestors marched through the community toward Notting Hill, Notting Dale, and Harrow Road police stations to "expose the racist brutality that black people experience at the hands of the police."
In this case, focused on the aggressive policing of the Mangrove restaurant in Notting Hill, a popular meeting place for black radicals. Police and protestors clashed during the march, and police arrested nineteen black protestors, charging them with assault, possession of an offensive weapon, and incitement to riot. The trial of those nicked was to become a celebrated victory against police racism and play an important part in the growth of black power movement in Britain.
One of the most important early centres of London's West Indian Community was around Notting Hill. From the first days of afro-caribbean migration, the area had seen small numbers of migrants grow into a burgeoning community, despite hostility from some white locals, vigorously stirred up by fascist groups, which had climaxed in the white riots of August 1958 – which saw white crowds attack any black people they could get at – and the racist murder of Kelso Cochrane the following year.
Resistance to the racist violence from the embryonic community had been present from the first – collective self-defence had been organised against in 1958. This spirit was to grow and spread, as the main enemy of the Noting Hill black community became a racist police force.
Frank Crichlow's restaurant The Mangrove, located at 8 All saints Road, Notting Hill, became a centre of this resistance. Crichlow had previously ran El Rio cafe at 127 Westbourne Park Road (where Christine Keeler met Lucky Gordon in the Profumo affair):
"A lot of West Indians came to the Rio and it got very popular. We opened all night. It was a coffee bar and it was kind of bohemian. We had people like Colin MacInnes, the famous writer. The Christine Keeler and Profumo affair came out of that scene.
Local whites used it and a lot of musicians used to be there as well. When the West End clubs finished they used to come and have a coffee and a meal at the Rio. It was a West Indian scene but it had a lot of mixture. It created a tremendous atmosphere until we found we were getting a lot of attention from the police.
Notting Hill police started to get a bit "busy" – framing people. You could tell it was happening. People started to come in to the cafe and tell their experiences.
One chap said he was in a nearby road and two police rushed up to him and said, "We just saw you trying car doors". "You must be joking," he said. "No," they said, "We saw you trying car doors". They arrested him and he went to court and was found guilty. He still laughs when he talks about it. He still can't believe it. It didn't ruin him. But some people were freaked out by that and couldn't handle getting a conviction.
The police used the sus laws like that. It was quite common. You would be walking down the street and the next thing you would be in the police station being charged. A lot of black people got convictions that way. Some of them freaked out and they went back to the West Indies because of that.
What started to give the black community strength was places like the Rio. The Rio was a meeting place. People would work all week and at the weekend they would go to the cafes and meet and talk. It gave us the strength to keep going. But of course the Rio began to get attention from more and more police.
The basic reason was racism. A lot of officers in West London were fired up by people like [fascist leader] Oswald Mosley – the same thing is happening with the BNP now. White people who were in the race riots in 1958 and in their teens would then go and join the force and end up as police officers. There is no doubt in my mind about that. That is why I think Notting Hill has a heavy history between the black community and the police in the early days." (Frank Crichlow)
Crichlow opened the Mangrove restaurant in March 1968, and it rapidly became a centre for the black community, attracting intellectuals, creatives and campaigners. Sammy Davis Junior, Marvin Gaye, Jimi Hendrix, Nina Simone, Sarah Vaughan, Diana Ross and the Supremes, the Four Tops, CLR James, Vanessa Redgrave, Jimmy Hill and the cast of 'The Avengers' all visited…
"People would be waiting outside in cars until tables were free. The place was out of this world – in just a couple of months it was pop-u-lar. The place would be packed and we'd see the police peeping through the windows…" (Crichlow)
These peeping police, though, took a dim view of this hive of activity, as always treating any fomenting alternative culture with suspicion. Any space where black people gathered at that time could expect special attention from the boys in blue. A concerted campaign of harassment at the Mangrove followed. Between January 1969 and July 1970, police raided the restaurant on 12 occasions, claiming the venue was a haven of drug use… though drugs were never found, and Frank Crichlow vocally discouraged drug consumption there.
"What started the demonstration were the raids on the Mangrove restaurant that I opened in 1969. In the first year we had seven raids. The police used to say they had information that there was cannabis in the club. We would say, "Where did you get that information from?" and they would say they didn't have to disclose their source – end of story.
The significant thing about this was that they never found any drugs, because there was none. They used to raid the restaurant at half past ten or eleven – always on a Friday night when it was packed. They would search and everybody would leave their food, we couldn't ask them to pay. So what the police were doing was destroying the restaurant. They didn't want us to have too much respectability." (Frank Critchlow)
The growing hassle of the Mangrove was a concentrated sample of the violence and repression police were visiting on west Indian community in Notting Hill and elsewhere. In response the community and allies took to the streets to protest on 9 August 1970. A demonstration was organised by a small group from The Action Committee for the Defence of the Mangrove. This included Frank Crichlow and barrister Anthony Mohipp, secretary of the Black Improvement Organisation, and several leading members of the UK's newly-born Black Panther Party.
"It was sparked by all these raids. We called a demonstration and 500 people came out. We made speeches and marched off to the police station that was carrying out the raids.
We went to Notting Hill. R S Webb was outside the police station shouting. Then we said we were going over to Harrow Road police station. The police went in very heavy and about 26 people got arrested on small charges. Reggie Maudling was the home secretary at the time and he made a mistake. After the demonstration he said he wanted an enquiry into who had organised it. After he got the results he said "arrest the organisers" and nine of us were arrested.
That day we nearly had a race riot. I was charged with affray, carrying an offensive weapon, threatening behaviour and inciting members of the public to riot. We were looking at a lot of jail." (Critchlow)
Nineteen people were arrested. Ten defendants' charges were soon dropped, but support swelled for the other nine accused: Barbara Beese, Rupert Boyce, Frank Critchlow, Rhodan Gordon, Darcus Howe (who worked at the Mangrove), Anthony Innis, Althea Lecointe Jones, Rothwell Kentish and Godfrey Millett. The charges ranged from making an affray, incitement to riot, assaulting a policeman, to having an offensive weapon. C. L. R. James summoned the remaining protestors the day after the arrest and urged them to continue their fight, emphasising the seriousness of the charges against their comrades.
The Mangrove Nine trial began in October 1971. It became a political struggle. Pickets were organised outside the trail at the Old Bailey, and literature handed out to raise public awareness of the case.
Arguments focused on the ongoing police persecution experienced by the black community in Notting Hill. Police witnesses who justified their targeting of the Mangrove with descriptions of it as a "haunt of criminals, prostitutes and ponces" only corroborated the Nine's detailing of police prejudice.
Darcus Howe and Althea Jones-Lecointe defended themselves. The other seven employed a radical civil rights lawyer to ensure there would be no friction between Jones-LeCointe and Howe's defense and their own. Jones-LeCointe and Howe argued for an all black jury under the Magna Carta's 'jury of my peers' clause. They cited trial precedents in which, for example, Welsh miners faced an all-Welsh jury. This demand also echoed calls by the Black Panthers in the United States, under an interpretation of the 14th Amendment, for all-black juries. Judge Edward Clarke, known for his distaste for political radicalism, dismissed the possibility of an all-black jury out of hand, but the Nine had already succeeded in elevating the trial to a national spectacle.
The defendants were prepared for the judge's rejection of this demand. Howe and Lecointe-Jones's next tactic was to vet potential jurors politically, asking them what they understood by terms "black power" and which newspapers they read. Again the judge intervened to stop this line of questioning. Nonetheless, the defence dismissed a total of 63 jurors, each defendant using their right to dismiss seven potential jurors. In so doing they ensured that two of the 12 jurors were black and, perhaps more importantly, stamped their authority on the proceedings.
Police witnesses justified their actions by labelling the Mangrove restaurant "a haunt of criminals, prostitutes and ponces". The turning point came as Howe exposed problems with the police testimony and a police officer was ordered to leave the courtroom when he was seen signalling to other prosecution witnesses as they gave evidence.
In Jones-Lecointe's closing speech she referred in detail to the police persecution experienced by the black community in Notting Hill.
On the last day of trial testimony, police turned over a leaflet called "Battle for Freedom at Old Bailey" to the judge, who believed the leaflet might be in contempt of the court. Constable Roger Buckley had apprehended the leaflet while on duty in the Notting Dale neighborhood on December 11, 1971. The leaflet charged that a biased judge and jury had colluded to skew the proceedings of the case against the Mangrove Nine, claiming that "the case has been a systematic exposure of police lies, the way in which the prosecution, having no evidence, tries to play on the prejudices of the jury, of the way in which the judge plays the part of chief prosecutor, attacking and obstructing the defence." After a four-month investigation, the officer P. J. Palmes concluded that the police lacked sufficient evidence to identify the authors of the leaflet, "which in any event might be ill-advised at this stage as likely to exacerbate racial feelings." This led Judge Clarke to drop the contempt of court charge.
A majority of the Mangrove jury were workers, and though only two of the 11 were black, it is known that the jury divided along class lines, with the middle class members inclined to believe the police and favouring conviction. It seems that some of the workers knew better and simply decided the police were liars. Eventually they compromised on the basis of agreement on acquittal on the most serious charges.
Five were acquitted of all charges. All the serious charges resulted in acquittal, and only some minor charges were upheld.
The Mangrove Trial caused a sensation at the time. Even the judge had come out and acknowledged in his summing up racism as a motive of police actions – though he tried to mitigate this by accusing the protestors as also being racist. This outraged the government and legal establishment who tried to get this comment struck out of the record…
The trial also helped to coalesce the emerging black power movement in the UK. The recently formed Black Panther Party was involved in the Mangrove protests (Notting Hill being one of its activist centres), several of the Party's leading lights were among the defendants, and the publicity and sense of possibilities that the trial threw up helped attract attention to the movement… Something on which here.
The Mangrove thrived despite continued harassment for two decades, until Notting Hill's gentrification got seriously underway:
"Through the 1980s the premises were regularly raided, as All Saints became known as the frontline. In the 1987 police 'swamp' of the area, as part of the inner-city crime crackdown Operation Trident, the Mangrove was raided again and this time Frank Crichlow was charged with possession of heroin. To the Wise brothers, the accompanying installation of surveillance cameras and the closure of squatted 'abandoned commercial property' marked the start of Notting Hill gentrification: "Within days a house in McGregor Road was to fetch £300,000. The very centre of Carnival revolt in the 80s had finally fallen and the light had gone out on the last remaining shambles of an urban trouble spot."
Lee Jasper recalls dealing with a mas band sequin crisis as the 1987 riot began: "The police were attempting to close down, fit up and destroy Mangrove and indeed the whole of Carnival. We're on the verge of a major civil disturbance and people would be coming in and saying I don't have any red sequins."
In the last Mangrove trial Frank Crichlow was once more cleared of trumped up drugs charges. After that the police raided the Mangrove some more, causing further clashes on All Saints and the last big Carnival riot in 1989.
According to the Evening Standard: '5,000 police, almost 600 in full riot gear with shields, and some police on horseback, fought running battles with pockets of revellers after trouble was sparked in the All Saints Road area. Within seconds they had to retreat under a hail of bottles and flower pots. Uniformed officers battled in vain to contain the trouble, drafting in riot police who sealed off a section of Lancaster Road. But they came under attack from two directions as youths in All Saints Road and Westbourne Park Road began hurling missiles.'
As 'The Mangrove: 21 Years of Resistance' banner came down in 1991, 6-8 All Saints Road reopened as the Portobello Dining Rooms. Rastafarians were succeeded by trustafarians and the street name started to appear in more restaurant reviews than crime reports. However, then came the mid 90s crack cocaine drug crime revival. Frank Crichlow was subsequently awarded £50,000 damages.
In the run-up to the 1995 Carnival, Ma's Café at 6-8 All Saints Road (formerly the Mangrove, the Portobello Dining Rooms and Nice, since Manor, Ruby & Sequoia, the Hurlingham and Rum Kitchen) was the scene of a scuffle involving Hugh Grant, in which the actor was ridiculed over the Divine Brown affair. An onlooker said: "He was okay but he had a bit of blood on him. I don't think he'll be back."
After the demise of the Mangrove restaurant, the frontline spirit was maintained by the Mangrove Community Association office over the road until 2002, Daddy Vigo's People's Sound reggae record shop at number 11, the Portobello Music Shop at 13, Nation Records and the Carnival sound-systems. Following a series of Rolex robberies and 'aristocrats on crack' reports, Annabel Heseltine wrote in the Standard of 'Crack, Guns and Fear' Notting Hell juxtaposed with trustafarian Heaven W11 'Cool Britannia' on All Saints: "Opposite Philsen's Phil-Inn Station – a café frequented by local hip-swinging Rastas – young media types are strolling into Mas Café… A bakery selling walnut loaves and bagels generates a warm aroma in the direction of Tom Dixon's gallery…" (nicked from the Underground Map)
There are some great pix of the Mangrove demo and trial here
Today in London policing history: PC Aldridge dies, after beating by crowd, Deptford, 1839.
When the Metropolitan Police were introduced into the streets of London in 1829, they were wildly unpopular with much of the working class, who saw clearly that the 'Raw Lobsters', 'Blue Devils' and 'Peel's Bloody Gang' were there to protect the property of the wealthy and maintain the class system.
Officers were physically assaulted, others impaled, blinded, and on one occasion held down while a vehicle was driven over them. Two bobbies killed while on duty in the 1830s had their deaths judged to be 'Justifiable Homicide' by London juries, including PC Culley, killed while kettling a radical meeting. Ten years after the "new Police" first cracked heads in the capital, their unpopularity had not died down in Deptford, South London…
30 September 1839: "There had been a lot of rowdy behaviour in the Navy Arms pub in Deptford, a district in south London, that evening and the landlady had asked the police to intervene. Two of those who had been swearing and making a nuisance of themselves were brothers William and John Pine. William was twenty and his brother twenty-one. These two young men began larking around in the street after leaving the pub and PC George Stevens told them to calm down or he would have to arrest them. One thing led to another and John Pine punched the officer, who responded by drawing his truncheon and rapping the drunk man over the head before arresting him. In no time at all, a crowd gathered which was determined to rescue Pine from the police. At this point, constable William Aldridge appeared on the scene to help take charge of John Pine. Over 200 people surrounded the two police officers with, more arriving every minute as word spread around the neighbourhood that a 'rescue' was in progress. It was an ugly situation, but the two men were determined not to let their prisoner walk free.
As the constables continued to drag John Pine off, the crowd pelted them with rocks and stones. By this time, it was estimated by both the polie and local witnesses who later spoke to newspaper reporters that between 500 and 600 people were attacking constables Aldridge and Stevens. Two more police officers arrived to help, but the four of them were for ed to flee from the mob. PC No 204 William Aldridge went down, struck on the head by a large rock and he died at 4.30 the following morning.
Three weeks later the Pine brothers, who were well known to the police, found themselves on trial at the Old Bailey for murder. In the dock with them were two other men who had take leading roles in the riot: William Calvert and John Burke. The evidence was clear enough and the men were fortunate not to hang for their actions. As it was, they were convicted of th lesser charge of manslaughter. John Pine was sentence to transportation for life to Australia, along with Calvert, who was transported for fifteen years. The other two men received two years imprisonment each."
(from Bombers, Rioters and Police Killers: Violent Crime and Disorder in Victorian Britain, Simon Webb)
2017 London Rebel History Calendar – check it out online.
Today in London legal history: a jury finds the killing of a copper to be 'Justifiable Homicide', 1833.
Posted on May 15, 2017 by mudlark121
On the repression of a radical rally, the killing of a policeman, and the inquest verdict… with a digression to take in recently exposed former spycop Andy Coles. Oh yes, there's a link.
In May 1833, the National Union of the Working Classes called a mass open air meeting, to be held on Monday 13th May to take place on Coldbath Fields, now the site of Mount Pleasant sorting office, at the junction of Rosebery Avenue and Farringdon Road. The meeting would end in a police attack on the crowd, the stabbing of a policeman, and a controversial inquest verdict…
When the Metropolitan Police were first formed, and first took to the streets in 1829, they were widely reviled. It was a time of rising working class protest and organisation. For 60 years movements had been building for reform of the class-biased political system years, and were reaching a peak; both middle class and working class organisations were pressing for reform. However, for decades a strand of radical and insurgent thinking had run through working class politics – a large minority of activists not only felt they had the right to political representation, but that the working class would not achieve it through peaceful lobbying or petitioning. Violent repression of rallies like Peterloo in 1819; government crackdowns and laws to band protest, radical papers and speeches; a network of police spies and agent provocateur/saboteurs burrowing into reforming groups to destroy and divide them…
Many thought opposition such as this could only be overcome by an armed seizure of power. A much wider group of radicals thought armed self-defence against attacks by the militia or constables was justified.
Regularly targeted by the authorities, radical activists were from the start suspicious the 'New Police' would be another weapon used against them. And were to be proved right.
But even beyond radical movements, the majority of working class people in many of the rapidly growing cities, especially London, saw the police as a threat; knowing, that the police were being set up to control them in the defence of property, and hating them for it. From the start the Constabulary's were abused and attacked in the street, labelled with such fun nicknames as 'Raw Lobsters', 'Blue Devils' and 'Peel's Bloody Gang'. Early officers were physically assaulted, others impaled, blinded, and on one occasion one was held down while a vehicle was driven over him.
While the Police had a wider brief to get the teeming industrialised masses under control, radicals and political reformers WERE specifically on their radar. And in particular, the insurgent wing, and its potential to attract support from the very poor, and the shifting hydra that was labeled the 'London Mob'.
In 1833 the National Union of the Working Classes (NUWC) was close to the top of the New Police's list of concerns. The NUWC had arisen as an alliance of groups of London trade unionists, many of whom were also sympathetic to the ideas of the co-operator Robert Owen. However they largely rejected Owen's belief that political reform was irrelevant, that the working class should organise only on the economic level. The NUWC instead maintained that political action was vital, that universal male suffrage, winning the vote for working men, would in the end bring about economic equality. They saw class relations as fundamental to society, and that in order to win their rights workers had to get together and do things for themselves: some in the NUWC said the workers should organise themselves separately, in their own movements and unions. In London their support was mainly among artisans, who had formed the backbone of the capital's reforming and radical movements, with a strong tradition of self-education, self-employment, apprenticeship and independence.
Membership of the National Union of the Working Classes totalled about 3,000 in London, they were divided into local 'classes' of 80 to 130 people, mostly in then solidly working class areas like Lambeth, Bethnal Green, Hammersmith and Islington. But their influence was greater than membership numbers suggest: especially through papers like the Poor Man's Guardian, which were read widely among artisans and the emerging working class. In government and official circles, fear of the power and influence of the NUWC was, however, probably wildly out of proportion to its real power.
The NUWC in many ways was a sort of proto-Chartism, though strong in London, where Chartism's greatest strengths were in the new industrial cities of the north and midlands.
From 1831 to 1833, weekly NUWC meetings and debates were held at the Rotunda; on and off; during this time there was an intense agitation nationally for reform, and many of these were heated discussions, as the Union was from the start to its end divided. There were arguments over definitions of class, over strategy and tactics, over the uses of violence, over whether to ally with the (then stronger) middle class political reform movement, or the more progressive wing of the Whig party.
Especially after the 1832 Reform Act gave voting rights to middle class men, but not the working class, some elements of the Union came to the conclusion that the lower classes would have to rebel to obtain their 'rights'. There was a strong sense that the middle class reformers had used the threat of working class uprising as a stick to force the aristocracy to share power with them, then shafted their proletarian allies. NUWC stalwart William Benbow made a speech celebrating the great reform riot in Bristol in 1831, but was opposed by other members of the NUWC Committee… Some NUWC members made plans to arm themselves in self-defence against police attacks on rallies, which jacked up the government and bourgeoisie's fear of the Union. By 1833, the moderates were beginning to desert the NUWC and the more radical elements came to the fore, launching a plan to launch a Convention of the People (a scary notion for the upper classes, coming straight from the most radical phase of the French Revolution).
By May 1833 there had been three years of intense campaigning, riots, the Reform Bill, with the sense of betrayal of working people that it brought; there had been abortive plots to gather and launch armed revolt. The splits over the use of force and what kind of society was envisaged had weakened the NUWC; many of the 'moderates' had left. But the remaining elements of the organisation were determined to keep up the pressure… Some were arming, and drilling in preparation for an uprising.
A NUWC rally was announced for May 13th on Coldbath Fields in Clerkenwell, and was seen by some as a first step towards a revolutionary seizure of power. Resolutions for the rally included proposals for seizing the bank of England and the Tower of London… This was naïve; but the overconfidence on the radical side was mirrored by a fear in government circles. There was a determination to put down the radicals. The upcoming rally on Coldbath Fields was seen as a ripe chance, and the police were prepared to smash the rally by force. The meeting was banned, which led many not already distancing themselves from the NUWC to withdraw.
However on the day itself, several thousand still attended the demo. While the NUWC committee sat in the Union Tavern [still a pub today on King's Cross Road], people began assembling outside in Coldbath fields, including a body from the NUWC with a banner reading 'Death or Liberty'. Meanwhile large numbers of police were assembling in Grays Inn Road from where they were deployed in stableyards around Coldbath Fields. At around 3pm the committee left the tavern to address the assembly, by now between one and two thousand strong. The chairman had barely started speaking when the cry of 'Police' went up from the crowd. The police, between 1700 and 3000 in number, had formed up across Calthorpe Street before advancing on the meeting, while others came up another side street. In the words of the Gentleman's Magazine the police having 'completely surrounded the actors and spectators of the scene…commenced a general and indiscriminate attack on the populace inflicting broken heads alike on those who stood and parleyed and those who endeavoured to retreat'. New Bell's Weekly Messenger also writes of the police attacking those assembled: 'The Police came on and used their staves pretty freely…many heads were broken.'
During the assault three policeman were stabbed; PC Culley 'ran about thirty yards and upon reaching the Calthorpe Arms [still a pub today on Gray's Inn Rd] he seized the barmaid by the wrist and exclaimed "Oh, I am very ill"'. These were his dying words. One man, George Fursey, was sent for trial on the charge of murdering PC Culley and wounding PC Brooks. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty.
There then followed a local inquest on the death of PC Culley; it was convened in an upstairs room of the same Calthorpe Arms, close to the site of the demonstration. The inquest jury of seventeen men consisted largely of bakers from the Grays Inn neighbourhood. Summing up, the coroner called upon the jury to return a verdict of wilful murder. The jury retired and after half an hour sent a message to the coroner saying that sixteen of them were agreed on a verdict condemnatory of the police. The coroner protested and urged them to reconsider. A short while later their final verdict was delivered:
'We find a verdict of justifiable homicide on these grounds; that no riot act was read, nor any proclamation advising the people to disperse, that the Government did not take the proper precautions to prevent the meeting from assembling; and we moreover express our anxious hope that the Government will in future take better precautions to prevent the recurrence of such disgraceful transactions in the metropolis.'
Reading between the lines, it appears that the jury's view was that the demonstrators were deliberately penned in and ambushed by the police.
Again the coroner protested, locking them in the juryroom to try to change their minds, but the jury remained firm and insisted on their verdict; he could dismiss them and appoint another jury but their verdict would stand. They said that they were neither in favour of the meeting nor against the police, just the way the police behaved. As the foreman put it: 'Mr Coroner we are firmly of the opinion that if they had acted with moderation the deceased would not have been stabbed.'
Local people evidently thought no expense should be spared in celebrating this popular victory; "When the inquest ended small impromptu torchlit processions carried the jurors to their respective homes. The Milton Street Committee arranged a free trip up the Thames to Twickenham for them. In July it was a free trip to the London Bridge Theatre to see A Rowland for Oliver. Each member of the jury was presented with a pewter medallion which bore the inscription 'In honour of men who nobly withstood the dictation of a coroner; and by the judicious, independent and conscientious discharge of their duty promoted a continued reliance upon the laws under the protection of a British jury'. Funds were raised for a memorial. On the first anniversary of the verdict a procession took place from the Calthorpe Arms to St Katherine's Dock. It was led by a specially commissioned banner, the funds for which had been raised by a Mr Ritchie, the landlord of the Marquess of Wellesley in Cromer Street, Grays Inn Lane. After reaching St Katherine's Dock the procession boarded the Royal Sovereign for a return trip to Rochester, complete with free food and drink. A pewter cup was presented to the foreman of the jury with the inscription '…as a perpetual memorial of their glorious verdict of justifiable homicide on the body of Robert Culley, a policeman, who was slain while brutally attacking the people when peacefully assembled in Calthorpe Street on 13th May 1833'."
Despite the wave of support for the jurors, the attack spelled the end for the NUWC, which began to fall apart. However, its influence helped give birth to Chartism. Both the London Working Man's Association and the London Democratic Association emerged from same groups, neighbourhoods and individuals in London as the Union, and they were crucial in kickstarting Chartism in the late 1830s. But the NUWC's inherent divisions over class, whether workers could co-operate with the middle class, over the use of persuasion and campaigning, or force, over the ultimate aim (just equality? or power for the workers as a class?), were inherited by the larger later movement, and continued to divide Chartism throughout its existence… And are indeed questions alive and kicking in our own movements and struggles today…
Postscript 1: Both the the Union Tavern, where the NUWC Committee met, and the Calthorpe Arms, where the inquest was held, are not only still a pub today, but has had more recent radical associations. London Class War used to meet in the Union Tavern in the 1990s, and a number of anarchist and anti-capitalist events and actions were planned upstairs at the Calthorpe in the 2000s, in the same room the jury held out in.
Postscript 2: (Bear with me. It makes sense in the end )
The government of the day, and the police acting to destroy the NUWC rally, had been greatly aided by the spies they sent in to infiltrate, report on and if possible disrupt the movement, and other radical groupings. This was a huge industry, even then, though many were informers, not specifically policemen. In our own time, we are still facing the issue of police penetration of community and activist groups, political movements and campaigns for justice and accountability (most notably for people killed by racists, and in police custody). However, long years of investigations by activists have uncovered the highly trained undercover police officers who have spied on us, lived with us for several years, and in many cases preyed on activists sexually, some fathering children. Police units like the Special Demonstration Squad, the National Public Order Intelligence Unit have spent billions gathering info on activists, attempting to provoke actions that can then lead to arrests, and encouraging abuse of women and miscarriages of justice. Now they are spending millions more obstructing any substantial process in the Undercover Policing Inquiry set up after public outrage became too angry to ignore.
But if they won't tell activists who spied on us and release our Special Branch files to us, we will continue to uncover the undercovers ourselves. And here is where another strange echo of the early 1830s crops up. Just four days ago another ex-spycops was exposed – Andy Coles, once known as Andy Davey, when he infiltrated the animal rights movement in the 1990s. A man known to this writer.
Coles sexually exploited at least one woman, then aged 19, leading to a relationship; though he also launched unwanted advances on others. But since vanishing from South London animal rights circles in 1994, he had risen, oh he's risen. He has become a Conservative councillor in Peterborough. A school governor. An expert on child protection and best of all, Deputy Police & Crime Commissioner for Cambridgeshire. Well the last until today, when he was forced to resign after the outrage at his grooming of a teenager into a sexual relationship forced him out. 'Jessica', the woman he abused, is now to sue the Metropolitan Police for colluding in her being groomed.
However, bizarrely, Coles fancies himself as a writer. He pens meaningful political poetry – of a quality that only be described as 'McGonagallite'. And he did have plans to write a novel, provisionally titled However Roguish a Man, though this may have been shelved. The subject: undercover policing as used against the radicals of early 1830s London! Strange that this should surface on this anniversary of the practical commonsense of a London jury recognising police provocation for what it was, eh, Mr Coles?
The plot summary is masterful, and so apt, drawn from Andy's own exciting past:
"The working title for my novel about political unrest and policing in the era of the Reform Act 1832, when revolution was on the air and the great stink of London was just discovering the necessary inconvenience of being policed by an organised group of "Raw Lobsters".
Beginning in the 1820's, rural poverty was driving agricultural labourers to violence, burning hayricks and threatening the landowners and farmers who were turning to the new threshing machines instead of manual labour. Captain Swing letters abound and the wealthy are in fear of their lives.
At the same time a coal meter in Yarmouth finds his income is halved and the job he bought for 70 guineas no longer provides the annual income he needs to keep his wife and children. Looking for a new start he travels to London and is recruited into the Metropolitan Police.
The government needs to know what is going on in the new poor areas of London. Is riot and insurrection coming to the shores of Great Britain from the stews of Paris? Will the new King be deposed through bloody revolt? Fearful for the monarchy and the rule of the privileged classes in power, reform of the political system is contemplated by radicals and reformers, but bitterly resisted by traditionalists and those in rotten boroughs who will lose their seats in Parliament.
The Home Secretary demands that the New Police provide information on the new political unions that are springing up, and the Commissioners, Rowan and Mayne, depute divisional Superintendents to send men to the meetings to find out what is going on.
This is the story of one of these officers who penetrated a radical organisation, and what happened to him as a result."
Whether Andy Coles has managed to work on what promises to be a fine historical epic recently, we aren't sure – however, with the storm breaking about him, one post gone, and others surely soon to follow, he may get more free time to work on it. Since we are also very interested in the subject of police infiltration of radical movements, both down to our personal experience, and our studies of history, we await the appearance of However Roguish a Man. With baited breath.
PPS: Later the same evening I published this, Andy Coles took his writing blog down. Possibly misinterpreting our literary criticism. Mysteriously, the Peterborough Writers Circle, where Andy claimed to have first read his fine poem Aleppo, has also had its blog taken down simultaneously! Wasn't a one-man band was it?
Today in London radical history: entire non-stop picket of S. African embassy arrested, 1989.
Posted on March 11, 2017 by mudlark121
Racism and White Supremacism are currently fashionable again, after a few decades when even rightwing politicians felt it politically unacceptable to express toxic garbage about one 'race' deserving to rule over others or loot their resources, or spout pseudo-scientific bunkum about racial intelligence and criminality. Not that these ideas weren't bubbling away under the surface, but many who kept them under their hats are now crawling out from under stones. What with political developments in the USA, Britain, France Holland racist idealogues are undergoing a renaissance.
Its instructive to remember that it's less than twenty-five years since the end of Apartheid in South Africa, one of the most infamous white supremacist regimes, an inspiration to Nazis, swivel-eyed nationalists and master races everywhere.
Apartheid became so notorious a relic of 19th century colonialism and racial attitudes that it aroused not only mass opposition from the black majority population in South Africa, but international campaigns to support change there.
London was an important centre of the movement to end apartheid, on many levels. Not only was the exiled African National Congress based here, as were hundreds of S. African activists unable or unwilling to live under the apartheid regime… mass demos calling for the end of apartheid were held here, as well as long-standing boycott campaigns and actions against S. African economic and political targets.
Londoners also became involved in the armed resistance to apartheid.
Another visible and longstanding expression of solidarity with black South Africans was the Non-Stop picket of the South African embassy in Trafalgar Square, maintained by the supporters of the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group from 1986 – 1990, calling for the release of imprisoned black African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, jailed in 1963 for organising armed struggle against the South African regime.
City AA Group had been formed by Norma Kitson (an exiled ANC member), her children, friends and supporters in 1982. The Revolutionary Communist Group formed a crucial core of the picket, but the politics of regular attenders varied widely. City Group's unconditional solidarity with all liberation movements in South Africa and Namibia (not just the ANC and SWAPO, but also the Pan-Africanist Congress and AZAPO amongst others) and its principled linking of the struggle against apartheid with anti-racism in Britain led to group's eventual expulsion from the national Anti-Apartheid Movement. City Group deployed diverse tactics, including direct action, to express its solidarity with those opposed to apartheid. Its support for those sidelined by the exiled leadership of the ANC was valued by activists in South Africa.
The picket was kept up 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for four years. Members of the picket would leaflet and petition passers-by, whilst others made impromptu speeches on a megaphone or sang South African freedom songs. Larger themed rallies were held on Friday evenings, and on Thursdays the Picket's numbers swelled as supporters danced to the music of a group of street musicians, the Horns of Jericho.
"Materially, it consisted of little more than a hand-sewn banner held up on two lengths of sturdy doweling; and, it occupied only a few square metres of the pavement in front of the embassy's gates… The few supplies that the protestors were allowed to keep 'on site' were stored under a tarpaulin beneath a nearby tree. Those supplies were mostly things that were integral to the their campaigning – boxes of fliers advertising their next large protest; copies of their petition; and, spare batteries for their megaphone. Practices relating to all of these objects were contested by the police in the first few months of the Picket. The picketers fought hard – on the streets and in the courts – to defend their right to protest on their own terms… The Picket's banner was useful in proclaiming its cause. It could arrest the attention of passing pedestrians just long enough for a picketer to engage them in conversation. Picketers often wore hand-drawn placards adorned with anti-apartheid slogans, or the names of political prisoners, on strings round their necks. These added to the visual impact of the protest. Whenever there were more than two people on the Picket, some protestors would form a line in front of the banner, distributing leaflets and soliciting signatures on the petition for the release of Mandela. The Picket always had a large stock of clipboards for this purpose. In fact, to most picketers, they became known as 'petition boards'. With a petition pro forma clipped to it, the board could rest comfortably on the forearm and be presented, expectantly, to people passing by. Conversations initiated over a petition board were central to spreading news of the Non-Stop Picket, raising essential funds, and recruiting new people to its anti-apartheid cause. The act of petitioning brought conflict with the police who, in the name of preventing highway obstruction, tried to contain the picketers to the smallest possible space on the (very wide) pavement. They also used local bylaws against 'illegal street trading' to try and prevent the Picket from collecting donations.
The group's megaphone was also a major source of conflict. The Non-Stop Picket had a distinct soundscape. Picketers taught each other and sang songs from the South African anti-apartheid struggle. Most picketers learnt the songs phonetically and the process involved a degree of trust to sing lyrics in languages (Zulu and Xhosa) that most could not understand. These songs could help re-energise the picket and cohere it as a collective when spirits were flagging. In addition to singing these 'freedom songs', picketers chanted and used the megaphone to amplify their chanting. This always served more than one end – it was another way of publicising the protest; but, just as importantly, picketers hoped their noise would disturb the work of apartheid's diplomats inside the embassy. It clearly did, as embassy officials pressed the Metropolitan police to curb the picketer's use of amplified sound during their office hours. The police tried many tactics to quieten the Non-Stop Picket, including charging them with noise pollution. The picketers stood their ground, refused to be intimidated and won, eventually."
Positioned on the pavement directly outside South Africa House, the picket was strategically placed to draw attention to apartheid and bring pressure to bear on the regime's representatives and allies in the UK.
"From its very beginning in April 1986, the form and presence of the Non-Stop Picket was contested by the Metropolitan Police, under pressure from the South African Embassy. In the early days, the police would not allow the protestors to place any of their belongings on the pavement. At all times, two picketers had to hold their banner in place."
The Embassy repeatedly brought pressure on the British Government to ban the protest, and for nearly two months in 1987 (6th May – 2nd July), the Picket was removed from outside the Embassy by the Metropolitan Police (following an action in which three City Group activists threw several gallons of red paint over the entrance to the Embassy). During this period, the Picket relocated to the steps of nearby St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church and activists repeatedly risked arrest to break the police ban on their protest and defend the right to protest outside the Embassy. The police used an arcane Victorian bylaw, "Commissioner's Directions", which allowed the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to curtail public gatherings within a mile of Parliament, to allow MPs free movement to go about their business, to ban the Picket during this period. Eventually, the ban was broken when four MPs protested outside the Embassy alongside other picketers and the police were unable to justify the ban any longer. In total 173 people were arrested during City Group's campaign to break the police ban and defend the right to protest. All charges were eventually thrown out of court.
One on occasion, March 11th 1989, the entire picket was arrested; all of the Picket's infrastructure and equipment was removed by the police.
It appears that on this occasion in 1989, a lone picketer had been arrested for 'littering' (after dropping a cigarette butt on the pavement). This, of course, is not an arrestable offence. But the police took the opportunity to arrest the entire picket and remove all of its equipment. City Group's Picket Organiser arrived a short time later, turned the corner into Trafalgar Square and found the Picket gone. He asked the police on duty where the Picket was and received a cheeky "what picket?" in reply. The arrested picketer(s) and equipment were traced to Bow Street police station and the equipment was ferried back to Trafalgar Square in a taxi within an hour, so that the Picket was firmly re-established.
The police were on a particular offensive against the Picket around that time – the following day, the Picket was moved from outside the Embassy gates for seven hours when the police invoked Commissioner's Directions.
This and many more first hand accounts of the non-stop picket can be found here
… and another account here
Today in London transport history: Police seize a no 11 bus for a mobile custody suite, 2002.
Posted on June 4, 2016 by mudlark121
It's the question every Londoner should know the answer to – what number bus route runs from Tower Hill, via Shoreditch, Islington, Plumstead, to Walworth? The no 11 of course… well, now and again…
It all began on June 4 2002, the day of the Queen's golden jubilee. More than 14,000 police were on duty as tens of thousands of people thronged London.
Among them was a small group of anti-monarchist protesters. They had held a peaceful demonstration shouting anti-royal slogans at Tower Hill, before retiring to the Goodman's Fields pub nearby for a lunchtime pint.
However such a handful of dangerous anarchists, er, drinking, having, er, left the scene of the protest, were obviously, er, up to something. So police surrounded the pub, questioned people leaving, nicked anyone they didn't like the look of, and finally entered the pub in force and arrested 19 people.
Marching them outside, (two police officers per demonstrator), they then searched them all. However, there must have been a shortage of police vans that day, as they then flagged down a passing no 11 bus, on its way to Bow, and persuaded the driver to use it to transport the prisoners. It's not known whether the driver was coerced, or was an ardent monarchist, generally a fan of law and order, or just looking to relieve the mindless tedium of his job.
A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said the bus was needed because of the number of people arrested and the scores of officers who accompanied them: "The officers used their ingenuity. They saw a passing bus, spoke with the driver, and it was agreed that they could use it as a mode of transportation."
It's good to see police using their initiative. Shame it was to cost the Met eighty thousand quid.
Some of the arrested were handcuffed, then the bus, sped off, running red lights, and dropping off arrestees, first at Bishopsgate copshop, then in Shoreditch, then Islington, before trundling down south over the river Thames to Plumstead in south-east London. The last protesters were dropped off at Walworth Road station. They sere held for several hours, but no one was charged.
However the two and a half hour magical mystery tour ended badly – faced with legal action for wrongful arrest, the police admitted that they had no evidence to detain the demonstrators and had to apologise.
The Metropolitan police's attempt at running a tourist bus costing the force £80,000 and a grovelling apology. The 23 protesters each received £3,500 as the Met settled their lawsuit out of court.
In the letter of apology, the Met wrote: "I am writing to apologise on behalf of the Metropolitan police for the fact that you were arrested and detained for some hours."
Adding insult to injury for the shame-faced Met, several of the protestors donated part of their compensation to the Legal Defence and Monitoring Group, who used it to reprint yet another edition of the iconic 'No Comment' booklet, which is distributed free and advises demonstrators and other troublemakers on their rights on arrest and the best ways to respond to police questioning. Using police payouts to fund 'No Comment' has become something of a tradition over the least decade. Thanks, Scotland Yard.
An entry in the 2016 London Rebel History Calendar – check it out online
Today in London's history: police attack march in support of framed Newham 7, 1985.
On 7 April 1984, there was a series of racist attacks in the Upton Park and Forest Gate areas of Newham, carried by the same group of racist thugs driving around in a car. These attacks included a vicious assault on a partially disabled 16-year old Asian youth who was bundled into the car, taken to Wanstead Flats and beaten with a hammer. A family shopping on Green Street were attacked, as was an apprentice returning from work on St Stephens Road and a youth on Plashet Road. Further attacks during the day were orchestrated by racists drinking at The Duke of Edinburgh pub and as news spread, local Asian youths gathered outside the pub to confront the racists. The pub was well-known locally as a haunt of racists The police arrived almost immediately, one Asian was arrested and kept into custody overnight. Three white youths who were inside the pub, throwing with billiard balls, beer glasses and bottles at Asian youths, were also arrested but released that evening without charge.
Over the next few weeks, six more Asians were arrested and although two of the seven were granted bail, the other five subsequently spent around many weeks on remand. Week after week, bail applications were rejected by magistrates, as the prosecution maintained that they were still preparing their case. All seven: Zafar Khan, Khan Bahadur, Parvaiz Khan, Amjad Ali, Jyoti Rajabbanm Jamal Chaudhri, Habib Mohammed – were eventually charged with conspiracy to cause criminal damage and affray. with additional individual charges including possessing offensive weapons.All carried the potential for heavy sentences on conviction. As a result, on 15 June 1984, the Newham 7 Defence Campaign was officially launched at a packed local public meeting.
On the committal hearing on 14 Sept 1984, 200 people picketed outside Stratford Magistrates Court. Conspiracy charge against six of the seven defendants was dismissed that day. The quick dismissal of a major charge like this raised questions about the decision to bring them in the first place.
On 3 November 1984, the Defence Campaign organised a picket outside Duke of Edinburgh pub, supported by Newham Monitoring Project (NMP). Between 150-200 people shut down the pub for the afternoon. Just as the local Asian community was organising, there was another appalling attack: the racist murder of 16-year old Eustace Pryce, who was stabbed in the head outside the Greengate pub on Barking Road in Plaistow on 29 November 1984. Eustace and a group of friends, including his brother Gerald, had confronted a gang of racists: the end of the incident had been witnessed from a passing bus by plain-clothed police officers.
However, when the police arrived at the scene, it was Gerald, not the killer of Eustace Pryce, who was arrested. Three weeks later, Gerald was charged with affray and denied bail, whilst Eustace's killer, Martin Newhouse, was granted bail on the grounds it would be wrong to keep him in jail over Christmas. When Gerald was finally released, he was prevented from returning to Newham to visit his pregnant girlfriend.
With NMP's assistance, the Justice for the Pryce Family Support Committee was formed to 'Defend Gerald and Remember Eustace'.
On 27 April 1985, a National Demonstration Against Racism was held in Newham, with 3000 people marching in support of the Newham 7 and Justice for the Pryce Family campaigns. The march brought together members of the Asian and Afro-Caribbean communities under a common banner and a shared struggle. The march reached Forest Gate Police Station in the afternoon, where the Metropolitan Police's District Support Unit (DSU) snatch squads charged into the crowd, arresting 10 and accusing them of, amongst other things, 'spitting and throwing weapons'. Demonstrators refused to move on until all were released and by 6pm, there were DSU reinforcements from across London. Young people were punched and kicked or charged down side-streets in isolated groups. By the end of the day, scores of people were injured and 34 arrests had been made.
Following the events on 27 April, the Defence Campaign decided to hold a second march. On 11 May 1985, over 2000 people participated in a militant but peaceful demonstration that was allowed to complete its route to Plashet Park. However, in a tense atmosphere, the manhandling by police of one black youth led to confrontation, the emergence of officers on horseback and riot officers who charged into the park. It appeared that this had been deliberately engineered: three to four white men in ordinary clothes were seen throwing sticks at the police; but were later seen behind police lines with police radios. Later, riot officers paraded along Green Street and East ham High Street North in a show of strength.
On 13 May 1985, the trial of the Newham 7 started at the Old Bailey. On the second day, one defendant Parvaiz Khan was assaulted by prison wardens for refusing, as a Muslim, to eat a pork pie. His appearance in court with bruises and a swollen eye delayed proceedings for two days. When the trial resumed, two police officers were discovered rifling through defence files and others showed the court how they had compiled notes together, in breach of police rules. The local Asian community also discovered that a meeting place for Asian youths, the Wimpy Bar opposite the Duke of Edinburgh pub, had been placed under constant police surveillance. There was no similar surveillance on white racist organisations. The defence case rested on the right of community self-defence and the use of reasonable force to prevent a crime. The jury eventually convicted four of the seven defendants of affray but by the end of the trial, the actions of the police had been largely discredited. One officer at the trial, a DC Bonczoszek, was so furious at his exposure in court that he wrote an article for Police Review magazine in October 1985 claiming the 'nebulous' problem of racism was 'a fabrication constructed by the left'. The efforts of the Justice for the Pryce Family Support Committee ensured that Gerald Pryce was not criminalised. However, In October 1985, Martin Newhouse, was convicted of manslaughter and affray and sentenced to six and a half years in youth custody.
nicked from the excellent Newham Monitoring Project site.
Today in Metropolitan Police History: turn that racket off! 1969
Posted on January 30, 2016 by mudlark121
Maybe not exackerly radical, but… allus good to see the blue lobsters make fools of themselves…
30th January 1969: The Beatles performed on the rooftop of the Apple offices at Savile Row, London; police turned up and try to put a stop to the gig.
The Beatles had wild discussions of how to end their film Let it Be with a climaxing live performance – everywhere from the QE2 to the Pyramids, was discussed, but in the end they decided on what became their infamous final gig – a surprise performance on the roof of the Apple Records building at Savile Row.
The Beatles played tracks including "Don't Let Me Down", "I've Got a Feeling", "Dig A Pony" and "Get Back". The police arrived to halt the proceedings, but the band continued to play. Despite their protest, no arrests were made, and the performance continued for 42 minutes.
Ringo said "It was a memorable day for me – we were doin' what we did best – making music. But I am still disappointed the policemen didn't drag me off me drums!".
As the gig progressed, crowds gathered in the streets below and on the surrounding rooftops for what must have been one of the greatest lunch break treats of all time. But not everyone was pleased to see the biggest band in the world playing a free gig. Stanley Davis, the wool merchant next door, is supposed to have said: "I want this bloody noise stopped. It's an absolute disgrace." Other reactions of passers-by are captured in the Let It Be film and range from the elated ("Fantastic!" "Fabulous!"), to the buttoned-down ("This type of music has its place") and the topical ("It's nice to have something in this country for free at the moment").
With traffic beginning to back up on the street below, the police at nearby West End Central Police Station (located at 27 Savile Row) were called. Mal Evans had set up a hidden camera in the reception area of the Apple building that later captured their arrival.
The third take of Get Back sees the police arrive on the roof. Lennon and Harrison's amplifiers are switched off just before the first chorus, before kicking back in just in time for the solo. Paul's soul preacher ad-lib arrives towards the end of the track: "You've been playing on the roofs again, and you know your Momma doesn't like it, oh she gets angry, she's gonna have you arrested!" A cheer from Ringo's wife Maureen then prompts a deadpan "Thanks, Mo" from McCartney. These outtakes can be heard on the Anthology 3 version of Get Back.
The rooftop concert was a short and sweet reminder of The Beatles at their live best, although not everyone was happy with the end result. As Ringo recounts in The Beatles Anthology: "I always feel let down about the police. When they came up I was playing away and I thought, 'Oh great! I hope they drag me off.' We were being filmed and it would have looked really great, kicking the cymbals and everything. Well, they didn't of course, they just came bumbling in: 'You've got to turn that sound down.' It could have been fabulous."
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DURHAM, N.C.—The Duke men's soccer team turned in a strong performance this past Saturday, besting ACC foe Wake Forest 2-1 in the second game of U.S. Soccer's Spring Men's College Program. The Blue Devils move to 1-1 in the competition with the loss coming to North Carolina.
The Blue Devils got goals from freshman Conor Kelly and graduate student transfer Sergi Nus to rally in the second half for the victory. Duke's one loss in the competition was a 1-0 setback to North Carolina. The team finishes the third installment at Clemson April 6.
Duke returns its top scorer in All-American Daniele Proch and five of the top six from last season. The Blue Devils will look to fill the hole left by the departure of ACC Rookie of the Year Issa Rayyan as well as the graduation of captain and center back Ciaran McKenna.
The U.S. Soccer Spring Men's College Program concludes with an opponent to be determined in Winston-Salem, April 13. Group One of the South Division includes Clemson, Duke, North Carolina and Wake Forest. Group Two consists of Virginia, Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh and Georgetown. They all will meet in Winston-Salem in two weeks in the format below.
North Carolina won the inaugural title in 2018, going 5-0-0 and allowing just two goals. Duke was 2-3-0 last season and had a +1 goal differential to come in second place.


February 14, 2019 - Listen to Carly's From The Heart Playlist to get in touch with your love. Happy Valentine's Day!
October 27, 2017 - Coming Around Again: 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition UK Release. Amazon US Release, November 3rd.
October, 10 2017 ~ Tonight, Carly will be on #FindingYourRoots discovering her ancestry with @HenryLouisGates. They will be on your local @PBS station at 8|7c!
April 19, 2017 ~ Carly joined an all-star concert following the red carpet world premiere of Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives at Radio City Music Hall in New York City ~ Opening the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival .
April 3, 2017 ~ The IAm Carly Simon App is here for iPhone and Android. In this app, you will find all of Carly's social media, videos and much more. Download today!
December 26, 2016 ~ "In an exclusive - and very candid - interview recorded at her Martha's Vineyard home, Carly Simon discusses life, love and her astonishingly diverse career with Johnnie Walker, offering an unique insight into her creativity and personality."
Listen Now - Available to stream at BBC Radio 2 for one month!
Spend your Thanksgiving with Carly on SiriusXM The Bridge!
This show will be available for On Demand listening 1 PM ET on Nov 24 for 2 weeks– anytime, anywhere! The show will also be available for 2 weeks on demand at http://siriusxm.com/ondemand under The Bridge.
November 7, 2016 - Carly Simon talks electronic music and more at book signing: More..
Stephen asks if he can duet with Carly Simon on a song she once sang with James Taylor.
November 18, 2015 - Pick up the new issue of PEOPLE including Carly's exclusive interview , on newsstands Friday. Listen to the Premiere of "Showdown" today!


Michele Whitacre Photography | Blog: Happy 7th Birthday, Zoe!
Zoe's birthday was a few days ago on September 11th, and you know what that means... PRESENTS!
As always, the girls got spoiled for Zoe's birthday with a bag full of toys and treats. I've mentioned it before, but our dogs (especially Lexi) destroy toys like you wouldn't believe so I always buy them at the dollar store. It doesn't matter if I pay one dollar, or ten, for a toy, Lexi will have it destroyed in under 10 minutes. Guaranteed.
When I went to the store this time, the selection was pretty dismal and there wasn't a single plush toy in the whole place - which is their favorite kind. They both get a kick out of pulling the stuffing out of them as soon as they manage to tear a hole in them. So, I ended up getting them more treats than usual and got them a few repeat toys from years past that I know they like. Plus a few frisbees for Lexi that we bought last month. Around here we call frisbees the toys that keep on giving because Lexi doesn't play fetch with them, she chews them up. She breaks off little pieces all around the house, and then the cats bat them around for hours of fun.
But enough of that, let's get to the good stuff, shall we?
She's not quite sure what to think yet?
What is that crazy dog doing?
I may have gone a wee little bit overboard on photos with this post, so thank you if you made it all the way to the end and you're still with me! I liked a lot of these and wanted to share them, plus it's been an eternity since I posted photos of the dogs on the blog.
I always love pix of your pets. I also love that the kitties joined in the fun.


text:
import re

from streamlink.plugin import Plugin
from streamlink.plugin.api import validate

_url_re = re.compile(r'http(s)?://www\.skai(?:tv)?.gr/.*')
_api_url = "http://www.skaitv.gr/json/live.php"
_api_res_schema = validate.Schema(validate.all(
    validate.get("now"),
    {
        "livestream": validate.url()
    },
    validate.get("livestream"))
)

class Skai(Plugin):
    @classmethod
    def can_handle_url(cls, url):
        return _url_re.match(url)

    def _get_streams(self):
        api_res = self.session.http.get(_api_url)
        yt_url = self.session.http.json(api_res, schema=_api_res_schema)
        if yt_url:
            return self.session.streams(yt_url)

__plugin__ = Skai

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


ChefsResource.com's 10-in. nickel-plated, cast-iron grill pan, $80, is virtually indestructible, says foodie turned e-tailer Rick Smith. The nickel won't melt, peel or chip-you can even clean it with a wire brush. Unlike standard cast iron, the pan won't give food a metallic taste. It also conducts heat better than stainless steel. Says Smith: "I've never seen steak sear so well." A 10-in. skillet is available for $75.


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text:
Home/Entertainment/Will & Grace To Return To Television? – Oy Vey or Yea?
EntertainmentFeatured
Will & Grace To Return To Television? – Oy Vey or Yea?
Safm.com's Scoopla Screen is reporting that Will & Grace (which some consider a cutting edge piece of prime time network LGBT programming while others blame it for harmful stereotyping) is returning to television for a a one off TV special.
The entire original cast (Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Megan Mullally and Sean Hayes) have all apparently agreed to come back and that. It will be filmed in the same lot that the original show was shot in. (WHAT! No Leslie Jordan?! GAY SACRILEGE!)
The 2006 series finale had Grace get back with her cheating ex-husband Leo, and had Will and Grace part ways long enough for both of them to have college-aged children before their reunion. (One of the Top Ten Worst Series Finales EVER!)
In May, Sean Hayes on Twitter denied that any of the stars had been contacted about a reunion show.
Should Will & Grace have a reunion show? Or should some books better off staying closed?
Will & Grace Reunion Special: Oy Vey or Yea!? Sound off!
LGBT programming NBC Oy Vey or Yea? stereotypes Will & Grace
Will Kohler
Will Kohler is one of America's best known LGBT historians, He is also a a accredited journalist and the owner of Back2Stonewall.com. A longtime gay activist Will fought on the front lines of the AIDS epidemic with ACT-UP and continues fighting today for LGBT acceptance and full equality. Will's work has been referenced on such notable media venues as BBC News, CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post, The Daily Wall Street Journal, Hollywood Reporter, and Raw Story. Back2Stonewall has been recently added to the Library of Congress' LGBTQ+ Studies Web Archive. Mr. Kohler is available for comment, interviews and lectures on LGBT History. Contact: Will@Back2Stonewall.com
Russian Multimillionaire Store Owner To Sell Chain Rather Than Remove "No Faggots Allowed" Signs
Alan Osmond Of The Osmond Family Pens Anti-Gay Article Defending Gay Reparative Therapy and the Mormon Church
Tim Tebow To Teabag GOP Political Elite At Republican National Convention – Speaker List Announced
Ted Nugent, Sarah Palin, and Kid Rock Walk Into A Trailer Park…. I Mean The White House
1 thought on "Will & Grace To Return To Television? – Oy Vey or Yea?"
NAY! The show started off ground breaking, but by it's final season had descended into a gay Amos and Andy. Not to mention, it was no longer funny, even if you could overlook the stereotypes.
Legendary Comedy Actor Gene Wilder Dies At Age 83

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The Fringe Skirt is used for various purposes: Tahitian costumes (skirt), Ceremonial head-dress, and cape. When used as a skirt, a cord is attached to fasten it around your waist.
The Tahitian Skirt comes in two length sizes, both at the same waist length.
Natural, Bleach, Red, Pink, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Orange, Brown, Black, Light Pink, Light Blue, Turquoise, Lime Green and Light Brown,Fuchsia,Ilima.
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Natural Raffia Ribbon 10Piece set 3"
Wonderful skirt! It provides excellent coverage, yet is not excessively heavy. Wore it all night and received many compliments!


text:
package se.culvertsoft.mgen.javapack.generator.impl

import scala.collection.JavaConversions.asScalaBuffer

import se.culvertsoft.mgen.api.model.ClassType
import se.culvertsoft.mgen.api.model.Module
import se.culvertsoft.mgen.compiler.internal.BuiltInGeneratorUtil.endl
import se.culvertsoft.mgen.compiler.internal.BuiltInGeneratorUtil.ln
import se.culvertsoft.mgen.compiler.internal.BuiltInGeneratorUtil.txt
import se.culvertsoft.mgen.compiler.util.SourceCodeBuffer
import se.culvertsoft.mgen.javapack.generator.JavaConstants.deepCopyerClsStringQ
import se.culvertsoft.mgen.javapack.generator.JavaConstants.eqTesterClsStringQ
import se.culvertsoft.mgen.javapack.generator.JavaConstants.fieldHasherClsStringQ
import se.culvertsoft.mgen.javapack.generator.JavaConstants.fieldIfcClsStringQ
import se.culvertsoft.mgen.javapack.generator.JavaConstants.fieldSetDepthClsStringQ
import se.culvertsoft.mgen.javapack.generator.JavaConstants.fieldVisitSelectionClsStringQ
import se.culvertsoft.mgen.javapack.generator.JavaConstants.fieldVisitorClsStringQ
import se.culvertsoft.mgen.javapack.generator.JavaConstants.readerClsStringQ
import se.culvertsoft.mgen.javapack.generator.JavaConstants.setFieldSetClsStringQ
import se.culvertsoft.mgen.javapack.generator.JavaConstants.validatorClsStringQ
import se.culvertsoft.mgen.javapack.generator.JavaGenerator

object MkImports {

  def apply(t: ClassType, module: Module, genCustomCodeSections: Boolean)(implicit txtBuffer: SourceCodeBuffer) {

    ln(s"import ${fieldIfcClsStringQ};")

    ln(s"import ${fieldSetDepthClsStringQ};")
    ln(s"import ${fieldVisitSelectionClsStringQ};")
    ln(s"import ${fieldVisitorClsStringQ};")
    ln(s"import ${readerClsStringQ};")

    if (t.fieldsInclSuper.nonEmpty) {
      ln(s"import ${fieldHasherClsStringQ};")
    }

    if (t.fieldsInclSuper.filter(JavaGenerator.needsDeepEqual).nonEmpty) {
      ln(s"import ${eqTesterClsStringQ};")
    }

    if (t.fields.exists(_.typ.containsUserDefinedType)) {
      ln(s"import ${validatorClsStringQ};")
      ln(s"import ${setFieldSetClsStringQ};")
    }

    if (genCustomCodeSections)
      ln(JavaGenerator.custom_imports_section.toString)

    endl()

  }

}