Nike at night...

A few shots from the Nike 10K woman's race in Victoria Park, attended by thousands of amateur runners from across London. 

In miniature...

A few photos from this weekends London Dollshouse Festival in Kensington. 

The funeral...

Some images from today's funeral for the late Baroness Thatcher, the first and only British female Prime Minister.

Despite fears, and perhaps as a result of the corresponding security operation, there were only limited protests and no disruptions to the procession itself as it made it's way through central London. 

Thatcher is dead...

Only hours after the death of ex Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, hundreds of people took to the streets in Brixton, London, to celebrate her death.

Those attending later clashed with police, smashed a charity shop window and set up temporary road blocks with rubbish bins and road signs to slow the massively outnumbered police who were at times overwhelmed. 

Bottles were thrown, a cinema was defaced and music blasted as the group of all ages partied late into the night over the death of the divisive conservative figure.

The goat race...

A few photos from today's Goat Race. The event, held on the same day as the arguably better known Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, was in its fifth year at Spitalfields City Farm in London.

Hundreds of spectators cheered as Barney, also the winner of the inaugural Goat Race and representing Cambridge, defeated fellow goat Bella with a rather slow time of a minute and 13 seconds.

Barney's victory means that whilst Oxford's rowing teams were victorious on the water in the lightweights and heavyweights categories, for both men and women and for both both A and B teams, Cambridge did not end the day empty handed.

Malian variety...

A smattering of photos from Mali over the last month including a visit by Francois Hollande to Bamako, a tour around a US Air Force C17, Mali's Quarter Final victory over South Africa in the Africa Cup of Nations and general day in the life images from around the country.

London snow...

Some images from around central London today where snow fell for much of the day.

2013...

London ushers in the new year with a rather spectacular fireworks display in front of the London eye.

Too little, too lattè...

Finding a cup of coffee has never been a hard task for Londoners, but a recent uproar over corporation tax has added a certain moral complexity to the choice of which ubiquitous chain to patronize.

A special report last month by the wire agency Reuters claims that Starbucks UK failed to pay any corporation tax in the past three years and only £8.5m over the last 14 years despite taking in over £3bn in sales.

This weekend, UK Uncut, a campaign group against austerity measures, launched 44 separate protests against Starbucks stores across the UK. In central London, at least 100 people turned out to protest the chain, unfurling banners inside a shop near Regent Street before being escorted out by Police.

Late last week Kris Engskov, managing director of Starbucks UK, looked to placate public discontent with an “unprecedented” offer to pay £20m in tax to HMRC over the next two years regardless of profit. HMRC responded by pointing out that “corporation tax is not voluntary”.

Todays vocal protest suggest UK Uncut didn't think much of the offer either and the presence of international camera crews suggest global attention remains fixed on austerity and those who oppose it. 

AAA...AA...A...

If disruption is the purpose of protest then the latest march through central London was a resounding success. If it is to effect change, then things look less optimistic.     

This Wednesday, hundreds of students descended on the capital, marching vocally amidst a significant police presence, just as besuited office workers embarked on their evening commutes.

As a tactic to win friends it was perhaps lacking, with roads and some pavements effectively closed down, but it left nobody in the area in any doubt that a whole mass of people was not particularly happy.

The source of this winter’s latest discontent was George Osborne’s Autumn Statement, made earlier in the day to an overflowing House of Commons. Amidst grim predictions and further economic contraction, the statement did little to confound popular criticism despite claims that “Britain is on the right track”.

The student groups, joined by a disparate mass of other perturbed individuals, were back for a second time in as many weeks after a 10,000 man demonstration in late November failed to garner much attention due not least to its conclusion on a rain swept stage in the wilderness of Kennington.

Prior to this week’s march, organisers from the National Campaign against Fees and Cuts said “We believe the student movement needs to demand clear, radical alternatives to the Coalition’s agenda of growing inequality and austerity.

“We are campaigning for free, accessible and public education, with a living allowance for all students, and a rebuilt welfare state and NHS – funded by taxing the rich and big business – and taking control of the banks’ wealth”.

Other groups attending the march included the Stop the War Coalition, who claims the government continues to fund fighting wars at the expense of public services. A statement issued by the group addressing Osborne’s statement said “…one cut he will not be announcing is in the budget for war and for Britain’s pointless Trident nuclear missile system. The Afghanistan war – which everyone knows is futile and lost – is costing around £6 billion a year”.

Osborne’s statement to MPs did little to alleviate this dissatisfaction, saying that there was “no quick fixes” and noting earlier that “it is clearly taking longer to deal with Britain’s debts, it’s clearly taking longer to recover from  the financial crisis than one would have hoped but we have made real progress”.

Figures from the Office for Budge Responsibility, published alongside the Chancellors statement, made for further grim, albeit expected, reading with a downgraded economic growth rate for this year of negative 0.1% and growth next year of 1.2%. In March, the OBR predicted the UK would grow by 0.8% this year and by 2% in 2013.

But there was also plenty to try and placate Government naysayers, including a crackdown on tax avoidance by multinationals such as Starbucks, Amazon and Google.

Osborne also said prior that “It’s got to be done fairly, and that means yes, the richest need to bear their fair share – and they will. That means more than they’re paying at the moment” but stressed that “there is another conception of fairness, the fairness of the individual who goes out to work and lives next so someone who lives on benefits; we are also going to tackle welfare bills, and that is the Conservative approach to fairness”.

Yet despite chanting students and claims by Ed Balls, the shadow Chancellor, that the coalition was in a “deep hole”, Osborne showed little sign of turning, saying “I think undermining the credibility of our deficit plan, going back on our commitment to deal with our debts would be a complete catastrophe for Britain and would put us into the place some European countries are in at the moment, and that is not a place Britain wants to be”.