Derek Draper

Updated Saturday 18 April

Tuesday 14 April, 6pm:
 
Down at parliament square, a small marquee has been pitched - probably less than 300m from the place where our mighty prime minister and his various hangers-on bitch about the consequences of hiring Derek Draper and other vital matters of state, etc.

A young man called Prarameswaran Subramaniyam sits at the back of the marquee, wrapped in a pile of blankets. Subramaniyam is 28 and a Tamil. He's in the eighth day of a hunger strike that he hopes will draw world attention to the plight of Tamil civilians being slaughtered by the Sri Lankan government in northern Sri Lanka - the latest awful chapter in the famously horrific 60-year-old conflict between Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority (although it's older than that: Tamils at this protest are quick to point out that their persecution predates Sri Lanka's 1948 independence from Britain by many years).

Anyway  - the publicity returns of Subramaniyam's hunger strike remained disappointing at the time of writing. The protestors have yet to be offered a substantive UK government statement on the conflict, and - apart from a handful of reports last week when Tamil protestors occupied Westminster bridge at rush hour and started chucking themselves into the Thames - mainstream journalism has managed to ignore the fact of this loud eight-day-old protest almost entirely. Alas for UK Tamils, mainstream journalism has been at full stretch on important topics such as measuring the gap between Susan Boyle's looks and talent, and probing Dolly and Damian McBride.  
 
The point I want to make, though, is that avoiding this protest actually takes quite a lot of effort if you're in the Westminster area. It's been difficult to physically circumvent for days, and even weeks (UK Tamils first took their protest about Sri Lankan government attacks on Tamils in northern Sri Lanka to the streets in February. They began their occupation of parliament square last week). The fact that the UK government, the mainstream media and even the Met (to an extent) have been able, largely, to avoid the whole event is a kind of salute to the mainstream's collective ability to turn a blind eye to the woes of dark-skinned citizens, even when they're screaming their heads off right in the middle of us.

Outside the tent which houses Subramaniyam, hundreds of Tamil protestors chant and wave signs. They're also being kettled by the police (not sure that news of the Met's new go-slow on kettling has reached the cops at Westminster) into a too-small area on the right flank of parliament square - men and women, elderly men and women, teenagers, babies, and lots of little kids.

The action shows absolutely no signs of losing momentum - I pass hundreds of British Tamil protestors in parliament square on my way home from work every evening, and see more and more flags and signs tied to the parliament square railings every morning on my way in. Brian Haw's small camp has almost disappeared behind them.

I find it interesting in this paranoid day and age that so many people can scream a grievance at parliament for so long and get such a muted media and political response. The protestors can't believe it either - 'for what we've done, I don't think the response is what people expected,' says student protestor and organiser Janani Paramsothy. The original Tamil protests weren't even legal - as most people know, protesting in parliament square in the SOCPA era is a form filling nightmare that tends to end badly if you don't get it right - and yet, these guys carry on.

Perhaps they picked the wrong week to make their point - and not just because parliament's on holiday. Parliament may lie just a few hundred metres from here, but alas - all anybody associated with it wants to talk about is the voltage in Mad Nad's' ladyshave. Perhaps the problem is purely technical - maybe none of our political notables can bring themselves to look out the car window during the ride to work these days. Maybe they just spend the whole trip on the floor in the crash position. Perhaps they back the Tamil Tigers. Perhaps they're selling arms to the Sri Lankan government. Who can really say? 

Anyway - Subramaniyam. He has started taking water today, but looks weak, bleary-eyed and a lot younger than 28. He has the rancid breath that people develop on a fast. He tells me that he plans to stay on the hunger strike 'until I get answers to all of our demands.'

Gold.

I'm really enjoying this (scroll down to the two screenshots from Draper's blog).

Remind me again to never piss Timbles off.

Anyway - working on a couple of things atm, so will be back soon.

In the meantime,  keep your eyes on the below regarding the very unpleasant treatment that union reps for RMT cleaners are experiencing at the hands of the charming Metronet. There are several demos in support of the cleaners planned this week - they're mentioned in the text below (from Feminist Fightback):

'The attacks on RMT cleaners' reps on the underground continues, with another rep suspended without pay and threatened with dismissal this Monday. Calls for Mary Oboakye to be reinstated will be amplified this week with an action at Metronet offices on Wednesday lunchtime.

Please come along to the following and mobilise as many people as you can for the actions:

MONDAY 26 JANUARY - 1.30PM - DEFEND PHILLIP, RMT CLEANER REP FROM DISMISSAL
Meet 1.30pm at WH Smiths at London Bridge, travel to the ISS Offices, 15 Park Vista, Greenwich for demo from 2.30pm

Phillip has worked on the underground for 7 years, but it is only since he became active as a union rep that employers have questioned his immigration status. Come along to the offices and make some noise before his hearing at 3pm.

WEDNESDAY 28 JANUARY - 1PM - REINSTATE MARY, RMT CLEANERS REP, UNFAIRLY DISMISSED
1pm, RMT Demonstration at Metronet, Templar House, 81-87 High Holborn, WC1V 6NU. (2 minutes walk from Holborn station)

Mary's crime was to sit down after finishing  her work while she was waiting for the train doors to be opened. 3 days earlier, she had sustained an eye injury at work - but was denied sick pay and annual leave. We know she was targeted for her union activity and want to let Metronet know that we hold them responsible for the actions of their contractors. Mary must be reinstated!

FRIDAY 30 JANUARY - 6PM - RMT CLEANERS GRADE MEETING 1pm, WEA Offices, 70 Clifton Street, EC2A 4HB (5 mins walk from Old Street station) Speaker: Elaine Hefferman, Immigration Issues Advisor.'

Fantastic stuff from Tim Ireland in - ah, conversation with Derek Draper. Tim's absolutely right - and hits the nail very firmly on the head when he says that Draper wasn't even able to enter the spirit with a little bullshit and humour. Probably, that's where Draper will go arse over tit most spectacularly... although there is plenty of scope generally.

Anyway. Remind me never to piss Timbles off.

Jesus wept, man. Derek Draper, Labour and Schillings - the world's first three-point buttplug.

Can hardly bear to look.