Weekend roundup for 2 July

Featuring Beefeaters, sweat baths and Brixton McDonalds

Welcome to your weekly sprint through all the news, cultural headlines and culinary hearsay coming out of London over the last seven days.

Because we’ve been on a bit of a break there’s quite a lot to pack in this week, including Sadiq’s various spats, that incredible art deco control room at Battersea Power Station and where to find non-shit Guinness.

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News bits

🚨 The big news of the week is that the Met has been put under what Priti Patel called “special measures” by the police watchdog (also known as Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services). This has never happened to the Met before (these kinds of measures are normally applied to schools and hospitals) although Greater Manchester Police were subjected to similar measures a couple of years ago.

What does it actually mean? Well, the HMICFRS have said that the process “provides additional scrutiny and support to help it make improvements”. In practice that likely means that the force will have to report to inspectors more regularly and might be set specific “crime-fighting targets” (although some might argue it’s not the crime fighting that’s the main issue here). You can read a response to the news from Reclaim These Streets here.

🥊 On Wednesday the mayor and the home secretary embarked on a blame game, with “a source close to” Patel accusing Khan of being “asleep at the wheel” as the police and crime commissioner, and the Mayor firing back that he would “take no lessons in policing from the Home Secretary, who clearly was happy with the status quo and didn’t want any action taken.”

🐄 The other beef that Sadiq got into while we were away was with Grant Shapps over the issue of TfL funding. The short story is that the Transport Secretary wrote to the mayor accusing him of making “untrue” statements about cuts the Government had asked TfL to make, and complaining he had “still not delivered a recommended approach or set out an acceptable plan to delivering one.” Sadiq’s reply came via this Twitter thread in which he said Shapps had “no basic understanding of how TfL finances work and no respect for the truth”. On Friday Sadiq requested an “urgent” meeting with Shapps to discuss how TfL will be funded beyond July 13.

💷 While we’re on the subject, IanVisits has written a fantastic editorial on TfL’s funding woes, the various potential solutions and the many arguments surrounding them. It’s a great, balanced and thoughtful piece by someone who knows what they’re talking about.

🚲 The number of cyclists killed on London’s roads in 2021 was down 40% on the 2005-2009 average, from 17 to 10 people, according to TfL’s annual report. That’s the ‘good’ news. The bad news is that the number of people seriously injured has risen by 54%.

📢 At the start of this week, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act came into force giving the police new powers to tackle non-violent protests that “have a significant disruptive effect on the public or on access to Parliament.” Within hours, Steve ‘Stop Brexit Man’ Bray had his equipment seized, although he was back the next day with a promise that more amps were on order and “it’ll be twice as loud as it was”.

🚇 The Northern Line Night Tube service will start running again from tonight. In other Northern Line news the mayor has said that work is going to begin soon to “replace track fastenings on the northbound and southbound stretches between Camden Town and Euston” to try and reduce noise and vibrations.

🚠 TfL’s ten year contract with Emirates for sponsorship of the London cable car came to end this week, which means that TfL will now have to add the cost of running that to the list, at least until a “future commercial partner” is announced later in the summer.

🏗️ A resident-led group called Barbican Quarter Action has launched a campaign to urge the City of London Corporation to reconsider its decision to demolish Bastion House and the Museum of London. The current plan is to build 40,000m² of new office space on ‘London Wall West’ but the group argues that the area is “of international and historic significance” and that 88% of Barbican residents “favour an alternative to demolition”.

🏢 In related news (and connected to our piece on ‘abandoned’ buildings from a few weeks ago) the former City Hall building looks like it might be given listed status after a request for a “certificate of immunity from listing” from the building’s owners was denied by The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

🔋 As part of London Climate Action Week, the Mayor announced that TfL has made the first step towards powering the London Underground with 100% renewable energy by putting out a ‘power purchase tender’, which would mean that around 10% of TfL’s electricity comes from renewable energy sources. The aim is to get that up to 100% by 2030.

↩️ Great news from the pen of Diamond Geezer who reports that the misguided rebrand of Holborn, Bloomsbury and St Giles as ‘Midtown’ has finally bitten the dust. The new name for the area is ‘Central District Alliance’, which might actually be worse.

🎾If Wimbledon has inspired you to restring your racquet (and you have an FT subscription), the paper has published a guide to four of London’s most offbeat public tennis courts.

💂 There’s currently a vacancy for a new Yeoman Warde (aka a Beefeater) at the Tower of London. Your main responsibilities will be “to stir the spirit of every visitor” as well as “bring its history and stories to life” and contribute to “the safety and security of the Tower”. The criteria are pretty strict though, so unless you’re a former Warrant Officer, a holder of the Long Service and Good Conduct Medal and have served within the regular armed services for at least 22 years, then don’t bother applying.

Art and culture bits

🏳‍🌈 It’s not only Pride this weekend, it’s also the 50th anniversary of Pride in London and the first ‘real’ event after two years of cancellations and virtual celebrations. It would take the rest of this newsletter to tell you everything that’s going on, so we’ll just give you the headlines. Here’s an interactive map for the parade route, which starts at Hyde Park, goes through Piccadilly, Haymarket and Trafalgar Square, and finishes at Whitehall Place. And here’s all the details for who’s performing on the four stages across the West End. There’s also an LGBTQ tour of the British Museum taking place all through July, a Queer Botany tour of the Barbican next Saturday and a Pride of the Royal Opera House Tour happening most weekends over the month.

🎛 Battersea Power Station has released images of the beautifully restored Control Room A ahead of its official opening this autumn, when it will become “a unique events space”. But who care about that, LOOK AT THOSE SWITCHES!

🖋️ Tickets for October’s London Literary Festival at the Southbank go on sale this weekend. Some of the highlights include Rob Delaney talking about his new memoir, George Saunders on his new short story collection, Greta Thunberg at the launch of The Climate Book and the Debut London Literature event that “celebrates debut titles from some of the city’s most exciting writers”.