“It insulted people’s intelligence, and it has left some people on her campaign notably pissed off”
Plus: E. coli in the Thames, a cladding battle in the Docklands, and relief for London’s oldest Spoons
Morning — just a round-up for you today, as we celebrate the Easter weekend at Spy HQ. We lead on all the London mayoral mayhem that’s taken place over the past couple of days, after one of the campaigns put out a dodgy attack ad. Except the candidate the ad supported now appears to be distancing herself from it, with an inside source saying the video “insulted people’s intelligence” and left some of the campaign team “notably pissed off”.
Plus: E. coli in the Thames, a cladding battle in the Docklands, and a sigh of relief for fans of London’s oldest Wetherspoons.
Also, a quick update on our plans: March has flown by! And with it, our initial launch date for Spy memberships… But don’t worry — we’re still planning to launch things imminently, we’re just giving our writers a bit more time to put together our first run of exclusive, member-only content. We’re now looking to launch later this month, and you can get signed up ready by pledging a subscription using the button below.
What we’ve spied
📹 And so ends the dirtiest week yet in the London mayoral campaign, which saw the Conservatives run a controversial attack ad with dodgy footage. The ad was posted on X on Monday in support of Tory candidate Susan Hall, and criticised Sadiq Khan’s record on crime. It makes for a pretty dark watch, declaring London has become “the crime capital of the world”. At one point the ad showed footage of people fleeing a station, alongside narration: “A 54% increase in knife crime since the Labour mayor seized power has the metropolis teetering on the brink of chaos”. But some soon spotted that this clip had actually been filmed at a New York subway station in 2017, not in London, when a crowd panicked over false reports of gunfire. The Conservatives then deleted the original video and uploaded a new version to X with the clip removed. Khan was blunt about the debacle in his response: “It’s true to form for the Tory campaign. It’s a deeply misleading attack intentionally talking down London, from a candidate who appears to have no love for the city she aspires to lead”. Hall’s team are reportedly fuming too though — a Tory party source tells the Guardian that the ad was solely the work of Conservative campaign headquarters, not Hall’s team. They added: “It insulted people’s intelligence, and it has left some people on her campaign notably pissed off.” Although the clip of New York was removed, others have pointed out there are still some suspect claims in the ad, like London being the crime capital of the world (victim reported crime rates are lower than the national average) or that ULEZ is being enforced by officers dressed in black with masks (it’s enforced using cameras). Worth reading: this analysis of what Hall’s other ads say about the kinds of Londoners she’s targeting.
🗳️ More constructively, there’s also been a heap of pledges from the mayoral candidates this week. Most high profile is the news Khan is planning to introduce an Erasmus-style exchange scheme that would fund students in London to study overseas, in the EU or other world cities. Khan also announced on Wednesday that he’d recruit 1,300 more officers to boost London’s neighbourhood policing if elected to another term — but only if a Labour government was also elected nationally, to guarantee the funding. Hall has been setting her sights on London’s cycle lanes, saying she would review and potentially scrap lanes that cause “gridlock” on some roads and hold up emergency vehicles. On the opposite side of the motoring debate is the Green Party candidate, Zoe Garbett, who launched her campaign on Tuesday with the promise of a consultation on road charging in London — something Khan has now ruled out. Garbett also pledged she’d extend Khan’s current policy of free school meals at London primary schools to all secondary schools. Not making any pledges this week though was Laurence Fox, who’s failed to get on the ballot after sending in his nomination papers just before the final deadline on Wednesday, only to be disqualified by errors in his forms.
💩 Pollution in the Thames has been in the spotlight, thanks to the high levels of bacteria found in the river ahead of the Boat Race in London on Saturday. Rowers from the Oxford and Cambridge teams had been advised not to enter the Thames, not to swallow any splashed water, to cover blisters and to wear footwear when getting in and out of the boat ahead of the race between Putney and Mortlake yesterday. That was after pressure group River Action had tested several samples of water around Hammersmith Bridge at the start of March and found high levels of E. coli, a bacteria that can cause UTIs, intestinal infections and, in the worst cases, life-threatening blood poisoning. What’s more, River Action’s tests had indicated the bacteria was mostly likely there because of the sewage that’s regularly discharged directly into the river by Thames Water. Indeed one rower on the Oxford team has now claimed they suffered an E. coli outbreak before their defeat to Cambridge. Wider stats on sewage pollution in England were published this week, and Thames Water does not come out well, with the company’s spills doubling to 16,990 in 2023. Some good news though — Thames Tideway, the massive super sewer being built under London to redirect discharges away from the river, finished construction this week.
🏢 In the Docklands, an interesting test case for post-Grenfell laws, as the government tries for the first time to force a landlord to repair dangerous cladding on a Canary Wharf flat block. Housing secretary Michael Gove has lodged an application with a property tribunal seeking to make Yianis Group pay £20.5 million towards fixing safety issues at Canary Riverside, where 325 flats on the banks of the Thames that have problematic “cladding and insulation materials”. It’s the first time Gove is using new legal powers given to him as housing secretary under the Building Safety Act of 2022, passed five years after the Grenfell Tower fire to ensure landlords, not leaseholders, pay to fix building safety issues. There are still tower blocks with Grenfell-style cladding in two-thirds of London boroughs, so the Docklands case is one to watch.
🚆 Some bad PR for the proposed redevelopment of Liverpool Street station, with the revelation that thousands of objections have now been made against the plans. A campaign against the redevelopment, which includes a partial demolition of the Victorian station to make way for office and hotel space as well as a new upper concourse, lifts and escalators, has been bubbling away for a while now, led by the same group who stopped Liverpool Street being demolished in the 1970s. But this week it’s been reported more than 2,100 objections have been made against the plans, from members of the public but also Westminster Council and Historic England. They’re echoing much of what initial opponents claimed — that the proposals are "ugly and uninspired" with a design that is "unsympathetic to the city's heritage". Liverpool Street recently became the UK’s busiest station, and those leading the redevelopment plans — Network Rail and developer Sellar — say the works are necessary to keep the station fit for purpose.
🚨 Two separate stabbing attacks took place on London’s transport network on Wednesday. The first saw a man stabbed on a train travelling between two south London stations. A 19-year-old man has now been charged with attempted murder — Rakeem Thomas appeared at Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court on Saturday, where he was also charged with possession of an offensive weapon, and he will appear for a hearing at the Old Bailey on April 16. The attack took place shortly before 4pm while the train was near Beckenham Junction, and the incident was filmed by passengers. There are clips on social media, though, warning, the footage is distressing. The victim, a man in his 20s, was airlifted to hospital but is in a “critical but stable condition”. Later that evening on Wednesday, two people were stabbed at Kennington Underground station by a stranger. A 35-year-old man, Nicholas Orlando Green, has now been charged with two counts of attempted murder.
🚳 A new law means the days of a pedicab ‘wild west’ in central London are now probably numbered. The Pedicabs (London) Bill cleared Parliament this week, which gives TfL the power to start enforcing safety standards and fare caps on the pedicabs that have popped up all over Soho and Covent Garden in recent years. While some are just fed up of the boomboxes and neon lights, there are also reports some customers (usually tourists) have been charged eye-watering amounts for short journeys. Like £180 for a three-minute ride. Some pedicab drivers have welcomed the prospect of more regulation though. Related: a pedicab burst into flames outside Buckingham Palace this weekend.
🔍 And finally, we leave you with: