Notting Hill carnival dragged into two-tier policing debate
Plus: the best GCSE results in London, controversy over an airport expansion plan, and a German warship on the Thames
Morning — hope you've been enjoying the bank holiday. This weekend marks the 56th Notting Hill carnival, with things properly getting underway today for the adults day. This year’s festivities are taking place in a unique context though — just weeks after violent disorder organised by the far right spread across the UK. While some are seeing the festivities as a chance to celebrate diversity and immigration, others are trying to spin things into another narrative. How Notting Hill carnival is being dragged into the two-tier policing debate leads your round-up below.
Plus: the best GCSE results in London, controversy over an airport expansion plan, and a German warship on the Thames.
In case you missed it: on Saturday we published John Lubbock’s big read on the fall of a London pub empire. Antic was once a dominant force in the capital’s alternative pub scene, but the group has now announced it’s having to sell off a big chunk of its estate. John speaks to insiders to hear what’s gone wrong.
What we've spied
🎊 More than a million people are expected to attend this weekend’s Notting Hill carnival, amid extra attention on the street festival in the wake of the UK's far right riots. The three-day celebration of west London's Caribbean heritage kicked off on Saturday with a steel band competition, followed by the family and children's day yesterday and now the adults day today, which is usually the busiest. Ahead of the weekend, organisers had spoken of the carnival's renewed importance after violent disorder across the UK earlier this month, which saw mosques attacked and hotels housing asylum seekers set on fire. Matthew Phillip, chief executive of Notting Hill Carnival Ltd, told the Guardian:
It’s good that we were able to bring the carnival so close after that so we can remind people why diversity and inclusion is so important. Carnival was set up because there were tensions in the 1950s in this area and so that people could come together to celebrate what we have in common. Our voices aren’t as loud as some people but carnival’s existence is a celebration of immigration. It highlights the benefits of carnival such as social inclusion.
But as some hold up the carnival as a symbol of unity, others are dragging the festivities into arguments around two-tier policing — claims made by the likes of Nigel Farage that far right rioters are being treated more harshly. On Saturday a former Met Police detective, Mike Neville, told the Telegraph the carnival was "the ultimate in two-tier policing", with officers hesitant to make arrests for fear of being called racist:
If the behaviour of the Notting Hill Carnival was replicated at football matches or any other event it would be banned. You see people openly smoking drugs, abuse of police officers, dancing with female officers to the point of sexual assault. I challenge anybody to do the same thing on the way to a Millwall football game.
Meanwhile, Tommy Robinson is among the far right voices who are accruing millions of views on X with inflammatory posts about alleged two-tier policing in Notting Hill. There’s a heavy police presence at this year’s celebrations though — the Met is deploying 7,000 officers along the parade route. This morning the force issued a statement saying it had made 103 arrests on Sunday and that 18 officers were assaulted. Three people were stabbed — a 32-year-old woman who remains in critical condition, and two men in their twenties with non-life-threatening injuries.
More from the carnival: a gallery of photos from yesterday's family day; an interview with a couple about their 'Notting Hill love story'; behind the scenes with two carnival chefs as they prepare 600kg of chicken and four goats; and a council scheme to send off some elderly Notting Hill residents to the beach during the carnival weekend.
🎒 A grammar school in north London saw the best GCSE results in the country, according to the Times's league table of data submitted by schools. 96.3% of GCSE entries at Queen Elizabeth's School in Barnet received at least a grade 7 — equivalent to an A under the old system — while 86.2% received an 8 or 9 — roughly an A*. This year 190 students sat their GCSEs at the school, which was founded in 1573 and named after Queen Elizabeth I. More broadly, the GCSE results data released on Thursday shows that London was again the highest-performing region in England, with 72.5% of entries marked at a 4/C, versus 63.1% in the West Midlands, the lowest-performing region. In fact, the gap in pass rates between London and the lowest in England has increased this year ― 9.4 percentage points, vs 8.7 last year and 6.8 in 2019. The other London schools topping the Times league table were: St Olave's & St Saviour's Grammar School in Bromley (a selective state school with 95.0% grade 7 or higher), City of London School for Girls (private, 94.8%) and Wilson's School in Sutton (selective state, 94.3%). The highest-performing comprehensive schools in London were Alexandra Park School in Haringey (77.8%) and The St Thomas the Apostle College in Southwark (72.9%).
✈️ The government has given London City Airport permission to increase passenger numbers from 6.5m to 9m a year — but the airport isn’t entirely happy. On Monday Angela Rayner, the local government secretary, and Louise Haigh, the transport secretary, issued a 233-page decision that lifts the airport’s annual passenger cap and allows for more morning flights during the week. But Rayner and Haigh also turned down the airport’s proposal to run more flights on Saturday afternoons. The Times reports London City Airport is now considering a legal challenge. Local campaigners and Newham council were among those opposing City Airport’s plans, arguing air and noise pollution would impact locals and that it could potentially increase carbon emissions. After the government announced its partial approval, mayor Sadiq Khan voiced concern about the environmental impact of lifting the annual passenger cap.
🐚 City Hall has chosen a seven-metre bronze cowrie shell to use as the London memorial to the victims of the transatlantic slave trade. The sculpture, titled The Wake, features the names of enslaved people inside and has been designed by artist Khaleb Brooks, an American whose own ancestors were enslaved in Mississippi. The memorial will be located in the West India Quay in the Docklands and is the first of its kind in the UK. Announcing the decision, mayor Sadiq Khan said: “It’s essential that London’s streets, statues and memorials reflect our shared history, and this memorial will help to remind and educate Londoners of the capital’s role in this terrible treatment of human beings. It will also honour the achievements of descendant communities, as we continue to build a better and fairer London for everyone.”
🔥 Somerset House has begun its phased re-opening after the recent fire, which the arts venue's director says was nearly "a complete disaster" on the scale of the Notre Dame blaze. On Saturday some exhibitions re-opened to the public at the Strand building, which had been shut since catching fire earlier this month. 125 firefighters and 20 fire engines attended the blaze, which damaged the venue's roof and part of its west wing. Director Jonathan Reekie has now said that "quick-thinking staff" helped to prevent a worse outcome. He told the PA news agency: “I think I can say that if that fire hadn’t been spotted and tackled as quickly as it was by the extraordinary emergency services, this could have been a complete disaster. Very luckily, it didn’t become a kind of Notre Dame (or) Glasgow School of Art". The London Fire Brigade is continuing to investigate the cause of the fire. More from the brigade: hundreds of firefighters attended a fire that engulfed a block of flats in Dagenham with known safety issues in the early hours of Monday morning.
🚲 A major London bike-run race has been cancelled due to concerns over fatal collisions. The London Duathlon, which was due to take place next month in Richmond Park, has been cancelled after the charity responsible for governing the city’s Royal Parks announced a review of its policies following “several cycling-related incidents”. About 4,000 people took part in the race last year, which is billed as the world's largest duathlon. The Royal Parks charity has grown increasingly concerned about cyclists’ behaviour after an inquest in May into the death of Hilda Griffiths, 81, a retired teacher who was killed in Regent’s Park, north London, after being struck by a cyclist doing timed laps of the park in 2022.
🚇 A cautionary tale for using overdrawn cards on the Tube: a man has been fined £1,800 for using one 200 times. The unidentified man racked up £1,200 in unpaid fares by using a contactless payment card without sufficient funds, but the fine from the TfL comes on top of this outstanding fare amount. Andy Lord, TfL commissioner, said the transport body had used CCTV footage to track the man, after analysing his card's usage over the past year. The man pleaded guilty to fare evasion this April. Other London transport bits: rail services in south London are going to be disrupted until September 1 due to upgrade works in the Crystal Palace area; TfL has released a new map showing the expansion of free water drinking fountains on the Overground; and the company Voi has announced it's entering London's rental e-bike market, competing with the likes of Lime and Human Forest.
🔍And finally, we leave you with:
A new wild swimming spot at Greenland Dock (Southwark News)
A German warship blasting Darth Vader's theme on the Thames (YouTube)
Actress Alicia Silverstone eating a poisonous berry on a visit to London (Daily Mail)
Animals at the London Zoo taking part in the annual weigh-in (BBC)
A new Japanese food sculpture exhibition in London (Guardian)
The ancient trees of Epping Forest (YouTube)
The hidden beauty of London's roadworks (Time Out)
A hike in Leytonstone (TikTok)
The ULEZ blade runners back at it (Telegraph)
The Beckenham street cleaner enjoying his holiday to Portugal (Standard)
A photo essay of Taylor Swift's Eras Tour at Wembley (Guardian)
'Rats, overcrowding and urgent riot warnings — my day inside a London jail' (Standard)
How Roman London inspired the next Civilization video game (BBC)
The luxury London home entangled in a fraud case for the third time (Times £)