The London webcam conspiracy
Plus: historic markets to close, trouble at the Groucho, and the 'grotification' of London
Afternoon — when TfL’s tech teams shut down their public data feeds after the cyber attack in September, they likely knew they’d get some blowback. It meant apps like Citymapper were temporarily unable to show live travel times. But they probably didn’t expect to be dragged into a conspiracy theory involving Westminster Bridge, Russia and a false flag operation. Unhinged takes about London’s webcams going offline are after your round-up below.
Plus: historic markets to close, trouble at the Groucho, and the 'grotification' of London.
In case you missed it: we published our detailed map of bike theft in London on Saturday, which covers 15,000 bike theft reports from across the capital this past year. Many thanks to everyone who’s flagged a few of the bugs, like the map tip popup not closing — should be fixed now! 🤞
What we've spied
🥩 The butchers and fishmongers of Smithfield and Billingsgate were blindsided last week by the news that their historic markets are in all likelihood closing. There had been a question mark over the two central London markets for some years now, because the City of London Corporation, which runs the sites, was exploring a plan to combine the markets and relocate them to a site in Dagenham. That relocation plan was paused early last month over concerns for its "financial sustainability", offering some hope to meat and fish traders that they could end up staying. But that was scuppered after City's councillors voted on Tuesday to withdraw the Corporation's support for the markets entirely, meaning they will now close by 2028. That vote was held in private, but many of the details are revealed in this excellent piece by the investigative blog Reclaim EC1, which has long been raising the alarm over City's mismanagement of the markets. It'd be an understatement to call the closure the end of an era — Smithfield has been the site of a market since at least 1174. Traders have been stunned by the news, with one, Pat, telling the Guardian: "My dad was a butcher here in the 1960s. I was here as a little baby. Many of the people here are local. They've only known market life. It's the end of the work life I know". Some are optimistic about the future of the markets though, like journalist Simon Jenkins, who's described the declining Smithfield as "totally out of date". Jenkins is among those who think the site could now be turned into a cultural and shopping location that could rival Covent Garden.
🚨 A man has been arrested on suspicion of raping a woman at Soho's Groucho Club, leading police and the council to temporarily shut the private members' club. The Met Police said the incident took place inside the club on November 13, and a 34-year-old man from Hertfordshire is now in custody following his arrest on Saturday. Westminster council have suspended Groucho Club's license for 28 days pending a full hearing after a police request. Groucho, on Dean Street, is one of Soho's more modern private members' clubs, having been established in 1985 as an alternative to the stuffier men-only clubs in the area. Many of its members are drawn from the publishing, media and entertainment industries. Simon Mills recalls its A-list patrons in a piece for the Times — the likes of Kate Moss, Madonna, Bono and Bill Clinton have all passed through the Groucho's doors. The club is now the second late-night haunt facing a license review in Westminster — nightclub Heaven, near Charring Cross, was recently shut over an alleged rape involving one of its bouncers.
🔊 While we're on clubs: the campaign to save the MOTH Club in Hackney has stepped up a notch, after a developer revealed plans for a second flat block next to the venue. Back in September, MOTH's owners had alerted patrons to plans to build a block on Morning Lane which, the owners argued, threatened the nightclub, because the new residents might go on to drown the venue in noise complaints. Now plans for a second block have been unveiled, leading MOTH to double its efforts. "One of the planned blocks will have balconies directly overlooking MOTH's smoking area and back onto the stage wall," the MOTH owners wrote in a recent Instagram post, "a move that would lead to conflicts, noise complaints, and a serious threat to the venue's ability to operate". They've since set up a petition opposing the plans which has more than 11,000 signatures as of writing.
🏥 The debate over legalising assisted dying in the UK made its way onto the Underground, in the form of a row over Tube ads. As reported by the Standard, the campaign group Dignity in Dying had put up ads in the tunnels at Westminster and Euston stations, ahead of MPs debating the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on Friday. The text of one of the ads read: "My dying wish is my family won't see me suffer". Though TfL would later say the ads were compliant with its policy, some criticised their placement, suggesting TfL was "glorifying suicide", and someone even went as far as to cover up one of the ads with a poster for suicide charity Samaritans. In any case, MPs voted in favour of the bill, and it will now move onto committee stage — this is a good tool for seeing how your London MP voted. We've crunched the numbers and have found 45 of the capital's 75 MPs voted against the bill in the free vote. That's slightly surprising to us, because most are Labour MPs, and their counterparts from the rest of the UK were on average in favour of the bill. 28 London MPs voted for it and 2 abstained. A notable opponent was Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney & Stoke Newington, who gave a speech during the debate saying she worried people would feel they have to die because they're a burden. Wes Streeting, Ilford North MP and health secretary, and David Lammy, Tottenham MP and foreign secretary, also voted against the bill. Those voting for it included Tulip Siddiq, the Labour MP for Hampstead & Highgate, and Steve Reed, Croydon North MP and environment secretary.
📣 Disorder has been breaking out in Haringey after counter-terrorism police raided properties in connection with an investigation into the banned Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK). The Met Police launched the dawn raids on Wednesday at eight addresses, including the Kurdish Community Centre, just off Green Lanes, and arrested seven people. Later that day groups of people gathered to stop further raids in the area, chanting "shame on you" and blocking officers. Clashes between activists and police continued on Thursday evening, after a protest against the raids and arrests was organised outside Turnpike Lane station. The police raids have been criticised by Kurdish advocacy groups — Ishak Milani, co-chair of the Kurdish People's Assembly in the UK, said: "We, the Kurdish community in London, strongly condemn the recent unjust and heavy-handed raid conducted by British police on our community spaces". Some members of London’s Kurdish community have now gone on hunger strike in protest against the police action, while a march was held in central London on Saturday. The PKK has been prohibited in the UK since 2001 for advocating Kurdish self-rule through military conflict and political means. Helen Flanagan, acting commander of the Met’s counter-terrorism command, said: "This activity has come about following a significant investigation and operation into activity we believe is linked to the terrorist group PKK. These are targeted arrests of those we suspect of being involved in terrorist activity linked to the group". Elsewhere from London police: a man has been charged with two counts of attempted murder after an eight-year-old girl and her father were seriously injured in a shooting in west London.
🏠 Sadiq Khan has unveiled more details about the rent-controlled homes he wants to build for key workers in London. The mayor launched a consultation for the scheme last Monday — he plans to build 6,000 properties with capped rents linked to the salaries of key workers, such as nurses, teachers and bus drivers. He's proposed setting rents at 40% of average key worker household incomes after tax which, Khan claims, would save them £600 per month on their rent. Construction would start on the homes by at least 2030. Elsewhere from City Hall: the date for the next public Q&A session with Khan has been set for December 12, but the exact venue is reportedly being kept secret until a few days prior due to fears the event will be "disrupted". All we know at the moment is that it's being held somewhere in Wandsworth. Also: one of Khan's former mayoral deputies, Heidi Alexander, has been appointed the UK's transport secretary, following the resignation of Louise Haigh over a previous conviction.
🚲 TfL has announced a crackdown on badly parked dockless e-bikes, which could see companies like Lime and Forest fined £50 for each bike found blocking a walkway. The transport body's new enforcement policy will only cover its own land, which includes areas such as station forecourts and bus garages, as well as pavements on its red route road network. That network only makes up 5% of all roads in the capital, but carries up to 30% of traffic. The £50 fines will be issued directly to e-bike companies, and could rise to £100 if they're not paid within 14 days. TfL also announced it's going to spend £1m for boroughs to create 7,500 parking spaces for dockless e-bikes. Forest said it welcomed the move to tackle "irresponsible" parking, while Lime said TfL's decision "underlined the urgent need for increased parking areas across the capital". Related: this piece looking at the swarm of dockless bikes now being regularly parked outside Harrods.
🚌 There's been lots of other London transport news this past week:
TfL and the Met have announced a trial of CCTV cameras at 20 bus shelters in London, in a bid to improve women's safety
The RMT union has resolved a pay dispute with TfL, meaning all Tube workers will on average get a 4.6% pay rise
A ceremony was held by Sadiq Khan at Dalston Junction station on Thursday to commemorate the renaming of the Overground lines
TfL's new tram-like bus was involved in a crash on its recent launch day
The West London Orbital project — a potential new Overground line linking Hounslow and Hendon — has apparently taken a major step forward, with Sadiq Khan saying feasibility work is nearly complete. It still needs funding though
🏗️ PLANNING CORNER 🏗️ All is not well at the London Library, amid reports members are rowing over a plan to create a £7m dining room. Management at the 183-year-old library at St James's Square is reportedly looking to renovate part of the building, which would include creating a new members-only cafe on the sixth floor and a non-members space for lectures and classes on the ground floor. But a group of 70 of the library’s members are opposing the plans, with one, author Rick Stroud, describing the renovation as a "vanity project" that would be a "huge distraction" to writers. Elsewhere: deputy PM Angela Rayner has intervened on controversial plans to construct an office block near the Bevis Marks Synagogue in Aldgate. Rayner, who's also the government's housing secretary, has issued a holding directive on the development while she considers the case — opponents say the 48-storey block will be harmful to the synagogue's heritage and religious practices. Lastly, it seems Network Rail's attempt to appease critics of its plans for Liverpool Street station hasn't really worked. The Victorian Society says it still "cannot accept" recently amended designs to create an office and retail space near the station.
🔍 And finally, we leave you with:
A Tube moquette designed for the Sony Playstation (IanVisits)
London's cable car that no one rides (YouTube)
Mourning for the loss of the old JD Sports sign in Wood Green (TikTok)
How the battle of Claremont Road in Leyton changed the world (Guardian)
A parade of dogs in Christmas jumpers in central London (Independent)
London's 20 greatest historic pubs (Telegraph £)
Art as a response to London bike theft (Londonist)
Tube Girl releases her first single (TikTok)
A crispy morning in Richmond Park (TikTok)
London’s webcams are offline. Conspiracy theorists say it’s a false flag operation
There have been many unintended consequences from the recent cyber attack on TfL — live travel times disappearing from Citymapper, the freezing of Oyster photocard applications.
But TfL’s tech teams probably didn’t foresee this one: conspiracy theorists alarmed by London’s webcam feeds going offline.
In the past week, there’s been an influx of speculation from some corners of the internet about what exactly has happened to TfL’s JamCams.
If you’re unfamiliar, TfL has cameras all over the capital pointed at roads, for monitoring traffic jams and the like. The live feeds were made publicly available at some point, leading to the creation of websites like londonwebcam.co.uk and tfljamcams.net which let you explore the feeds.
But visit these sites now and you’ll just be greeted with row after row of black squares.
There are now hundreds of posts on X offering pretty out-there explanations as to what’s happened.
“Why have all the publicly accessible CCTV cameras in London been turned off…..as “Russia” is threatening to bomb UK air bases (abroad) related to attacks in Russia!?!?!” wonders one user. “False flag incoming??? 👀”
“LONDON WEB CAMS (AKA “JAM CAMS”) ARE ALL SWITCHED OFF BUT NOTHING TO DO WITH THE TERRORIST ATTACK ON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE ON SUNDAY MORNING…,” says another. “WE ARE BEING LIED TO EVERY SINGLE DAY BY THIS LABOUR GOVERNMENT.”
Spoiler alert: it’s actually because of the TfL cyber attack. The JamCam feeds were shut off along with all of TfL’s other public data when the hack was detected in September — similar to what happened to the travel time feeds powering Citymapper. Admins of the webcam sites have been pestering TfL to get them back up in the transport body’s online tech forum.
And a spokesperson for TfL tells the Spy: “The simple fact is that the feed for the cameras is still down due to our response to the recent cyber incident. We are continuing to restore services including the JamCam system and will continue to keep customers informed as and when the camera feeds are back online.” They also say the CCTV cameras are all still functional and viewable on TfL’s internal systems — it’s just the public feed which has been shut off.
But while some are trying to offer this explanation on X to calm others down, the conspiracies still rage.
From our attempt to follow the digital breadcrumbs, we think things may have started not long after the incident on Westminster Bridge last Sunday, November 24.
At around 10am, a fight broke out on the bridge, and the Met arrested four people. There were initial reports a man had been stabbed, but the Met Police would later say this was incorrect, and that instead, a man had had a heart attack.
The incident is cited in a semi-viral video by YouTuber Craig Houston.
Posted last Tuesday, the video, titled “Why are ALL LONDON Webcams offline? Please tell me this has nothing to do with STARMER or KHAN”, has 255,000 views as of Monday morning.
Houston explains he’d discovered the webcams were offline when he tried to look at the feed for Westminster Bridge. He innocently tells his viewers: “Now I don’t want to start guessing, and sound like a conspiracy theorist, because I deal in facts”. Then he says: “I think that’s super weird. Genuinely, why would you do that? Why can I not find a single webcam in London?”.
Houston’s video quickly began to be circulated on X, and then got the attention of other online figures in the conspiracy space.
Such as a Subtacker called Alex Krainer, who covers “inflation, commodities, geopolitics and more”. His most popular posts are titled “The coming collapse of Britain” and “Was there a palace coup at the White House?”.
Last Friday, he posted his own deep dive into the webcams, called “Are they planning a false flag event in London?”, which has 448 likes and 209 comments. He explains he’d been “floored” by Houston’s video. He gives his take on why the webcams are down: “I think it's the only explanation that makes any sense to my mind: they are planning a false-flag terror attack on London which they'll blame on Russia, so that they can trigger an all-out, whole-of-society mobilization by all of the Western powers against Russia.”
Blimey. To be clear, a TfL spokesperson tells us there is “no truth” to any of the theories advanced by Houston and Krainer, and stressed the feeds will be coming back online ASAP. TfL has already got other data feeds back online, including live Tube times and bus locations.
In the meantime, TfL has announced that there will be an independent investigation into the cyber attack and how the organisation responded to it. Though, we somehow doubt its findings will change the conspiracy theorists’ minds.