The government comes for We R Blighty

Dear Londoners — It’s official. With Halloween and Bonfire Night out of the way, London is officially shedding its autumn coat and donning its XXL red and white Christmas suit. I think it really hit me when I saw the crowd of people on an elf-themed bar crawl in Vauxhall on Saturday. But the signs were all there before that: the buskers singing “Last Christmas”, the giddy tourists taking photos of the lights, the mulled wine served by the tankardful in central’s pubs. 

But here at The Londoner we’ve another reason to be full of festive cheer: we just found out that one of our pieces helped save an iconic pub from redevelopment.

More on that below in today's Monday briefing. We also have an update on our investigation into We R Blighty, the charitable group that's outside of seemingly every train station collecting money despite some serious questions over their operations and finances. Plus, we delve into the story of a Christmas tree thief, the future of St John now its owners have retired, and explore the beef over the child-free (post 7pm) Leyton pub.

Big story: We R Blighty fined thousands of pounds for “aggressive” unlicensed fundraising

Topline: We R Blighty, the controversial London charity collectors previously investigated by The Londoner, have been taken to task by the government regulator over their “aggressive and unprofessional” practices.

Who are We R Blighty: You might be forgiven for not recognising the name at first but, if you’ve taken a tube or train at some point in the last year, you’ll almost certainly have seen or heard its staff standing by entrances and exits collecting money for homeless veterans.

Back in May, we published an investigation into the group, which found We R Blighty had overcharged donors, were investigated for “financial irregularities” by Kent Police and had falsely claimed to be a registered charity and certified by third sector trade bodies. 

The new ruling: Earlier this month, the fundraising regulator published a long-awaited report into We R Blighty’s practices. They concluded the group was guilty of nine different breaches of its fundraising rules, from their general conduct and properly informing donors to a lack of licenses and permissions to fundraise on the street.

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When it rains it pours: That same day, the group was also fined over £7,000 by the City of London over its unlicensed fundraising. The local authority's licensing committee chair, a veteran of 17 years service himself, stressed in their ruling how the “quiet, dignified” approach of mainstream veterans’ charities was in stark contrast to “the shameless way in which they carried on collecting despite repeated warnings and an impending court case.” Mills told The Times he contested the claims, but couldn’t afford to fight the charges in court.

A growing controversy: It’s not the only scandal surrounding the group. Since our exposé, the charity has suddenly crossed the radar of the national press. Earlier this month, the i newspaper revealed how another group — the Charities Aid Foundation — was forced to add extra security at its headquarters to protect employees over fears “threatening behaviour” by Mills could escalate to a physical confrontation. The threats, it claimed, had come after they had delayed transferring grants and donations to the group after concerns arose during their vetting process.

Your news briefing

🍺 The Londoner are celebrating a major victory this week as it turns out our reporting led to a pub being saved from redevelopment. For those who missed it: in October, we published an investigation into a developer called Linea Homes. Despite publicly claiming to save London’s pubs, we found they had been responsible for the redevelopment of dozens of historic pubs in the capital, and their latest victim was set to be the Trafalgar, an award-winning pub on the backstreets of South Wimbledon. Right after our investigation, Linea, citing the bad publicity created by our piece, offered the landlord the right to buy the lease for the Trafalgar. And last week, as a final nail in the coffin of the redevelopment plans, the planning inspectorate assessing Linea’s plans to demolish the pub rejected their appeal. We’ll be raising a pint to celebrate this week.

🍖 The two founders of beloved Smithfield restaurant St John — Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver — are both stepping back from the business after 31 years at the helm. St John, and its focus on “nose to tail” cooking, is credited with influencing many of the country’s top chefs. Henderson was diagnosed with Parkinson's almost two decades ago, and is set to step down from the restaurant's board, while Gulliver is retiring from managing day-to-day operations to become chair of the board. Read a full interview with the founders on why they made the decision in the FT.

🌲 A Grinch-like thief seems to be targeting unguarded Christmas trees in North London, according to the Islington Tribune. The newspaper spoke to one local who had seen theirs stolen from the front garden (where it was being kept as it had been repotted after being used last year, rather than thrown out).

🚽 Tenants in a property in Greenwich have won a court case against their landlord who failed to fix a broken toilet for 58 days in their property, forcing them to urinate in bathtubs or use lavatories at a nearby store. The landlord blamed memory loss caused by a “severe brain injury” in 2021 for failing both to fix the toilet and get the property a HMO license, even though they manage multiple other HMO-licensed properties.

🍻 It’s been a controversial week for the city’s drinking establishments. In Peckham, once proud gay pub John the Unicorn announced that, after being purchased by soft drinks company Gosnell’s, it was rebranding and reopening — and shedding its queer identity.  When the decision was posted on Instagram, along with a new, subdued logo, locals were outraged, both because the move seemed to reflect a wider conservative shift in society, and because its transformation means that yet another explicitly LGBTQ venue has been shuttered. “John the Horse?” quipped one commenter. Up in Leyton, the William the Fourth has announced that the pub will become a child-free space after 7pm and that, before that time, children must be sat at tables with their families. This measure has been taken in response to complaints from punters who said the pub “resembled a crèche”. Perhaps predictably for an area chock full of young, trendy families, people were angry, forcing the pub to turn off comments on the Instagram announcement post (leading to comment wars on other, non-restricted posts).  

In case you missed it…

• On Saturday, we published our deep-dive investigation into London’s industrial ports, and how 25,000 kilograms of “toxic” tar was spilled into the Thames. It turns out it was just one of over a hundred spills in the past five years that the public weren’t told about. Check out the story here.
• Our Thursday read was all about London’s growing problem with unemployment. We spoke to the people behind the statistics about what it’s like looking for work in one of the world’s most expensive cities. 
• On Wednesday, we published our investigation into the rise of drag racing on the Exhibition Road, home to most of London’s most popular museums. It’s an thrilling saga of undercover cops, anonymous tipsters and a £28m refurbishment gone wrong.

Wining and dining

With endless offerings and non-stop openings, we all know that deciding where to drink in the capital can be fraught. We want to make it easy — so every week we’ll give you our insider guide to the city’s best spots. 

One perfect meal: When the weather gets colder and the nights draw in, thoughts inevitably turn to warmer climes — maybe you could book a trip to southern Spain! Maybe there’ll be a deal on flights to Puglia! But the endless money pit of Christmas looms near, and it turns out the weather can be variable in winter and besides, you wanted to use your annual leave for a summer holiday… So, to capture that Roman holiday feeling in a cheaper, more convenient form, head to Trullo in Islington. The restaurant is often crowned one of the capital’s favourite Italian spots, and the quality of the pasta — handmade fresh on site — makes it difficult to argue. My favourites are the tagliarini, with its Amalfi lemon spiking the rich, sweet Dorset crab meat, and the cacio e pepe, sauce clinging to the pici like a silken veil.  

Last time I was there, for a birthday, we ordered one of every pasta, a sort of indulgence that feels abated by the trattoria’s simple, paper-tablecloth elegance. It’s upscale enough to feel special, but relaxed enough to not care how messily you eat your linguine. So while you might not be able to make it to Rome, treat yourself to the next best thing.

One perfect drink: It’s getting cold and closer to Christmas, and now a certain type of pub is at the top of everyone’s to do list. The kind of snug joint that can distract you from the depressing fact it goes dark at 4.15pm. There’s a lot of options that could tick that box, but in this case I would point you in the direction of the Chesham Arms in Hackney. A repeat CAMRA pub of the year award winner since its reopening in 2015, its expansive pub garden on the edge of Hackney Central means the Chesham is a summer favourite. But its often ignored, but surprisingly sizeable inside, all wooden stools, dim lighting and open fires, shouldn’t be missed.

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Our favourite read

Meet the bond market vigilantes — Will Dunn, The New Statesman. 

Ahead of Rachel Reeves’ budget, there’s been a growing conversation about the influence market traders have over government policy. Well, the New Statesman took a peek behind the curtain into this unseen world of influential London financiers, including some very worrying anecdotes they had about Keir Starmer’s Labour.

To Do List

1. A new exhibition at the London Transport Museum focused on the “golden age” of art deco tube posters, many of which have never been displayed in public before, has opened this week. The exhibit is free with your museum tickets, which can be bought here.
2. Ever fancied going to a craft arts fair in a former psychiatric hospital? The Bethlem Museum, which sits in the site of the infamous Bedlam asylum, is hosting its annual Bethlem arts fair featuring paintings, ceramics and other crafts by artists with links to South London and Maudsley NHS Trust. More information here.

From the archive

In this fascinating footage of the operations of Tower Bridge from 1951, masons work on the top of the bridge’s huge towers to fix damaged stonework — all with no harnesses on some very rickety looking scaffolding.