Dear Londoners — it’s Andrew here, as Hannah is on a well deserved break for her birthday. The sun is out, the cold is gone and like a bear emerging from hibernation, I can finally feel the long-awaited siren song of a beer garden calling to me. But as we enter this beautiful time of year, spare a thought for the London refugees who fled the chaos of the crime-ridden, overtaxed, “no-go zone” capital for Dubai, only to now be stuck in the middle of a global war.
Alongside the (almost) balmy weather, we enjoyed seeing the debate about tube automation in the comments of our weekend read on the tragic death of Brian Mitchell — go read it if you haven’t yet. Could today’s Monday briefing, with the latest on the capital’s struggling bus network, some media myth busting and a dive into London’s school wars, lead to a similar debate? Sound off in the comments.
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The school wars are spreading
For a second week in a row, Met police officers are on high alert and schools across the capital have started cancelling detentions and after-school activities. Why? A fresh spate of posts trying to organise street brawls between children at different schools has hit social media platforms like Tiktok and Snapchat.
In case you’re not a parent or don't have contact with school-age children in central London, here’s what’s been happening. Over the last fortnight or so, a series of images have popped up, advertising ‘wars’ between schools in London. Posters designed in the traditional red and blue colours of two California street gangs, the Bloods and the Crips, have materialised, sorting specific schools in Hackney, Islington, Camden, Redbridge, Newham, Harrow, Ealing, Waltham Forest, Tower Hamlets, Croydon, Bromley and Greenwich into ‘sides’.
Sometimes, the posts will list specific weapons to use and encourage the pupils to “be violent” in order to “earn points”. Other flyers instruct “no weapons[,] just fight”.
In response, the Met have beefed up their powers, issued dispersal orders issued in south and east London and increased police patrols outside the gates of schools name checked in the posts. Meanwhile parents have been issued warnings by schools and colleges.
Yet, as far as The Londoner can tell, no actual fights have happened so far as a result of the post — which makes the idea they are an authentic expression of some latent civil war between the children of random schools across the capital pretty unlikely.
Equally, if they were some elaborate viral in-joke for schoolkids to post about fake fights, there’d be more evidence of this being a new trend online. More compellingly, these ‘school wars’ aren’t even limited to London; institutions in Bristol, Birmingham and Northampton have also been targeted.
Technology secretary, Liz Kendall, has deemed the content “deeply concerning” and said TikTok executives are addressing it, which seems to be the case. When the Londoner went in search of an account connected to the original posts, we were met with a message from TikTok warning the search term “might be associated with behavior or content that violates our guidelines”. But the misspelled term ‘school warrs’, still throws up some worrying results.
So: is this a lone operator trying to spread panic on the streets of London? A truly depraved new iteration of AI slop? Something else entirely? We’re going to try and find out more in the coming weeks, so do get in touch if you know anything or if you’ve been affected by these posts.
City Hall has a new plan to save London’s bus network
City Hall have launched a new multimillion pound scheme to try and tempt Londoners back onto the capital’s bus network. But will it be enough to bring the capital’s buses back from the brink?
Earlier this month, The Londoner did a deep dive into how the capital’s lauded bus network has lost a quarter of its passengers over the last decade. The slow-burn crisis has been causing a major headache in TfL headquarters, with officials forced to cut back routes all over the city to slash costs and make up for the missing fare income. Those we spoke to blame long-term factors like the death of in-person shopping and the rise of Lime biking, as well as speeds on London roads hitting record lows, for the exodus of bus passengers.
But in the conclusion of our piece, we were worried that TfL’s planned solutions — of making their “carrots as carroty as possible” as one official put it — means they may be avoiding a fundamental trade off. For example, trying to remove congestion on London roads so that bus travel times increase would mean, by necessity, trying to get less drivers on roads.
Turns out, we have the gift of foresight. At the end of last week, mayor Sadiq Khan unveiled City Hall’s planned new budget for 2026/2027. Among the major announcements was an extra £20m for “fares innovation” on TfL’s bus network, with the extra money coming from a £142.6m windfall from an unexpected rise in business rates and council tax income.
What exactly is “fares innovation” I hear you ask? The City Hall announcement was pretty light on detail, but the mayor gave some clues in his speech to the London Assembly. Examples he cited included: a trial where fares were dropped on the Tube on Fridays, the free travel offered during the first week of the Superloop network and the “hopper fare” that allows for unlimited bus journeys for £1.75 within an hour of first tapping in.
But whatever the plans, know they will be a high priority in the mayor’s office. Transport watchdog London TravelWatch estimates that bus journeys need to rise by 40% by 2041 if the mayor is going to hit his target that year of 80% of journeys in the capital being via walking, cycling or public transport.
While we’re on the topic of the new budget, there were a few more takeaways that raised eyebrows at Londoner HQ, including a new unit at the Met to lead a crackdown on phone theft with £4.5m of initial support from the mayor, an extra £250m for TfL and a £20m AI taskforce (still not entirely sure why City Hall needs an AI taskforce). Rest assured we’ll be keeping our eyes and ears to the ground for further developments.
The disappearing eviction
On the subject of panic, last week local papers started to report that the Hampstead Heath cafes — whose David and Goliath battle with the City of London was covered by The Londoner last month — were facing a final eviction on Tuesday.
But it seems that some of that local news coverage may have been a tad premature. We spoke to Patrick Matthews of Hoxton Beach — the operator running the cafes on the Heath and Queens Park at the heart of the dispute — this morning. He told The Londoner that, as far as they knew at least, no evictions were going ahead.
The confusion that spread first among some of its supporters and then to local hacks was a result of the fact the City of London said it reserved the right to send in bailiffs from tomorrow if tenants did not vacate voluntarily. That doesn’t mean that they will, however; dragging kitchen staff and cafe owners out midway through frying a new batch of falafel doesn’t exactly make for a good headline.
Matthews also added that their legal challenge to the City of London is set to be filed on Friday — at which point any attempted eviction would be more easily subject to a preventative injunction — so expect things to start heating up on the Heath very soon.
Know more about the above stories? Or have any tips about anything else? Let us know using the anonymous form, emailing our editor or WhatsApping us at the link below (+44 7347 026 424).
Quick hits
- Bird flu is confirmed as the cause of over 50 swans dying recently in East London.
- A new(-ish) government taskforce wants to reopen Hammersmith Bridge.
- More tube strikes are on the horizon
- Westminster council think the Oxford Street pedestrianisation plans are “dangerous for democracy”
- Greenwich council wants to shutter council-run adventure play areas as there’s no evidence they reduce crime.
Do any of our readers work, or previously worked, at the Barbican? Please get in touch with Andrew on andrew@the-londoner.co.uk.
In case you missed it…
- Our Saturday read was a deep dive into the tragic death of Brian Mitchell. The 72-year-old fell onto the tracks at Stratford underground station in 2023, and was run over seven times before anyone noticed. Was automation to blame for his death?
- On Friday, we pipped the national newspapers to exclusively break the news that traders on the Ridley Road market are being mass evicted by their tax haven-based landlord, despite being promised protection by Hackney council.
- On Thursday we returned to the insanity of the Loughborough Estate, where an authoritarian management organisation is accused of fraud, misspending millions in council money and putting tenants at risk of a fatal chemical explosion. The Londoner was front and centre as the dispute went fully off the rails.
- In one of the strangest housing fallouts in the capital, in East London tenants of a block of flats are beefing with their freeholder — the People’s Republic of China. We met them for our Wednesday read.
Wining and dining
With endless offerings and non-stop openings, we all know that deciding where to eat and 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: Each week, more and more Mexican restaurants seem to be popping up in the capital. Once upon a time you had to search far and wide for somewhere with real corn tortillas; now the streets run thick with habanero sauce. Yet few places serve up authentic, unfussy Mexican tacos better than Sonora Taqueria in Stoke Newington. The restaurant started life as a cult food truck in Netil Market, Hackney, run by Michelle Salazar de la Rocha and Sam Napier before they opened their brick and mortar restaurant in 2023.
It’s a thin strip of an eatery, somewhere to perch nimbly on a bar stool before moving swiftly on, but the food really is brilliant. The adobada, a grilled pork taco marinated in spicy-sweet achiote paste and adorned with grilled pineapple, is a winner. And for the vegetarians amongst you, the nopales — grilled cactus leaf — is the one to go for. The leaves are tangy and have a real bite to them, which contrasts wonderfully with the accompanying pico de gallo and crumbly cheese.
Oh, and if you want to read our piece about the glut of bars that make up Dalston’s Latin revival, well, it’s right here.
One perfect drink: Finding a pub to watch the football isn’t difficult, but the hard part is often finding a spot with the right balance of atmosphere and somewhere to sit down. That’s why one of my favourite recent discoveries has been The Hanbury, a smartly wood-panelled pub in Islington with books lining the walls and an unobtrusive array of screens. I walked in with a friend yesterday around five minutes before Arsenal kicked off against Chelsea (the less said about that footballing spectacle, the better) and managed to bag a comfy seat right in front of the action. The sound was loud enough to follow the game, yet not so overpowering it hampered having actual conversation! Truly a wonderful and rare thing. If you’re not interested in sports, it’s still very much worth a visit. They’ve got real ales on tap, and — from the sight and smell of the plates which drifted past my table — the range of classic British pub food on offer is excellent too. — Peter
Our favourite read
Revealed: Thames Water’s environmental and financial disaster — Will Dunn, New Statesman
Following the flooding that deluged the streets of Islington last week, it’s a fitting time to take a look under the hood of Thames Water. On the basis of Will Dunn’s piece for The New Statesman, it doesn’t make for a pretty sight. The company is haemorrhaging money to US investors at “payday loan” rates and its nasty habit of leaking raw sewage into the waterways seems to show little sign of abating.
To Do List
- Check out Tracey Emin’s new exhibition, A Second Life, which opened at the Tate Modern this past weekend and runs until 31 August. It’s a messy and emotional collection of paintings, sculptures and installations from the legendary artist, including classic pieces like “My Bed” along with previously unseen pieces.
- Spring is here! Or at least, that’s what it feels like. What’s that they say about this season and fools…? Anyway, for the two whole minutes the weather remains good, you might like to pop over to Kensington Gardens for a fascinating-sounding free event organised by Royal Parks: a guided walk on the world of tree lichens, and why these flaky green organisms are returning to central London after decades of absence. The walks will take place at 2pm on the 4 and 13 of March, as well as 11 April.
From the archive
Enjoyed our recent weekend read on Barrie Stonehill, the debonair socialite who vanished from Chelsea’s clubs and out of the life of writer Melissa Blease? Well, here’s a quick snapshot of the world he inhabited: some rare colour video footage on King’s Road in the late 1960s. A moment and place famed for its style, for sure. Just brace yourself for the amount of v-neck shirts.
