Cleaners strike at the heart of London

Dear Londoners — welcome back to another week of stories about the capital you won't find anywhere else. I hope you've had a lovely weekend, making the most of these balmy, beautiful dog-days of spring: the blossom tattered and exhausted, the leaves bursting into life. For me, it's been a period of (relative) relaxation, something of an exhalation before the chaos of summer. I've tried to catch-up with friends I don't get to see as often as I'd like, to make time to sit in the park with a book all day, to treat myself to a lunch out even though I know I should really be cooking at home. Let me know what you've been up to in the comments below — I always love to know.

In today's briefing, we look at why cleaners at London Bridge Hospital are protesting at their conditions after being brought in-house, why Newington Green residents are angry at the Gallaghers and where to eat the best Xinjiang food in South East.

— Hannah, editor of The Londoner

Big story: London Bridge Hospital cleaners have had enough

Topline: After years of campaigning, cleaners at London Bridge Hospital were brought in-house — and found it wasn’t what they’d hoped. Now, they’re protesting for their rights.  

What are they protesting: Today, cleaners employed by HCA Healthcare (one of the world’s largest healthcare multinationals) will be outside London Bridge Hospital protesting what they describe as unfair treatment and discrimination. The workers were given in-house employment in 2022, following a lengthy campaign to end outsourcing at the hospital. However, cleaners say they’re now essentially treated as “second class workers”, and suffer from “excessive workloads, harassment and intense surveillance by management”. 

The details: Cleaners at HCA Healthcare report being “forced into more precarious and uncertain contracts”, with shifts sometimes ending between 3am and 5am. Many cleaners work more than one job and have family responsibilities, which makes shifts like these extremely difficult. According to the IWGB, concerns voiced around this issue have been “met with dismissal from management, arbitrary disciplinaries, and hostile treatment”. 

What are they calling for?: The cleaners are calling for a more stable shift pattern, a wage increase for night shifts of at least 30%, more respect from management and that HCA Healthcare recognise the IWGB. They also want the company to hire specialised staff to deal with any hazardous or risky materials or to at least provide more training for work involving such materials. Cleaners are regularly exposed to hazardous waste and chemicals while on the job. 

Not their first time: Cleaners at London Bridge Hospital have protested before. During Covid, workers became increasingly concerned that they weren’t being provided with proper PPE or changing rooms. The cleaners also reported that they were “forced to clean Covid wards without proper training or cross-contamination protocols”.  

Life in London as a cleaner: The Londoner has covered the plight of cleaning workers before. Over Christmas, we ran a piece describing the difficulties office cleaners experience: alongside insecure contracts and low pay, one worker recalled having to clean up vomit and semen after an office Christmas party in central London. 

Your news briefing

🎶 Don’t look back in anger? The Gallagher brothers were spotted performing together for the first time in 16 years at a shuttered North London pub — the Mildmay Club in Newington Green — on Thursday. It’s suspected the brothers were filming a music video, but not everyone was pleased. According to reports in The Guardian, the duo made enough noise to get complaints from the neighbours…

🚲 Cycling in the centre of London has shot up 50% in the last two years, reports the BBC. According to new data from the City of London — which encompasses the square mile of land stretching from Tower Bridge to Temple in the west and the Barbican in the north — 139,000 people were cycling a day in the area, the largest increase recorded since 1999. 

🚘 A major protest is set to disrupt Heathrow on the 1 May as private hire drivers working for apps like Uber and Bolt are set to strike and block any passenger collections at the airport ahead of the bank holiday weekend. The drivers, members of the IWGB trade union, cite “plummeting fares, punishing hours, and a lack of basic protections” as reasons for the strike. 

🎨 A new report from the London Assembly has outlined a raft of measures to help rejuvenate the capital’s high streets, including installing public artwork and murals, encouraging councils to use their powers to take over and auction off long-term empty retail space and helping Londoners take over empty shops for community projects. The mayor has already pledged £20m to help support high streets as part of his London growth plan, so lots of these ideas could soon form part of his own programme. OnLondon has a full breakdown.

🏠 Ever seen the London house being advertised all over social media by Omaze as a potential lottery prize? Well London Centric did a deep dive into its strange history…

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Catch up

• How did a charity started in the 1960s to tackle slum landlords become one itself? That’s the question in Andrew’s long read into Notting Hill Genesis. Make sure to read our piece to find out what happened. 
• Last Tuesday, hundreds of young aspiring performers waited up to ten hours outside the Other Palace Theatre for a chance at West End stardom. Most never even made it through the door. Miles met them, and profiled what life is like trying to break into one of London's most iconic, yet selective, industries. 
• The Toby Carvery conspiracy: two weeks ago a historic tree was felled in Whitewebbs Park in Enfield. It soon became national news, and then came the conspiracies. Get the inside scoop on the full saga by reading Miles’ report.

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: Compared to neighbouring Camberwell and Borough, Walworth doesn’t really get its due as a culinary hotspot. But there are a few highlights: the tender, smoky suya at Alhaji; the orange blossom bostock at Saint Louie (located in a church crypt, no less). For our money, though, there’s one major reason to get the bus down the Walworth Road: Lao Dao, a Xinjiang restaurant promising a blend of Chinese and Central Asian flavours. The restaurant’s surroundings are impeccable — an art deco sausage shop, complete with restored sign — and the interior, with its soft neon lights and antique furniture, is relaxed, easy-going, made for large groups and messy plates. 

Lao Dao was started by Tim Pan, who previously worked at Camberwell’s Silk Road, probably the restaurant most responsible for popularising Xinjiang food in London. You’ll find those same signature flavours here — think Sichuan pepper, liberal cumin and fat, glistening red chillis — as well the classic läghmän, or hand pulled noodles. Yet Lao Dao is utterly itself, from its £1 TsingTaos (yes, really) to its rich, brothy potatoes and charcoal-grilled lamb skewers. Round up a bunch of friends and get stuck in.

One perfect drink: Having fast become a Peckham fixture, there was much rejoicing when British European restaurant Levan opened the next door unit as Bar Levan, a Parisian-inspired wine bar and bistro. A year and a half later, and the newcomer has become equally as beloved as its older sibling. The interior is easy-going, elegant yet unpretentious: communal marble countertops, sprigs of daffodils, tap water in repurposed Pastis bottles. 

The wine list follows suit, with a menu of biodynamic and organic wines that feels assured but refreshingly unstuffy. It’s fairly priced, too, with a glass of house white setting you back £6, and a Lillet and soda (the perfect summer drink, we think) coming in at £7. To really get into the continental spirit, order a couple of snacks to share — we suggest the miso devilled eggs or the crisp, oozing beast of a croque monsieur.

Discover London’s newest literary festival

From today’s sponsor: The inaugural Festival of Words is coming to Fleet Street Quarter from the 14—17 May. Headliners include Ben Okri, Kate Mosse and a joint session with Jeremy Vine and Simon Mayo. Tickets and more details here.

If you’d like to reach our audience of highly engaged Londoners, get in touch.

Our favourite reads

A year of hate: what I learned when I went undercover with the far right — Harry Shukman, The Guardian

A chilling account of contemporary British extremism, Shukman chronicles a year spent undercover with the far right, going from dingy Central London pubs to potted partridge in the upscale restaurants of Holland Park. Collaborating with the charity Hope Not Hate, he finds just how London, as largely integrated, multi-ethnic city, occupies a central space of the far-right psyche.

An all-nighter at 'the most depraved and beautiful movie theatre in London' — Rebecca Fallon, The Observer

At The Londoner, we’ve written about the Prince Charles Cinema before, when it came under threat of closing due to London-based billionaire entrepreneur and landlord, Asif Aziz. In this piece, Fallon stays up all night for one of the venue’s famed mystery movie marathons. 

To Do List

1. Want to watch the latest Nicholas Cage movie, The Surfer, for free? Escapes, a BFI-funded initiative that hands out free cinema tickets for people to use at their local independent cinemas, is giving away tickets for showings of the film tonight and tomorrow.
2. Another free event for you — on Tuesday night, housing journalist and author Vicky Spratt is being interviewed for an event on London’s private renting crisis, its human fallout and what can be done about it at Hackney’s Museum of the Home. 

From the archive

Subcultures often emerge from the unlikeliest of places. Case in point: Romford used to be at the epicentre of UK garage in the 1990s and 2000s. Here’s a clip from the iconic club Time & Envy, during a legendary performance from US producer Todd Edwards back in 2003.