Exclusive: Sadiq Khan launching new taskforce to try and save London nightlife

Dear Londoners — welcome to February. January is over at last and, if Sunday’s sunshine was anything to go by, then spring isn’t too far away now either. At any rate, we’re already full with the joys of it: this Monday briefing sees an exclusive news story on the new City Hall nightlife taskforce that’s set to replace nightlife czar Amy Lamé.

It’s all in a day’s work for The Londoner. Just last week, we published an exclusive scoop into how the events company who gave Sadiq Khan his Taylor Swift tickets were awarded £45m in contracts by City Hall. The story was then picked up by the Evening Standard and the Daily Mail (even if both outlets did only credit us for our hard work two-thirds of the way into their pieces...). It’s a testament to the kind of London-based reporting we’re dedicated to bringing you and your support makes possible — the kind that national papers jump on but won’t investigate themselves.

That’s why we’re asking for your help in continuing to leave no stone in this city unturned. If you haven’t already, click the buttons below to become an annual or monthly paying member with our earlybird discount. As a subscriber, not only will you have the satisfaction of supporting vital local journalism about the capital, but you’ll gain full access to our two paywalled, members-only stories a week, as well as the ability to comment on our pieces.

And now for your Monday briefing on the whys, hows and whats this week in the city.

Big story: The taskforce replacing London’s night czar 

Topline: City Hall is set to launch a new taskforce aimed at “supporting the capital’s life at night”, The Londoner has been told. We’re hearing the group will be made up of many of the city’s biggest club owners and nightlife figures and will help fill the void left by former London night czar Amy Lamé, who left her role in October last year.

Why it matters: The capital’s nightlife is under huge pressure. As just one example, 55 of the capital’s pubs shut last year — a level of closures not seen since the financial crisis and the highest rate anywhere in the country.

What have City Hall said?: The Londoner understands that the taskforce is set to be launching tomorrow with an event in Central London and among its members will be Michael Kill, the chief executive of the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA).

A City Hall spokesperson refused to confirm who else will be part of the group, details about the launch or whether the members of the taskforce would be paid for the job. They did tell The Londoner that Sadiq Khan is “committed to supporting the capital’s life at night and work continues at City Hall to support all aspects of life between 6pm and 6am” and confirmed an announcement on the taskforce was set to come in “due course”.

Will it change anything?: City Hall is somewhat hamstrung. It doesn’t have control over licensing policy or enforcement, which is controlled tightly by councils, or even law. Nor can it directly solve the wider economic circumstances undermining nightlife: falling numbers of punters as result of the cost of living crisis, in addition to record-high rents and energy costs.

But even the soft power City Hall executes can be influential — in our weekend read on London pubs being closed by noise complaints, often letters from officials at the mayor’s office, or from campaign groups like CAMRA, were enough to pressure a council not to shutter a venue or burden it with dozens of unworkable conditions to keep its license.

The controversy?: Some of our readers may remember Kill and the NTIA thanks to its chair, nightclub impresario and former Manchester night czar Sacha Lord. Our sister site the Manchester Mill did a stellar investigation into Lord last year that revealed one of his firms had submitted a misleading application when making its successful application for emergency pandemic funding from the Arts Council.

Last week, the Arts Council finished its own investigation into Lord confirming the Mill’s findings and concluding that he needed to return the £400,000 his firm had received. He subsequently stepped down as Manchester night czar, but the NTIA have kept him on as chair as they claimed an “internal review” had concluded Lord had only made “unintentional oversights” in the application. We don’t yet know what exact role and influence the group Lord helps lead will play on London’s new taskforce, however.

Your news briefing

🚨 A terse argument broke out at a recent Lewisham Council meeting between the Lewisham mayor and a critical councillor off the back of one of our articles. Independent Councillor Hau-Yu Tam called on the mayor Brenda Dacres to apologise on behalf of the council for its links to the UCKG (who our readers may remember has been described as a cult by ex-members who say it forces attendees to donate huge sums and coerces them to never leave the church). Instead, Dacres told the councillor not to make a “political football” out of the issue. The dispute was made more heated by the fact that a member of Dacres's cabinet — councillor Kim Powell — works for the UCKG.

🗞️ A story in the Daily Mail claiming one in 12 Londoners was an illegal migrant quickly went viral last month, spreading throughout the usual right-wing information ecosphere. The only problem? It wasn’t true. The research they had used wasn’t about illegal migrants, did not cover the entirety of London and the “one in 12” estimate “was the maximum, not central estimate”. Now, over a week later, the Mail has issued a correction on a dark corner of its website.

💩 Pay attention to the courts today — Thames Water is in front of a High Court judge seeking approval to seek out £3bn of short term loans to keep the firm afloat. The firm reportedly has just four weeks of money left before bankruptcy, according to the BBC, and without the cash will be forced into temporary nationalisation.

🐸 Good news from London Zoo — more than 30 baby Darwin frogs (collectively known, adorably, as “froglets”) have been born after being rescued from a national park in Chile,  where a lethal fungus threatened to wipe them out. Measuring less than 3cm, the tiny endangered frogs appear to be thriving in their new biosecure enclosure, which mimics their natural environment on the southern tip of Chiloé Island.

Got a story for us to look into? Please get in touch at editor@the-londoner.co.uk.

Do you work in the music, nightlife or events industries? We want to talk to you (anonymously of course) for a piece we’re working on — drop a reply to this email or reach out to our reporter on andrew@the-londoner.co.uk.

If you missed it, on Saturday we answered the question that haunts Londoners: why are so many pubs in the city closing or shutting early? We mapped every single pub affected last year all over the capital — and found councils enabling seemingly baseless noise complaints from neighbours for everything from “faint giggles” to hypothetical car “honking”. 

On Bluesky, user James O’Malley was incensed by our findings, writing, “This is infuriating. If the government want an easy win for growth and to support pubs, they should change the licensing laws to make noise complaints much harder”, while Robert Smith termed it a “really good piece on the pub NIMBYism blighting London and the councils that enable it”.

Let us know in the comments, on social or via email if your local has been affected.

Want to join Mill Media? Our sister publication the Glasgow Bell is recruiting for a new reporter, perfect for a talented reporter keen to cover a broad beat in one of the UK’s most interesting and distinct cities (second to London, of course). 

From dawn till dusk 

We all know London can be unbearably huge. So every week we’ll take you through an ideal day across the city using our little black book of the best London venues. We hope it’ll be equal parts glitz to spit and Tube-dust.

Breakfast: Old Kent Road often gets a bad rap, associated with the steel gasholders and garish new developments that now dominate its skyline. However, if you know where to look, it’s also the home of some of the finest naan in the city. The name is simple enough — Old Kent Road Fresh Naan — and it’s just up from the entrance to Burgess Park. We recommend ordering it smothered with za'atar.

Lunch: We at the Londoner have been long-time stalwarts of Marie’s Cafe, one of the best Thai restaurant-cum-cafes in the city, and one of the most affordable places to eat by Waterloo station. Recently, it’s been visited by a flurry of TikTok food influencers — but the fact we’re still going, and braving huge queues and increased prices, is as good an endorsement as any.

Drinks: If you enjoyed our weekend read about the gradual encroachment of London’s pub culture by a handful of petty local residents, consider visiting the Sekforde with renewed vigour. It’s a lovely little space in Islington with a storied history — one which may be brutally curtailed if the licensing review next month doesn’t go their way.

Dinner: How much do you enjoy duck? Do you enjoy it enough to wait thirty minutes in a queue, forced to listen to an aggressively loud busker bleat out the same Ed Sheeran song for the fifth time in a row? The Four Seasons in Chinatown has the best roast duck in the capital — so if your answer to the opening question is an emphatic “yes”, then it may be worth it. 

Later: During the day, Giuseppe’s, in London Bridge, is a classic old-school British-Italian joint, the kind that used to make up much of the capital’s restaurant scene and now seem almost extinct. But on Friday and Saturday, Giuseppe’s is transformed — tables pushed back against the wall, chairs piled high — to become that rarest of things, a Central London bar (and dancefloor) open until 4am.

Our favourite reads

At the pub with novelist Eimear McBride — Baya Simmons, FT Magazine

Of all the pubs in which to interview the Irish writer, Eimear McBride, Camden’s The World’s End is an odd choice. Luckily for writer Baya Simmons, McBride’s replies weren’t completely drowned out by a screamo band — and so she’s left us with a lovely piece to recommend to you this Monday morning.

'The last rotten borough': Why it's time to abolish the City of London Corporation — London Spy

We at The Londoner have always been struck by the oddity of the City of London corporation; the archaic, council-like body that runs central London. This great investigation-slash-confessional in London Spy — hooked around its much-criticised decision to kill off Smithfield Market — pulls back the curtain on that crazy world.

London from the archive

If you’d like to activate the memory hole and immerse yourself in the pastel nostalgia of pre-9/11 air travel, take a look at this footage from Kinolibrary of Heathrow airport during the 1990s. 

To Do List

Kew Gardens’ vivid orchid festival is back this month, and this year is using its huge, vibrant displays of orchids to celebrate the beautiful plants and animals of Peru. Tickets for its after-hours visits are already sold out, but if you’re quick enough you may get a chance to see the day-time festival.

To celebrate the arrival queer history month, the British Museum is hosting guided tours of its fascinating selection of objects with LGBTQ+ connections. All free, but book now if you want to ensure a spot in one of the three tours happening this month. 

London building of the week

A whipcrack of black glass and gleaming chrome, the Daily Express building at 120 Fleet Street is possibly the finest art-deco block in London — and, for our money, the UK. Bold yet fluid, sensuous yet imposing, it’s a testament to both interwar glamour and the long-vanished age of Fleet Street power.