Dear Londoners — welcome to our Monday briefing. It’s the final full week before Christmas and we have some delightful festive recommendations for you, plus a round up of stories you need to know about (including planning approval for a tower the size of the Shard) and a couple of lovely London reads.
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‘Difficult to defend’: The Spectator weighs in
Friday’s long read about government advisor Ben Judah and his strange book This Is London has caused quite a stir. There have been viral threads showcasing the weirdest lines from the book, memes about Judah’s preoccupation with people’s head shapes and videos surfacing of Judah telling Dutch TV that London isn’t “an English city anymore”.
In the comments, reader Sarah said “Thank you for exposing this!”, describing This Is London as “one of the worst books I have ever read”. We’d like to get Sarah in the same room as Josh Glancy from The Sunday Times, who called our article “a bizarre hit piece” in a post on X (while acknowledging that he is a close friend of Judah’s). Robin Ashenden came to Judah’s defence in the Spectator today, arguing that the author’s age (36) makes him too old to understand contemporary sensitivities, and worrying that our piece could hinder writers from sharing “their honest impressions of the individuals they encounter”. But still, Ashenden admits that, “from a moral point of view,” Judah’s descriptions of migrant Londoners are “difficult to defend”.
Other reactions to the piece have focused on questions about Judah’s journalistic integrity (we gave Judah more than a week to answer our questions about his implausible interviews in the book, but he did not respond). One foreign affairs editor at a major media company messaged us privately today to make the case for why Judah’s “obviously exaggerated or made-up quotes and implausible anecdotes” are a big deal. They wrote: “If journalists feel they can cut corners — embellish the sometimes mundane reality of life to tell a more sensationalist story — they undermine the entire profession.”
There might be more to say on this story in future. Various people — including his former colleagues — have been in touch with us about Judah’s other work (if someone puts This Is Europe into your stocking and you enjoy a bit of festive fact-checking, you know where we are). So far, still no word from the Foreign Office, where Judah serves the foreign secretary David Lammy as a special advisor.
Your news briefing
🏙️ A new 309.6m skyscraper in the City has been approved and will become the joint tallest building in London (sharing the accolade with the Shard). Its curiously phallic name — One Undershaft — seems apt, reflecting the City-boy onanism of the aggressively blocky glass-and-steel design shown in renders. The plans were approved on Friday by the City of London Corporation, despite the opposition of organisations including Tower Hamlets Council and Historic England, who said “the people of London deserve better,” and remain concerned about its impact on historic sites such as the Tower of London. One Undershaft will replace the former Aviva skyscraper, which will soon be demolished, in between the Gherkin and the Cheesegrater. Want to go very deep on the backstory of One Undershaft? Check out this nerdy but fascinating video: 1 Undershaft: Why No One Wants This London Skyscraper.
🍽️ Another day, another London restaurant scandal. This one involves celebrity chef Marco Pierre White, whose London Steakhouse restaurant has started slipping a per-person £1.50 charge for “table linen and napkins” onto each bill, in addition to a 9.5% service charge. The move comes at a time when charges are being added onto everything from beer to coffee — a trend that seems to be edging closer and closer to the undisclosed tip-and-taxes practices added onto customers’ bills across the pond in the US. Just last week, Harrods was revealed to have introduced a £1 “cover charge” in all its cafes and restaurants, which staff fear will lead to customers removing the additional (and optional) service charge.
🏢 London has had a lot of crazy ideas to solve the housing crisis — but forcing some of the city’s most vulnerable to live in apartment blocks of converted shipping containers has to be up there. Back in 2017, Ealing Council did just that, labelling two such schemes (Meath and Marston Court) as a "superb response” to the housing shortage. Things went exactly as you’d expect. The homes became riddled with pest infestations, mould, damp and constant leaks. Then came the anti-social behaviour, including — reportedly — theft, public defecation and the building’s laundry room being used a brothel. This time last year they were finally decommissioned, with the residents being moved to new homes. But how much did this debacle cost locals? According to council docs reviewed by The Londoner, it will have cost over £1m just to end the lease on Marston Court early, let alone the costs for its sister site and of finding alternative accommodations.
📉 On a somewhat different side of the London housing market, the FT has reported that the capital’s ultra-rich are struggling to sell their central London mansions at full price, often having to cut millions of pounds off the asking price. “Unsold new homes in central London are close to record levels,” the paper reports. “In the three months to September, 102 homes sold for £5mn or more in London, down from 155 one year earlier, according to Savills, which predicts prices will fall next year.” Some 15 high-end developments, including the Old War Office in Whitehall, 60 Curzon in Mayfair and the Broadway on the Westminster site that once housed New Scotland Yard, still have unsold homes sometimes well over a year after first listing, as a once seemingly never-ending pool of millionaire non-doms appears to be drying up.
Got a story for us to look into? Please get in touch.
New here? Catch up on Zing Tsjeng’s fascinating dispatch on the future of London’s under pressure queer nightlife scene. As more and more straight people have started frequenting London’s LGBT+ venues, is it risking watering down the identity and culture that made those venues special in the first place? On Bluesky, Sian shared the story with the very kind words: “Every article I've read on The Londoner has been cracking. I am itching to give them my money so it continues.” That’s the spirit.
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: If, for some reason, you’re up for breakfast at around 5am, head to Billingsgate Cafe, situated within London’s fabled fish market. We’re aware that including scallops in full English is not the done thing, but it somehow works perfectly (if unconvinced, you can also go for the scallop and bacon roll, which comes with tea or coffee). The earlier you get to Billingsgate Cafe, the less chance you have of encountering someone filming themselves eating there, which has become annoyingly popular in recent years. So if you’re ever in Canary Wharf, set your alarm.
Lunch: Look, it’s nearly Christmas. This isn’t the time for the strange or the difficult — instead, it’s the season for a touch of reasonably priced glamour and a nice boozy lunch. To that end, go and get the set deal at perennial favourite Brasserie Zedel, all art deco opulence and French-lite menu, and imagine you’re in an episode of Poirot (the Suchet version, de rigueur).
Drinks: Situated on Blackstock Road, just down the road from the old Arsenal stadium, BookBar is, as suggested by the name, a bookshop and wine bar. What could’ve easily ended up as a slightly twee affair is instead a lovely, community-spirited space — and a genuinely great place to drink.
Dinner: Don’t be fooled by the (baffling) stock photos of burgers on their website: Brockley’s Chaska Maska is one of London’s best Indian restaurants. Inspired by food found in the north of the country, the menu focuses on light, fresh takes on staples like palak paneer and dal makhani alongside street food snacks. The Londoner’s top recommendations: the vada pav and the rajma masala.
Later: If you’re ever invited to an event at the Bethnal Green ‘countercultural space’ Pelican House, you should go. The bar is cheap and there’s a large courtyard for smoking and chatting. It’s not just parties either, there’s a weekly all-abilities Muay Thai class, a trans-led legal practice and the occasional union fundraiser bbq. Places like Pelican House demonstrate that venues and community don’t have to be separate, but have simply been made to feel that way.
Our favourite reads
Inside Gloucester Circus: the family office which managed to catfish London’s VC ecosystem — Freya Pratty and Miriam Partington, Sifted
Illusory wealth, WhatsApp gossip and the Burlington Arms: Sifted’s recent story on Ian Slater, a supposed billionaire investor, has it all. Charismatic, “vulgar” and — so he said — filthy rich, Slater is a fascinating figure, with Pratty and Partington unravelling a web of deceit that stretches across the shadowy, elite world of London’s venture capital ecosystem.
The race to make the greatest Christmas ad — Stuart McGurk, FT Magazine
You may think fondly of a certain Christmas ad. Perhaps one that hit in some inexplicable way, almost like it knew who you were, knew your fears and doubts. Frankly, manipulating grown-ups into a trancelike state of melancholy consumerism is about the only thing keeping John Lewis relevant these days. In a recent long read, Stuart McGurk delves into how London-based advertising giants actually go about constructing their campaigns, all tripping over each other in a multi-million pound race to make you cry. Happy Christmas.
To Do List
It’s practically compulsory to go and see The Muppet Christmas Carol at the Prince Charles Cinema this coming week. Whether you fancy a singalong screening or a more staid affair is up to you, but what isn’t up for debate is whether this is the best Dickens adaptation to have ever been put to celluloid.
If somehow you still aren’t feeling festive enough, then head to Islington’s neo-gothic Union Chapel for its annual Carols by Candlelight service this Sunday (22 December). A beloved part of the city’s advent line-up, it tells the story of Christmas through “spoken word, prayer and music from Union Chapel Voices, Union Chapel Singers, instrumentalists, and actors”. It’s sure to get busy — ensure you’re there well in advance for entry and be prepared to queue.
For those who crave something slightly less traditional, the always-excellent Yard theatre is staging Séayoncé's Perky Nativititties. As the title suggests, it’s a riotously smutty, thoroughly queer take on the usual Christmas cabaret — replete with truly depraved versions of the classics. The perfect Christmas outing for those who identify as more naughty than nice.
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