To think the London NYE fireworks were an excellent FU to Farage and Tommy Ten Names?

When I say diversity, I mean all 'types' of diversity, not sure why you're making that distinction. Inclusion (of any kind) tends to be contested by people who seek to see straight Christian white males at the top of the food pile forever. Am I right? If I'm wrong, please tell me how inclusion is to be managed differently from what has been done by centrist parties so far? Genuinely interested in how that terribly contested inclusion should be handled.

Yes. It’s true though 🤷‍♀️

I live in reality, not cloud cuckoo utopia land - I believe the evidence I see. Such as friends moving away from London bc they don’t feel safe. Such as my DD’s friend who was viciously attacked outside her home and had her phone stolen in broad daylight (in Mayfair) unthinkable not so long ago but a common occurrence now. And yes, it was a couple of foreign men.

Why are you so loathe to believe it?

Do you honestly think there’s less crime now? You know Khan is totally corrupt right?

You're talking about ethnic diversity. I was talking about 'inclusion'. Inclusion is a contested political notion that takes a particular view on how diversity should be managed. That includes ethnic diversity but all sorts of other types of diversity too.

The fact remains that London IS diverse. Whether you like it or not, it's a fact. Reflecting that fact is much more politically neutral than ranting against it. When you refer to those who 'do not agree with inclusion', you refer to people who advocate for drastic and inhumane measures looking to put an end to the current diversity. What does that really mean in practice, eh? Is that not orders of magnitude more political than a message reminding us that we are a diverse population, which is basically only reflecting a reality?

Stop being so disingenuous to float your agenda - you sound ridiculous, honestly.

Maybe they were “British citizens” who looked and sounded just like men from Algeria then? That ok for you? 🙄

What makes you so knowledgeable about phone theft, have you had it happen to you? How do you know they remain silent throughout? 😂

We’re all largely responding to OP’s reading of it. I only saw a clip of last night and I have to say the messaging felt pretty blatant to me: a voiceover telling us what values we celebrate while the flags of the world went up on the London Eye.

Picking specific virtues and majoring on them is not an apolitical act, even when everyone agrees that thing is a virtue. When it’s contested, even less so.

Being open, pro-EU, multicultural, are contested political values (which incidentally I largely share).
What I deeply dislike though is the politicisation of neutral civic spaces, or, worse, the idea that only other people’s politics are politics at all, while our own are just self-evident virtues.

If Trump (or Farage) did a publicly-funded NYE fireworks that majored on the glories of motherhood, with plenty of approving references to good, fecund women at home with their strapping husbands protecting them and their beaming babies thriving, I think we’d see the problem. And not because anyone here is anti-mother nurturing or anti-husband protecting. But because it’s an encroachment of politics into a place it doesn’t belong.

Stop being so disingenuous to float your agenda - you sound ridiculous, honestly.

Maybe they were “British citizens” who looked and sounded just like men from Algeria then? That ok for you? 🙄

What makes you so knowledgeable about phone theft, have you had it happen to you? How do you know they remain silent throughout? 😂

Really? So nobody who is a British citizen ever has an accent from elsewhere? Plus I’m not sure how many phone thieves speak to you.

The whole notion of 'inclusion' is political and therefore, ironically, not inclusive of people who disagree with that political position. It doesn't just mean tolerance (and indeed, if it did, we'd just use the word tolerance).

I dont aim to "think democratically" - who does???🤔
And not sure you are correct there.

Latest pole by the Standard indicates more Londoners view him unfavourably ( around 49–52% see him unfavourably vs ~36–40% favourably, with a slight majority saying he’s done a bad job as mayor...)

Really? So nobody who is a British citizen ever has an accent from elsewhere? Plus I’m not sure how many phone thieves speak to you.

Not very democratic wishful thinking then. A majority of Londoners like him.

And others are determined that every bad thing in the country is the fault of immigrants. It’s not the case.

@cardibach

I think you are being difficult. It’s very easy to identify if someone is a foreigner if their English is poor or heavily accented and sometimes you can get a good sense of this from how a person dresses or carries himself. Humans are evolved to spot these types of differences.

It's wishful thinking on my part...

I’ve been robbed twice in my entire life, mid 50s. Both times in London, the most recent in May when I had my bag grabbed from me at King Cross station. I was instructed by one of the stations security guys to report online to the police,which I did, but didn’t hear back. Followed it up a month later, and was told that the robbery wouldn’t justify the manpower needed, so had been filed. How many more people are reporting crimes but they’re not actually registered?

It’s pretty easy to determine if someone is foreign - let’s not be faux naive.

Their accents for one.

He’s been re-elected 3 times hasn’t he? If he wanted another job he’d have it by now. Why do you think he wants anything other than being Mayor of London?

I watched and really enjoyed the Edinburgh one so went to look up the London one. I think the England flag only looks like a roundabout because the flag was edited to fit the round display and I doubt Farage or Yaxley-Lennon are going to care.

For the money that was spent, if they wanted to be inclusive, they could have done more to ensure there wasn't glitches and errors in the flag display a pp already mentioned that caused multiple flags to be incorrect. That was a silly mistake that I can see why others might view as thoughtless towards those countries. Personally, I found the 'Christian neighbours saying Happy Chanukah mate, Muslim mums saying Merry Christmas love a little odd, it left my wondering why after bringing Chanukah into it that it wasn't a Jewish mum or if those were the only two of the many holidays at this time of year that were remembered. I certainly wasn't left feeling included in all that, more that it had a weird media pretending to be inclusive without really caring sheen to it.

I actually wanted to watch what really happened in London at the time, not an improved version. I spent a few happy youthful years getting crushed in trafalgar square, I love London at NY.

The Associate Press has a version - I found it interesting to compare it with the BBC one.

Crime rates in London have fallen. In what way is it not as safe as it used to be?

Even with stats showing lower crime rates, the system around it can and does lead to things being less safe. One example is the backlog in London is quite severe - cases with defendant(s) on bail are being listed as far out as 2031. This is connected with perpetrators pushing for trials with intent to plea for the lower level of credit later on, leaving victims of crime less safe and under more stress. I don't think there is much any mayor can do about this other than use their influence within the political sphere to improve the situation.