I’ve attended the Notting Hill Carnival (NHC) back in the 1990’s and it was a bit edgy back then but it appears to have declined in safety and security since then. According to a post on X that I saw on the Harry’s Place site there have been hundreds of arrests. Yes of course some of those arrests might be for lower end offences such as the possession of weed but others are likely not to be so low level.
Russell Quirk writing on X said:
“• 560 arrests • Multiple weapons seized including a gun • One man dead • An 8 year old child missing • 43 registered sex offenders identified”
We don’t know if the man who died passed away from natural causes or misadventure or malicious intervention by others and with an event as large as this there are bound to be those who might suffer from some sort of health crisis and die. However with the record for violence and crime the NHC now has we cannot be completely sure at this stage how this man died.
The figure of 560 arrests is high and compares badly with something like Tommy Robinson’s Unite The Kingdom demonstration where there were massive crowds but under 100 arrests and even then it appears that the bulk of the arrests were of left wing oppositionists.
Whilst I appreciate and support the work of the bands and others that take part in NHC I also can perceive that the event has now got too big, too unwieldy and too much of a magnet for wrong’uns to be a street festival any longer. Also the area is no longer on that is dominated by members of Britain’s Afro-Carribean community, many of those from this community who used to live in Notting Hill have moved on and up and have no connection to the area any more. The NHC is a horrendous imposition on the residents of Notting Hill and maybe it’s time to move the Carnival to a central London destination such as Hyde Park and make it an all ticketed event. That way all that is good about Carnival can be protected and all that is bad might be prevented from occurring.
There will of course be objections to this idea some of the objections might be on a sound basis such as tradition whilst others, I’m thinking of the cries of ‘racism’ might not be. But Carnival needs to be a safer space for children and families who attend on the Family Day especially and at present such families are not safe attending Carnival. Making an event all ticket and using ticketing to prevent the ingress of wrong’uns to Carnival might not destroy the event but might help to keep it going. The Glastonbury Festival was nearly completely destroyed in the 1990s by being too open to intruders and those with ill intent. Increasing the security at Glastonbury has helped to make the festival safer for attendees and the same might apply to an all ticket NHC.
The Metropolitan Police’s leadership and Greater London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan have as usual gaslit Britons about the NHC but it’s now far too easy to see through the lies of both the Met and the Mayor. Because many of can see through the lies maybe it’s now time for all of us to call for the NHC to be made safer than it is for attendees, for performers, for traders, for the emergency services and Londoners as a whole. I believe that it’s possible to make NHC safer by making it an all ticket event. I believe that the organisers need to accept that the NHC in its current form is not safe, not sustainable and not a good advertisment for Britain’s Afro-Carribean communities and should therefore embrace the concept of making NHC safer by making it an all ticket off street event.
Link
X link about arrests at NHC
https://x.com/russellquirk/status/2094617334363140538
