Susan Hall is right. The event can’t go on as it is
Anyone who has braved the Notting Hill Carnival will know that it is an experience you’re unlikely to forget. The Mas Bands, Steel Bands, Sound Systems and food stalls are an incredible visual spectacle, albeit one counter-balanced by unsettlingly dense crowds, more police officers than you’ve likely ever seen in one place and an uneasy, unyielding, underlying tension.
Across Sunday and Monday there were 308 arrests; 71 of which were for possession of an offensive weapon, 57 for assaulting police officers with the remainder for offences as serious as GBH and sexual assault. Officers on the perimeter intercepted a firearm. Pictures emerged of men fighting with machetes amid the crowds. On Monday evening eight people were stabbed and one person received slash wounds. One victim is still in a serious condition. There were 198 arrests on Monday alone. To put that into context, that’s well over a third of London’s entire custody suite capacity.
When eight people are stabbed in one location you might expect it to be headline news with rolling updates and a reporter dispatched to spend the day as the spectre at the feast, giving timely updates stood against the chilling backdrop of a police cordon. Not after Notting Hill Carnival. The fear of being denounced as a racist has made TV news demur; discussing it is a political hospital pass.
Ahead of the Carnival, a group of ten Labour MPs alleged that Conservative Mayoral Candidate Susan Hall “seems convinced of the innate criminality of Black people”, and called on the party to publicly condemn her previous comments.