London’s leftist mayor Sadiq Khan is making £25,000 grants available to change street names in a Black Lives Matter-inspired diversity drive.
The so-called “Untold Stories” grants are to be backed by a £1 million fund of public money, which campaigners will be able to use to hire consultants, remunerate impacted residents, and so on throughout the renaming process — which is not as simple as might be supposed, having an expensive knock-on effect on emergency and postal services, for example.
They will be administered by the Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm, established by Mayor Khan after the BLM violence sparked by the death of George Floyd in America crossed the Atlantic to decide whether monuments and memorials to historic figures deemed “problematic” by the modern left should be removed.
“London’s diversity is its greatest strength but for far too long our capital’s statues, street names, and buildings have only shown a limited perspective on our city’s complex history,” Khan asserted, in comments reported by The Telegraph.
“I’m determined to do everything I can to ensure our public realm presents a more complete picture of everyone who has made London the incredible city it is today,” he vowed.
Streets singled out by the grants will likely include addresses such as the previously targeted Black Boy Lane, which is some 300 years old, and streets named in honour of historic military leaders and war heroes who have been transformed into hate figures by leftists who despise Britain’s history of imperial success.
The scheme to rename Black Boy Lane, in particular, actually appears to be quite unpopular with many residents — including black residents — who are not troubled by it.
“As a black man, I don’t find it offensive. They say it’s from where the chimney sweeps used to live,” said Learie David, who has lived on the street since the 1970s, in comments to MailOnline.
“I’m known as the guy who lives on Black Boy Lane and I don’t want it to change. We’ve even got the road name above our door.
“If it does change, what will happen to our post in the process and complications with people sending us letters?” he asked.
These sentiments were echoed by another long-time resident, Ian Jackson-Reeves, who denounced the renaming as “pure and simple tokenism to get on the BLM bandwagon” in comments to MyLondon, and noted that “this is a road of 300 buildings, many of which are dual accommodation”.
“You can imagine the disruption — all house, school, medical, insurance records will have to be changed. Anything that is related to our address,” he lamented.
“This is a manipulation of the principle that road names are a matter for residents. It’s not for the mayor to use public funds to interfere,” complained Robert Poll, of the Save Our Statues campaign, of Khan’s grants, urging Michael Gove MP — as the newly-minted Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities — to intervene.