Good to see independent local business under attack.

HolbornFox · January 2018

Leaving scurrilous reviews on the internet as well, delightful.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5323519/Winston-Churchill-inspired-Blighty-cafe-stormed.html

krappyrubsnif · January 2018

What tosh. I shall start to get my coffee there now and V signs the correct way round to these cretins. I assume they would be happy to live in Nazi-occupied England if Hitler had won the war.

grenners · January 2018

Cannot believe what I am reading......these protestors are the new facists. Very underhand behaviour to drop a bad review 1 minute after finishing the protest.

Sutent · January 2018

It's the daily mail reporting here...

grenners · January 2018

So you suggesting it's not true? I think there are a growing number of other papers with the same article. I can't read the Times one as I'm locked out. I expect the evening standard and telegraph to be forthcoming. Maybe the guardian will stay out of it this time as she appears to be involved with Labour.

HolbornFox · January 2018

Standard reported on previous graffiti of the Churchill mural.

grenners · January 2018

So did all the other papers. It's astonishing how little the text varies from article to article.

joust · January 2018

Churchill was a horrible old racist. I guess a lot of people were back then, though.

Seems a weird thing to want to protest against a cafe for though.

What next - burning down pub's that are named after old kings with dodgy histories?

grenners · January 2018

Hard left lunatics preaching freedom. That's of course assuming it is to their liking. I heard that ring leading protestor was known as a regular customer previously.

therattle · January 2018

I'm glad they have their priorities straight. Of all the glaring injustices in Britain today they've certainly spotted the most pressing.

HolbornFox · January 2018

@krappyrubsnif that is a very good point, instead of going to Gadz for my morning madness i will also venture down there now and show some support.

I did hear they sell Gamma Ray in there as well although I may swerve that at 10 in the morning.

jacula · January 2018

Hi all - at risk of incurring the wrath of my community, I just wanted to point out a few things about this that bother me, especially in the light of Boris Johnson now commenting on this and making it an issue for Jeremy Corbyn to condemn.
- The protesters didn’t actually do much wrong - they just protested peacefully for a bit and then left.
- The agenda of the Daily Mail is pretty clear: a non-white person with a Muslim name is attacking a British-owned business and our proud historical traditions, and we should all be appalled. I feel like it’s worth pausing for thought before rising to that bait.
- They are desperately trying to make this about Jeremy Corbyn - his name was mentioned loads even before the BoJo involvement. But Blackstock Road isn’t his constituency - despite the DM claiming that it is! - so it’s really got nothing to do with him. And even it was, why the hell should he condemn a peaceful protest?
- I do agree that there’s more pressing things to protest right now, BUT sometimes the small, local, personal fight feels worthwhile, because you might win it.
- And I have Indian friends who genuinely hate Churchill because of his actions contributing to the Bengal Famine of 1943, in which 3 million Indians starved to death in a single year while Churchill forced them to keep exporting rice to Europe (a book called Churchill's Secret War is full of well-researched factual info, for anyone interested). And I’m guessing that the Blighty team opening their India-themed branch might rub salt in the wound if it was something you felt passionately about - the article mentions them writing to David Lammy about that branch in particular, which might explain where all this started.
Anyway, obviously you’re all free to disagree! But I'd personally take this slightly racist, jingoist, make-Britain-Great-again ‘journalism’ with a big pinch of salt.

grenners · January 2018

.........good publicity from the Blighty press office.......storm in a coffee cup.

HolbornFox · January 2018

The Sun are really running with it now, best thing that could ever happen to the owner publicity wise.

I really do not condone shaming people to the masses, although the writing style of The Sun does amuse me.

The agenda is clearly not reporting this as a non-white person with a Muslim name attacking a British-owned business, the agenda is clickbait, but lets ignore that and reduce everything and everyone to colour and religion, just in case.

krappyrubsnif · January 2018

I think that is very nuanced @Jacula, thanks. Quite right. These people may have a valid point but they've played right into the Daily Mail hate agenda. And Blighty probably are doing well out of it. Thing is, why pick on a pretentious but mostly harmless local cafe to make the point? I mean, what next - militant republicans torching every pub called the Prince of Wales? I am a bit of a republican by the way, but not a 17 year old Citizen Smith.

joust · January 2018

Citizen Smith. Spot on.

Brodiej · January 2018

The "peaceful protest" took place inside the café and certainly wasn't invited. They did do something wrong, they were really rude and inconsiderate to the customers who had chosen to spend their time and money in there. If they had a point to make, make it off the premises. Not really interested in the politics of it all, like many people on here, I'm just flabbergasted that this was the number one thing to demonstrate about in Finsbury Park that day. People trying to change the world by sticking it to a local café owner ....good one.

therattle · January 2018

I don't think that defacing a mural counts as entirely peaceful protest, although the jacula's other points are certainly worth considering. I also think that the anger and protest are misdirected.

Papa · January 2018

A brilliant twist in the story, turns out Mr Corbyn is a customer

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5450062/churchill-cafe-owner-reveals-jeremy-corbyn-and-his-wife-visit-for-coffee-and-bread-but-labour-leader-refuses-to-condemn-protests/

gardener-joe · January 2018

[...]

djmattyoung · January 2018

I ate there once ages ago and also thought the food was below average and a bit pricey. Shame as I actually think it's quite a nice space.

HolbornFox · January 2018

Marrowbone? Was he looking through a Snapchat filter?

grenners · January 2018

Bland sausages? Apparently they are sourced from Godfreys generally considered to be the pinnacle of Islington butchery. There is no pleasing some people.......

krappyrubsnif · January 2018

I went there once and there was some horrible brat playing the piano on the first floor. The ownets did nothing to stop this clamour. Not a relaxing place at all.

kreuzkav · January 2018

Maybe the cafe is a bit avant garde? The brat on the piano is some free-form prodigy? Are you sure that crowd in the video above aren't some performance art mob from Sketch House? One was wearing a beret.

Arkady · January 2018

Is there a basement bit? I don't recognise the big room in the photos.

grenners · January 2018

There is like an upper ground floor. Located up a short flight of stairs from the cafe at street level.

Scruffy · January 2018

Isn't it completely beside the point how tasteful or tasteless the decor is or how good or bad the food in the café might be?

I've been to Blighty three or four times over the last couple of years, and my impression was that the theme was more "Britain during WW II" than particularly celebrating Churchill. But what difference would it make if a café or any other establishment were Churchill-themed, Gandhi-themed, Mohammed-themed, Marx-themed, Napoleon-themed, Jesus-themed, Hitler-themed, Thatcher-themed, Caligula-themed, Ripper-themed (Jack or Yorks), Scott-of-the-Antarctic-themed (He was beastly to the penguins)…? I've always dreamed of a Leopold III of Belgium-themed aquarium, but I'm not holding my breath. All those afore-mentioned are, in someone's book, arseholes without whom the world would be a better place (glad I could find a woman to include in that list!) People can choose to be as affronted as they like by the memory of any historical figure, but I can't see how this gives anyone an excuse to be a nuisance where people go to eat in peace and others go to earn a living. I wonder if anyone of at least reading age had their views of Churchill (or awareness of themed cafés—the remnants of a fallen empire and a sign of a decadent society, if ever there were) influenced by this nonsense. And what is annoyance other than a mild form of oppression? Help! We’re being oppressed!—by the storm troopers from Mothercare.

Protest? What a load of cobblers! A café owner has as much right as anyone to express (peacefully and legally) any view or sentiment. Pisses me off that there are still Belisha beacons all over the place, memorialising a man who never fed his cats more than twice a day, but I don't picket all those supposedly Judeo-fascist-war-mongering zebra crossings that deface our most gentle of urban landscapes. I'm pissed-off with people being pissed-off AND thinking they have a right to piss-off other people about it (Sorry, I know that's quite a lot of piss altogether). Without religion, greenhouse-grown cucumbers and conception, the world would definitely be much nicer.

Feeling much better having got that off my chest. Thanks.

miss annie · January 2018

For the love of god, have these people nothing more pressing to have a demonstration about? There are kids going without food, people sleeping under railway bridges and people injecting drugs in the street in N4. Demonstrate about that.

There is a nightclub called Maggie's which is Margaret Thatcher/80s themed by the way.

krappyrubsnif · January 2018

@Scruffy - post of the year. Decade, possibly. Respect.

jacula · January 2018

@Scruffy - I completely feel your frustration, and I admire your arseholes of the world list from the depths of my being.

What I would say is: it's fair enough for us folk of N4 to feel exasperated with the debatably mis-judged direction at which these passionate young people aimed their protest. Absolutely - I agree that ideally those of us who can be bothered to try to fight to improve things (very rarely me these days, I'm ashamed to admit) would address the homeless kids under the bridge first. If I'd been a customer in there when it happened then perhaps I would have felt intimidated and my response would be different.

But where this feels sinister to me is where this trivial incident become NATIONAL NEWS in several papers and involving the fucking Secretary of State. It's not because of what happened that it has escalated to this stage - it's because of who is involved, namely a non-white woman, and a Corbyn fan, protesting a cafe that idolises Churchill and serves Union Jack flags in its breakfast. (Thanks BTW @gardener-joe for the vividly-written and stomach-churning review).

Anyone who thinks this isn't about identity politics, here's an offer: I'll gladly go this weekend with a small group to Starbucks and read from a script about corporate chains gobbling up local businesses, and sing a few chants in praise of Front Room Cafe, and get in people's faces a bit about their coffee choices, and then leave. I'll bet the contents of my bank account (couple of hundred quid at present) that that would merit zero write ups in any national paper and will defintiely fail to get BoJo's interest. Because I'm white and Starbucks doesn't play into the DM/Sun's "fuck off ungrateful immigrants, Brexit will make us great again" narrative.

Anyway, thanks for the enjoyable debate all! I'm about to start a new thread about kefir grains which I suspect won't be as thrilling...

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Good to see independent local business under attack.

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