This weekend marks 30 years since 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence was murdered in an unprovoked racist attack while waiting for a bus in Eltham, south-east London. In the wake of his killing, and the failure of the initial police investigation, came the landmark 1999 Macpherson Report, which concluded that the Metropolitan Police was institutionally racist.
Today Stephen’s mother, Doreen, made a life peer for her tireless campaigning, says the Met has failed to change. Baroness Lawrence’s comments come only weeks after the Casey Review, commissioned following the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by serving police officer Wayne Couzens, which found the Met to be institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic.
Scotland Yard now has a commissioner in Sir Mark Rowley who is committed to ridding the Met of hundreds of officers who should never have been in the force in the first place. But the scale of the challenge as set out in the Casey Review, published 24 years after Macpherson, is enormous.
The intervention of Baroness Lawrence and the Casey Review tell an unflinching story of how far we still have to go before all Londoners have a force they can trust, one worthy of policing our great city.
Alarm over inflation
Today’s inflation figures will come as no surprise to anyone who buys food. CPI stood at 10.1 per cent in March, representing a small fall from February but ultimately a seventh successive month of double-digit price rises.
The UK’s inflation rate is the third highest in the G20 group of leading economies, behind only Argentina and Turkey. When it comes to price stability, this is not company we ought to be keeping.
Today’s data from the Office for National Statistics attributes much of the blame on high food and drink costs, which soared by 19.2 per cent, the steepest rate since August 1977. The price of bread and cereals rose more. Such figures make future interest rate rises more likely.
This is the cost-of-living crisis writ large. Rishi Sunak made halving inflation by the end of the year one of his key priorities — we remain some way off that goal.
A great train tradition
All aboard the Carolean Express. A high-speed train service between London and Edinburgh will be named to celebrate the reign of King Charles — with the maiden service commencing on the day of the Coronation.
It continues a great tradition of naming trains after historic royal occasions, such as the Silver Jubilee in 1935 for George V, and The Elizabethan in 1953 for Elizabeth II.
The London North Eastern Railway is operating a full timetable over the Coronation Bank Holiday, while other firms are laying on additional services. A truly momentous occasion.
