It was one of those hazy, sepia-toned summer evenings in London, when the beer gardens are full and the sun feels like it doesn’t really set. We were congregated in the smoking area outside the Jago in Hackney, east London, when a man caught my eye and made his way over to me. He said he knew of me and my work and wanted to talk. He told me, in minute detail, about a WhatsApp group made up of staff and proprietors of various different pubs, clubs and venues in east London.
Ostensibly, its purpose was as a community group – to exchange information and band together in fights against increasingly draconian licensing restrictions across boroughs.
