The Standard View: What happened to 24-hour London?

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Unlike our New York cousins, the capital has never claimed to be a city that never sleeps. But neither did it shut up shop at 10.30pm. And so the question on locals’ lips is this: what happened to 24-hour London? Cost is, inevitably, a major factor — for revellers and businesses alike. From £7 pints to soaring rents, keeping the lights on is as difficult as enticing partygoers who can pick up much cheaper alcohol from the local supermarket.

Then there are councils, eager to prioritise incumbent interests, in particular fears around noise and questions about whether a new establishment will lead to a rise in crime, rather than if it will benefit the community. The very real risk is that London becomes a sanitised city, where only the middle-aged and elderly can afford to go out — but of course, by that point, would rather not.

The capital has always had vast powers of regeneration, organic eruptions of creativity and fun, where young people move fast and break things in dark corners. Is this dying? The cost of living is already driving families out of the city. The price of a ticket or an Aperol spritz is putting young people off going out or setting up their own new-fangled event that the older generations look on with great puzzlement.

If what we want is a city that turns in early for the night every day of the week, we’re on the right track.

Art for all

The fourth plinth has not had a permanent statue since 1841, when Charles Barry designed Trafalgar Square. A lack of funds meant an equestrian statue of William IV could never be built. And yet, London has turned this into a virtue.

It all began with Prue Leith, then chairwoman of the Royal Society of Arts, who wrote a letter to the Evening Standard suggesting this ought to change. Five years later, the fourth plinth hosted its first artwork, Ecce Homo by Mark Wallinger.

Now, a bronze sculpture by the artist Tschabalala Self of a young black woman has been chosen from 2026, a “walking icon of the everyday, rather than an idol representing the adulation of one”. The fourth plinth will delight and surprise onlookers for centuries to come.

Road to nowhere

It is generally sound advice: “decorate the bathroom” rather than take the M25, according to the National Highways boss. But this weekend, never has a truer word been spoken. Five miles of motorway in both directions around Surrey are to shut from tonight until Monday morning, the first planned closure since the orbital opened in 1986.

Sometimes, the old aphorisms are the best: if you can, avoid the M25.

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