Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Blackboy Lane - update on wasteful, ignorant attempt to signal virtue
Despite the removal of the now infamous 'Uncle Joe' Ejiofor, Haringey Council has continued down the path of ignorance and waste and now removed the interim measure signage referencing the historic name of the road. It now reads 'La Rose Lane'.
Hundreds of thousands of public money has been spent despite the facts that:
- residents didn't want it
- it was a knee jerk attempt to virtue signal by the Council leadership on the back of the 'Black Lives Matter' disorders im America.
- the road has been locally known as Blackboy Lane for hundreds of years and refers to the Blackboy Pub which in turn was named in reference to either chimney sweeps or an infant King of England with no genuine racial connotations whatever that are relevant to the UK.
Replies are closed for this discussion.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Don on
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The original Council estimate for the cost of the name change was, indeed, £180,000. But a published FoI request last year suggested actual expenditure had been much less. Irrespective of the justification, or not, for the change, it might help to have an updated cost to inform the debate.
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Permalink Reply by Mara Collier on
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1. It didn't cost that much money if you take more than 2 seconds to check
2. It's not up to you to decide if you're not offended by it or if it doesn't *sound* bad or whatever, it was a mark on the community and the council took it away
3. Why are you so triggered about this? And why are you using "virtue signalling" to mean "when someone I don't like does something I didn't agree with" ?
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Hi Mara,
I was pleased to see that someone's posted a Wikipedia page about John La Rose.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_La_Rose
I'd like to know more. Anyone who knows about him and his achievements have time to post on HoL?
I must admit that I liked the idea of a street named after a pub. And even better that the pub was named surreptitiously for Charles II at a time when that king was in exile.
In my impossible idle fantasy that some distant publican relative might leave me his licensed premises in Keir Starnak's constituency I would reopen it as a vegetarian restaurant and juicebar, renaming it: "The Jeremy Corbyn". Even better if it was not far from Downing Street.
By the way, have HoL members noticed one particular person who is taking both the renaming issue and anti-slavery issues very seriously is the latest King Charles? I'm warming to this bloke! (At a reverse rate to my disgust at Rachel Reeves.) Link to the
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It doesn't matter what it cost its the fact that residents voted against the name change. Equally its not up to you or a small group to decide a name change because you or they were offended on Rd name thats been so for over a hundred years. And lastly any money wasted during a cost of living crisis is a disgrace and why should my council tax have funded this unnecessary expense..
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Mara — have you got figures for the actual expenditure as opposed to the original budget? Has last year’s FoI response been updated?
Objections at the time to the re-naming were:
a) Dubious justification: no evidence that the street name had any racist connotations, as even the local history museum couldn’t show that it wasn’t related to chimney sweeps, a pub name or a monarch.
b) Flawed consultation, which had to be re-run after court action: Name change was overwhelmingly rejected by residents of the road, who were ignored; the two options for naming were pre-determined by the Council leader with no community input, ignoring, for instance, Haringey’s many different ethnic backgrounds (eg Greek, Turkish, Cypriot, Irish, etc) who could have contributed other possibilities if asked. New name was initially rejected in any case by those close to Mr La Rose.
“Virtue signalling” or not, the plan was opportunistic, conceived and pushed through by a small group of councillors against the wishes of many as a political point, at a time when housing, homelessness, education, social care and deprivation were all greater Council priorities for the original budget of £180,000, no matter how much has actually been spent.
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You know the council pays for people’s time, right? Like, that cost you’re quoting isn’t even accurate as has already been made clear, but it’s just the salaries of the people who got told to brain storm a new name totted up. I’m not saying they didn’t miss a golden opportunity to name it something to celebrate the local Greek Cypriot, Turkish or Kurdish communities, but getting upset *that* they renamed it to begin with is hardly sensible. Regardless of whether or not you might think it’s racist or whether or not the intent was there, it looks *bad*. Horrible, horrible optics.
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"...*. Horrible, horrible optics."
Only if you look at it the wrong way.
And there are two ways you could look at it the wrong way.
The first is through innocent ignorance of local history and culture. In this case, the council could quite easily have put up a small sign explaining the history of the road (ie. Pub name). This was suggested several times by different people on this very forum.
The second is a less innocent and deliberate attempt to import American race relations issues and superimpose them on English cultural life to score points in the 'culture wars' sow division and hopefully get a few votes out of it (albeit at high cost to local finances, othet council services and local harmony).
I think we all know which it was.
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to any reasonable passer-by who isn’t going to stop to read the fine print, it comes off as archaic and inappropriate.
to your barely disguised dog whistle about “importing American race issues”. Deal with it. Racism exists, and it’s not like the UK doesn’t have any racism we don’t have to import. The 2020 protests were sparked by an American man being killed, yes, but there were protests here too. It’s not like our police, even given the fact that they don’t all have guns, don’t manage to kill black men. It’s really not up to you to go “well I know what it means, so I don’t want to think about someone who doesn’t know what it means or doesn’t agree with it”. It’s a lack of empathy in not wanting to understand why not everyone liked it and why maybe, just maybe, renaming it was fine, and it would have gone through quietly without any politicking had it not been for people like you who whine about it to no end like the human incarnation of the daily mail.
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We do indeed know which it was and the employment of name calling by some contributors here shows they are of the same ilk.
They fight racism by inventing it where it doesn't exist so they can go around congratulating themselves on their 'anti racism' credentials. Performative virtue at its best and at the expense of the very people they are patronising.
I am heartened by the resilience of the residents of Blackboy Lane, of all colours and creeds who have erected their own Blackboy Lane street signs and continue to proudly display them in their windows. It shows that this particular attempt to rewrite history has failed. They will remember, their children will remember, their grandchildren will remember and generations of children who attended Chestnuts school will remember.
Forever Blackboy Lane!
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