Caroline Pidgeon cannot drive sheep over London Bridge

Congratulations to Caroline Pidgeon, leader of the Liberal Democrat group on the London Assembly since 2018, who has been awarded the Freedom of the City of London.

Sadly, despite what is widely believed, this honour does not bring with it the right to drive sheep over London Bridge.

As Murray D. Craig, Clerk of the City's Chamberlain’s Court, once explained:

Can you take sheep over London Bridge?

The answer is no because the City of London Police are not keen on this custom in the 21st century. This is not altogether surprising because of all the busses, taxies, commuters, Boris cyclists and anti-capitalist protestors crossing London Bridge and while it is an amusing thought of Freemen in smocks and crooks and Little Bo Peeps, it would cause absolute traffic chaos!

We laugh at the custom today but in the Middle Ages it was a very different story - it was a valuable economic privilege. It was not so much that you could take sheep over the bridge but that you did not pay the toll. You would be taking the sheep to the Wool Exchange or Smithfield Meat Market for sale and not paying the toll would considerably enhance your profit margin.  

You could take cattle, pigs, hens, ducks, geese - indeed any livestock over the bridge and not pay the tariff but in the medieval period the sheep was queen of the beasts because the wool and cloth trade was the bedrock of the English economy. It is said that as more sheep went over the bridge than any other animals put together that the bridge was built and maintained on the back of the sheep.

The Joy of Six 1045

Paul Caruana Galizia, Katie Gunning and Matt Russell on how a Conservative peer and Cameron ally paved the road to Londongrad for sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

"I am in no doubt that the Metropolitan Police Service has some of the most dedicated officers in the world. Yet, we are seeing more cases than ever of serious misconduct, with officers involved in taking pictures of murder victims; attempting to engage in sexual activity with a child; stealing drug money; and assault and rape." Caroline Pidgeon says the new Met Commissioner must be brutally honest about the challenges facing the force

"With a growing network of close to 20k, public policy decisions are increasingly influenced, and made, by their people. So why haven’t you heard of them?" Joe Hanleyr investigates Transform Society.

Paul Hayward probes cricket's class divide: "Tom Brown, a coach at Warwickshire, wrote a PhD in talent identification revealing that 95 per cent of specialist England batters in Tests since 2011 have been white, and that 77 per cent have been privately educated."

"In the 1960s, British brewers sometimes behaved as if they didn’t believe the traditional English pub had a future and scrambled to find ways to reinvent the pub for the late 20th century. For Bass Charrington the solution was a glass and metal wonderland in West London, on the King’s Road." Boak & Bailey look back on The Chelsea Drugstore.

Mark Amies pays tribute to David McKee, the author, illustrator and creator of Mr Benn.

London Liberal Democrats to oppose curbs on Uber

Those of us outside London have been viewing the rise of Uber with mounting indifference.

But I gather this story in the Evening Standard may be significant:

Lib-Dems are set to challenge key parts of Boris Johnson’s plan to rein in Uber. 

The party will vote on a motion to oppose measures which include banning the minicab-hailing firm from showing the location of available cars in its app and making private-hire customers wait five minutes between booking a car and setting off. 

Caroline Pidgeon, the Lib-Dem candidate for mayor, said: “It makes no sense to make a passenger wait to get a cab if they can see the cab waiting for them there.”

It seems economic liberalism lives on in the party.