NOTE: The entire premise behind Westminster saying it needed to make its anti-busking policies stricter was that complaints against buskers had gone up. Months after I’d finished writing the below, they admitted (in answer to one of my Freedom of Information requests) that it had received less than half of the complaints they’d claimed. Less than half. So keep in mind: all of the council’s arguments were based on a falsehood.
Hello everyone,
Since August 8th, I’ve been digging down into a document published by Westminster City Council that examined the impact of its own new busking licensing regime. The result is the four videos linked to in this email, plus a 56-page breakdown of all the lies, distortions and errors the council has made:
Read my full report here (pdf)
It’s the first investigative journalism project I’ve been involved with for years, and it was so fun. I’d look at a claim that the council made in the report, do some digging, cross-check against raw data, get in touch with outside experts (like academics, lawyers, professors etc) and more often than not I’d discover that the council has either committed a crime (in my opinion) or outright lied.
And then I put all my findings into the four videos you see linked to on this page. Please watch them in order, otherwise they might not make sense.
I believe that what I found shows that the council has:
made it illegal for internationally touring street shows to perform in Covent Garden, as well as banning 90% of other circle shows.
turned busking into Westminster’s biggest crime, a crime committed tens of thousands of times a year
and given the buskers who perform in Westminster less than three minutes of licensed amplified pitch space each per day.
And yet, instead of noting that many buskers couldn't sign up for a licence, or that the licence was pointless if you needed amplification, the council suggested that buskers who didn't get a licence might be tax dodging criminals trying to avoid scrutiny.
The authors of the report also:
claimed that complaints have gone up (and therefore that the council needs to act), despite complaints going down ever since the winter of 2021/22
claimed, without evidence (and against common sense) that buskers and their audiences were physically threatening thugs
lied about Covent Garden being a complaints hotspot. Just, straight up lied.
completely ignored the areas where complaints were actually bad.
The conclusion of the council's report listed seventeen suggestions on how to make things better. They recommended:
Excluding the Street Performer Associations (SPAs) from future conversations
Removing the SPAs from being mentioned on their website and in their policy
Increasing police presence, despite repeatedly saying that the police have better things to do with their time
Taking away yet another amplified pitch, giving buskers even less amplified pitch time (under 2 minutes a day)
I even believe that I’ve also caught the council committing three or four crimes (including effectively stealing £¼ million from the UK’s songwriters).
Please watch the videos on this page, pick a couple of things that you most disagree with, and then let your voices be heard:
The leaders of the council will hear your voices and hopefully throw out the licence in October.
Nick