Why did Sadiq Khan politicise London’s fireworks?

It takes quite a lot to make fireworks divisive, no? A roaring display of noise and light and colour, owed to the technical ingenuity of our old friends the Chinese, reminding everyone who’s ever been in a war of the noise of falling shells… it’s a universally popular way of seeing in the New Year. And in all the displays around the world, it’s London’s on the Thames that draws in a global audience. Normally I watch the display from Ireland; this year I could almost see them on the horizon.

With the year that’s been, this was the chance to cheer everyone up. It’s been a year of plague, of pandemic; people have died before their time, businesses have gone under, lots of us lost jobs and salaries. And to round off this beastly year, we weren’t even able to have our friends round; we were watching the London fireworks in our own little bubbles.