Red Flag, South Bank

London is red. In both 2017 and 2019, the capital city went overwhelmingly red – a story repeated in other English cities, but especially pronounced in London. Yet the left has rarely had much interest in London’s socialist story, preferring to deride the capital as a decadent seat of power or a parasitical drain on the rest of the country. But London has a deep, long history as a laboratory of struggle and a crucible of socialist experiment – and once had a city government so radical that Thatcher had to abolish it. Owen Hatherley joins James Butler to argue that it’s time to reclaim the Red Metropolis.

Red Metropolis is available from Repeater Books now.