Ishmahil Blagrove (2025)

14/09/2025

Before the rise of social media and podcasts, spaces like Speakers Corner were the only venues where public debates on politics were held regularly and where free speech could be truly tested. They were the frontline trenches which acted as the people’s parliament and exposed the corruption, inequalities and grievances of the day.

Speakers Corner was like an underground Ivy League University and helped to shape so many people’s world view. It is where I learned about the Palestinian struggles and adopted the FREE PALESTINE mantra in 1986 – and would regularly speak at the Free Palestine podium with the Palestinian flag blazing in the wind - brought to Speakers Corner by Haroon Jadakhan, the editor of the Muslim Chronicle.

It was where you received firsthand information about international campaigns and global struggles. It is where I first met people like Saddam Hussein’s former bodyguard, the leaders of the Iraqi Interim Council before the fall of Saddam Hussein, the leaders of the JEM rebels of Darfur, the Pakistani Foreign Minister, Nawaz Shah, Sheik Muhammad of Dubai, senior officials of the Saudi Embassy, the coup plotters behind the attempted overthrow of President Obiang of Equatorial Guinea, the former British MI5 spy David Shayler who exposed the plot to assassinate Muammar Gaddafi… the list is endless.

Today, I am not so sure about all of these social media platforms. I myself only joined Facebook as an experiment to see how the audience engagement differed and translated into the digital sphere. It appears to me that the majority of todays public commentators are solely established with the aim of maximising views and monetizing the news. Some have become extremely popular and wealthy as a result – leading to ‘celebrity’ figures such as Mohammad Hijab and the recently deceased Charlie Kirk. I spoke for 31 years at Speakers Corner, starting as the youngest regular speaker in 1986. Throughout my tenure, enriching myself was never the motive. It was always about informing the people and challenging the dominant narrative. We were often labelled crazy and loonies by the establishment press – ridiculed and dismissed by the casual passerby who was not a regular or initiated into the protocols of public debate.

Well, might I remind the world, and particualry those who are now enthusiastic podcasters and prolific posters, that the origins of such debates and the litmus test for free speech, come from the legacy of the centuries old analogue world of spaces like Speakers Corner!

10/09/2025

While this is not a new tactic of Israel - and we saw something similar play out where the Iranians were invited to talks with the US and lulled into a false sense of security before being bombed, I cannot think of any reason for Israel to bomb Qatar other than to help Trump to catch his breath while hanging onto the ropes from the beating he is receiving over the Epstein Files. It’s called starting a small fire to put out a bigger one. Or the left hand washing the right hand in a time of need.

Yes, Israel wanted to stall the peace talks - but such an action is too brazen with the world watching and with global public opinion in a nose dive. This makes it the seventh sovereign country that Israel has bombed without any Western condemnation or UN Sanction.

Israel has either lost its mind - or is panicked by the fear of its own demise. The South African apartheid regime in its last days, also began randomly attacking their neighbours in a desperate attempt to cling onto power, Mozambique, Angola, Botswana, Zimbabwe... Or perhaps some of you are old enough to remember when Bill Clinton bombed Sudan after Monica Lewinsky was caught with her mouthful under his desk.

With two narcissistic mad Bond villains holding the world to ransom, anything is possible!

03/09/2025

RESPECT TO THE ITALIAN DOCKWORKERS!

What tangible steps can British Unions and other Labour Unions across the world take to support this bold action?

It is time for the Unions to show solidarity and to bring the world to a standstill if politicians do not put an end to the slaughter and genocide taking place in Gaza.

We are in unprecedented times and uncharted waters - where unbridled Capitalism has corrupted the world, where billionaires have private armies, are unaccountable, have more influence in politics than the electorate - and dictate government policy.

When governments fail the people, the people need to strip those governments of their powers, hold them to account, and remind them that true power lies with the people!

02/09/2025

The last time a flotilla set off for Gaza in 2010, the IDF murdered 9 activists and wounded 30, while the Western media facilitated the lie that unarmed, peaceful activists had attacked the IDF when they tried to board the vessels.

Nothing of this scale has been attempted before. It will be a logistical challenge to stop so many boats.

This action is the result of civilians around the world stepping in to feed a starving population and to stop a genocide because corrupt global leaders have failed to act and the United Nations has been rendered powerless.

Keep all eyes on the flotilla. Do not allow the complicit Western media to distort the story, to shape the narrative and to cover up the atrocities that are being perpetrated against the Palestinian people.

VIVA PALESTINA!

01/09/2025

Don’t forget what happened to Ben Johnson in 1988.

He was Canadian when he won the Olympics - and Jamaican when they discovered he was a drugs cheat.

I hope Kimberley hasn’t forgotten how to pound fufu!

29/08/2025

THE UNBURIED SKELETONS OF NOTTING HILL CARNIVAL!

Recognising two surviving original pioneers of the Notting Hill Carnival, Barbara Shervington and Sterling Betancourt. While Rhaune Laslett has finally been acknowledged as the founder of the Notting Hill Carnival, Barbara’s contribution still remains in the shadows. Yet, Barbara and her husband Andre Shervington were instrumental components in the genesis of the event.

Barbara was Rhaune Laslett’s personal secretary, while her Guyanese husband Andre did much of the leg work and was the crucial bridge between Rhaune and the Caribbean Community. It was he who facilitated contact between Rhaune and people like Russ Henderson and Sterling Betancourt - whose involvement added the ingredients that transformed the event from an English fayre into a Caribbean style Carnival.

Andre had arrived in Britain during the Second World War as a West Indian Serviceman. After the war, alongside Baron Baker, he helped to settle many of the newly arrived Windrush generation. As an ex-serviceman and the cousin of the Guyanese prime minister, Forbes Burnham, he had a Statesman like aura and was a highly respected figure in the Caribbean community.

Some of the first Black Power meetings in Britain were held in Barbara and Andre’s home, with figures like Michael X, the African-American Black Power activist Hakim Jamal and Roddy Kentish. Andre also helped Frank Crichlow to secure the lease on the El Río Cafe in 1958, a venue that would later gain infamy, as a result of the Profumo Scandal.

Likewise, Sterling Betancourt’s involvement in the Notting Hill Carnival has often been overshadowed - with most of the accolaides going to Russ Henderson. But Sterling was also there from the beginning. Sterling was in fact the real master of the Steel Pan, while Russ was a profesional pianist before taking up the steel pan as an instrument. Sterling had oringinally arrived in Britain alongside ten other Trinidadians, having been selected to form the Trinidad All-Steel Percussion Orchestra (TASPO) and contracted to perform at the 1951 Festival of Britain. After the festival, Sterling remained in the UK.

Two other surviving pioneers, of sorts, who are rarely mentioned in the history of the event are the actor, Ram John Holder who played ‘Pork Pie’ in the popular British TV sitcom, “The Desmonds”, and Pete Jenner, the former manager of the rock band Pink Floyd - who incidentally performed a benefit show to raise funds for the first Carnival.

Many people along the way have inserted themselves in the history of the event, with some being more deserving than others. The Carnival has been a baton that has passed through many hands and so it is only right that those who have contributed to it’s growth take ownership - however, the surviving figures that I have mentioned in this piece were there from day one, from the planning stage of the event - and are the characters behind the genesis of it. They alongside now deceased characters like the Nigerian percussionist Ginger Johnson and the artist and Revolutionary thinker, John “Hoppy” Hopkins.

It irritates me no end, to know that some of the pioneering figures behind the Notting Hill Carnival have unjustly and deliberately been airbrushed out of history solely because they were White. The colour of their skin just didn’t fit the zeitgeist of the time, as Black Power took root in Britain in the late 1960s and thus their presence became an embarassment and inconvenience.

While much has been done to correct this deliberate omission - it is still not enough in my opinion. People like Barbara Shervington are still kept in the cellar and only celebrated in private gatherings - where her contribution is openly acknowledged. I know for a fact, that were she Black and from the Caribbean, Barbara’s contribution would be more widely acknowledged and celebrated. I doubt she has ever even received an invitation to sit amongst the judges and audience along the Carnival parade route. I doubt even further that those who bask in the limelight as “pioneers” have even considered mentioning her name. And even more shocking, I doubt she has ever even received a letter, a box of chocolates, or some sort of official recognition for the important role that she played.

Barbara is now 87 years old and slowly deterriorating from Alzheimer’s, while Sterling is 95. Barbara Shervington deserved better - and as a Carnival Community we should be ashamed of the way she has been treated. She deserves to have her flowers handed to her - and not merely placed atop her grave.

So yes, while we rightly scream RACISM at the way in which the Notting Hill Carnival is mistreated and misrepresented by the Establishment, we also still have a few unburied skeletons of our own languishing in the cellar!

Photo: Barbara Shervington & Sterling Betancourt

27/08/2025

THE BRITISH MEDIA’S REPORTING OF NOTTING HILL CARNIVAL IS DRIVEN BY RACISM!

As I conclude my post-Notting Hill Carnival summary for 2025, I would like to remind the public and the British media in particular that there were 32 drug related deaths at British music festivals between 2017 - 2023, with an average of 5 - 6 occurring each year. None of which were recorded at Notting Hill Carnival.

This data does not include those who have died between the years 2024 - 2025, and therefore omits the death of Benjamin Buckfield aged 22, who died at Boomtown Festival in 2024. Neither does it include the death of 17 year-old Emily Stokes, who died at Dreamland ‘Drum N Bass’ Festival in Kent. Emily Stokes was one of twenty-one young people all aged under 18 who were hospitalised from drug overdoses at the same festival. One of those admitted being as young as 15-years of age, while another was left in a medically induced coma for ten days.

I would have thought that the death of a teenager and twenty others overdosing at the same music festival would have caught the attention of the mainstream media and garnered national headlines. It may have even warranted some type of statement from politicians and comments from the Prime Minister warning of the dangers of drugs. But obviously not. One can but imagine the headlines if overdoses on such a scale had occurred at the Notting Hill Carnival.

But check this out - so many young “white” people have died at British music festivals that in some events they have now introduced “drug testing tents” where you can go and check your drugs to make sure they are “safe” to consume. Yes, you heard me right! You can walk into a tent, test the potency of any drugs in your possession and walk back out again to enjoy the music. If this isn’t white privilege wearing a top hat, monocle, and dressed in a tuxedo, then I don’t know what is!

Can you imagine the headlines and supporting comments from Neaderthals if such a thing were introduced at Notting Hill Carnival? And to think that these very people who ignore what is happening at British music festivals have the audacity to call Notting Hill Carnival a “drug fest”.

It clearly demonstrates how Black festival goers are criminalised, policed and considered THE problem, while white festival goers are seen as victims, with experimental solutions introduced to ADDRESS the problem.

British music festivals have become killing fields for young people. Why has none of this garnered mainstream media headlines and attention? Why have they failed to report these drug related deaths, the large scale drug seizures and violence that occurs at other British festivals? Those questions should really be rhetorical, because I think we all already know the answers.

As patrons of the Notting Hill Carnival we all have a responsibility to protect and defend the good name of the event. We are not looking for special treatment - or to avoid criticism when things go wrong. But we cannot ignore the racial bias of the British mainstream media reporting in comparison to other British festivals that are managed by white event promoters!

(My intention here is not to malign or to wilfully criticise other music festivals. It is simply to expose the racism behind British mainstream media reporting)

26/08/2025

As with everything we do, we are held to a higher bar and standard than the rest of society. Whatever we do is viewed through a microscope with the most negative elements magnified and used to belittle, demean, criminalise and undermine the success of our achievements.

To manage an event with 2 million people in attendance is a monumental task which takes forensic planning, coordination and trained security personnel. In any ordinary town or city of 2 million people, there are going to be delinquent elements and crimes - that is impossible to avoid. Nevertheless, the crime statistics of the Notting Hill Carnival is what is compiled and presented to the broader British public in order to instil fear and to manufacture prejudice. Do they compile the crime statistics of a busy Oxford Street weekend and suggest that Oxford Street should be closed down or moved?

They deliberately underfund the Notting Hill Carnival each year and set it up to fail - yet each year, against all the odds and the hurdles they put before it, it succeeds in its objective - to bring joy and to celebrate the achievements of a multicultural Britain.

In every regard and on every comparable table, the Notting Hill Carnival is a success. Don’t let the racist media and their relentless campaign to undermine the event tell you otherwise.

The carnival organisers, the Mas Bands, the Steel Bands, the Sound Systems, the vendors and ultimately the people who attend and make the event what it is - should hold their head high with pride. Notting Hill Carnival 2025 was a resounding success. We are still here and we ain’t going nowhere!

21/08/2025

HAPPY 60TH ANNIVERSARY NOTTING HILL CARNIVAL

Though the official start of the Carnival is recognised as 1966, the precursor event of 1965 is what really laid the foundations.

The event was started in 1965 by Rhaune Laslett in the wake of the Notting Hill Race Riots of 1958 and the racist murder of Kelso Cochrane in 1959 - with the concept being to bring different communities together to celebrate their cultural differences, to bridge the gap of suspicion and to challenge racist attitudes.

Carnivals of the Caribbean are considered a celebration of freedom and the ending of slavery - so that history dovetails perfectly with the spiritual raison d’ètre behind the Notting Hill Carnival.

How fitting it is that this years event falls in the week of celebrating International Slavery Remembrance Day and Toussaint Louverture's Haitian slave uprising of 1791 - which saw the creation of the first Black Republic in the World, after Toussaint’s forces defeated the British, Spanish and French armies to gain their freedom and independence in 1804. It was this major rebellion by slaves in the Caribbean that inspired other uprisings and greatly influenced the abolitionist movement.

So please give this history a little consideration over the build up to the two -day carnival celebration. The Notting Hill Carnival is more than just a two-day party and jump-up in the street. It is a celebration of diversity, tolerance, the merging of cultures, a celebration of our shared history, struggle and journey in Britain - but fundamentally, it is a celebration of an end to the transatlantic slave trade.

The fact that the Notting Hill Carnival Committee have failed to harness and promote the natural brand of the event has left me scratching my head for years - but that’s another story!

Photo: Dame Lorraine is a parody of the slave plantation owners wife. Such costumes date back to the first Carnivals where freed slaves began mocking the courtly manners and pomp of their former captors. (understanding the subtext of Carnival and its rich historical references makes for a more enriched cultural experience)

18/08/2025

The following information helps to frame the hypocrisy and double standards in the way in which Western governments have dealt with Palestine and manipulated the United Nations.

A civilian uprising erupted after protests in the city of Benghazi in Libya on 15th February 2011. Gadaffi asserted that the uprising was the work of Western powers attempting to overthrow him and to destabilise Libya. From that moment forward Western governments and their media began an International propaganda campaign, claiming that civilians were being slaughtered and that there was a moral imperative to act in order to avert the deaths of more civilian lives.

1. The uprising began on the 15th February and resulted in the deaths of 20 civilians.

2. By the 25th February all the Western Embassies had already closed their doors and withdrawn their staff from Libya.

3. By the 6th March, six British SAS and two MI6 agents were captured in Benghazi - their mission, to liaise with rebels attempting to topple Gadaffi.

4. On the 17th March, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1973, which imposed a No-Fly Zone and authorised member states to take all measures to protect civilians and civilian areas under the threat of attack.

5. On the 19th March NATO began it’s bombing campaign over Libya which ultimately resulted in the death of Gadaffi, upwards of 15,000 people, the destruction of Libya, anarchy over the entire country, the return of slavery, radical Islamists seizing large portions of the country and Western corporations parcelling off the nations oil wealth.

As soon as Libya was bombed back to the Stone Age, with medieval tribal rivalries reignited, the United Nations looked the other way, while the Western media circus packed up their propaganda tents and left town with no subsequent reporting on the mayhem and chaos that Western governments had left in their wake. No updates, no progress reports, nothing. Not even the slightest concern for the wellbeing and safety of the civilians of whom they had feigned concern.

Libya is now a destroyed ungovernable wasteland. A perilous warzone of armed factions and brutal warlords all vying for power and to be the next corrupt despot with whom Western corporations have to do business.

Now, contrast all of that, the speed in which the West intervened, the efficiency in getting a UN resolution passed, the use of NATO to enforce a No-Fly Zone, the fractional number of civilian deaths - and the fact that the West has shown no concern for the safety and well-being of Palestinians, failed to pass any resolutions that protect their lives, failed to mobilise NATO - and done absolutely nothing to stop Israel’s slaughter of upwards of 70,000 people and halt the ongoing genocide against the Palestinians!

16/08/2025

A tide of change is sweeping through the African continent, driven by the spirit of Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso and reawakened in the soul of Ibrahim Traoré.

The corrupt Western puppets are falling one by one. Keep your eyes on the Ivory Coast, (Côte d'Ivoire) and the corrupt French stooge, Alassane Ouattara. His days are numbered.

I will not forget the day the French bombed the Ivory Coast’s air force in 2004 in order to destabilise the Presidency of Laurent Gbagbo and to help install Alassane Ouattara.

The domino effect is slowly erasing the foul lingering scent of British, French and other Western nations influence over the continent.

They have kept Africa in a perpetual state of underdevelopment while exploiting it’s mineral wealth to advance their own societies and to prop up their economies - assassinating all the righteous Pan-African leaders who have stood in their way - and shoehorned the most corrupt and brutal African leaders into place who would help to facilitate the theft of the continents natural resources.

Progressive and visionary African leaders like Thomas Sankara were a threat to them when he said, "We must choose either champagne for a few or safe drinking water for all."

FORWARD THE AFRICAN REVOLUTION!

Photo: Thomas Sankara (Murdered in a coup sponsored by France)

15/08/2025

Notting Hill Carnival will not be the same without Mr Bojangles himself, the life of the party, the hot stepper, Mr Boogaloo, the legendary Scarboro.

The man who could turn night into day, breath life into any party and resuscitate the deadest of vibes has gone to join the ancestors. Make no mistake, the ancestors are smiling right now, they are beating dustbin lids, empty cans and drum pans to welcome Scarboro amongst them.

I know I use the term legend very liberally - but that’s because Ladbroke Grove is where legends are born.

If you knew Scaroborp then you know that he was more than just a legend - to many he was an urban myth!

Ishmahil Blagrove

14/09/2025

10/09/2025

03/09/2025

02/09/2025

01/09/2025

29/08/2025

27/08/2025

26/08/2025

21/08/2025

18/08/2025

16/08/2025

15/08/2025

Address

Website

Alerts

Contact The Business

Shortcuts

Share