Camden punk scene holds up better than the government; field report from N1
Satire from Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
Dear diary. The week produced: one excellent gig at the Underworld (shoegaze-adjacent, came away with my ears ringing and my mood improved), one catastrophic gig at a pub in Islington that shall remain nameless (the sound man was having a personal crisis audible through the PA), and the continued slow-motion implosion of Keir Starmer, which I am watching from my flat with the detachment of someone who did not vote for him but lives in a constituency where not voting for him would have been even worse. London.
The Daily Mash is doing its usual thing where the headlines are indistinguishable from the real news and I have to check twice. This week I genuinely could not tell whether “MP Resigns in Solidarity With MP Who Resigned Over MP Who Should Resign” was a real story. It was. That is the Labour Party in June 2026. That is the government of this country. No wonder the pub in Islington was empty on a Thursday.
The Sound Man as Political Metaphor
The sound man at the Islington gig kept cutting the vocals whenever the singer said anything interesting. Feedback every thirty seconds. The guitarist spending more time looking at the desk than the crowd. The whole thing felt like a PMQs session where someone keeps cutting the mic at inconvenient moments. I left at the second song. Rishi-era vibes. I cannot do it.
Reform and What It Means for the Kind of London I Live In
Reform winning Essex and parts of outer London is not the same as Reform winning London-London, the zone one and two London where I live and where people still have “Refugees Welcome” stickers on their bins. But it is not nothing. The outer edges of this city voted in large numbers for something that my punks at the Roundhouse would describe with words I cannot print even here. The gap between the city I move through and the country it is surrounded by has not been this visible since 2016 and everyone I know is tired of saying that and nothing changing because of us saying it.
The Underworld gig was good though. I bought the band a pint. Small contribution to the resistance. Better than signing a petition. Probably.
The punk scene in London in June 2026 is the punk scene in London in every June since approximately 1977: small rooms, loud music, people who are angry about specific things rather than everything in general, which is the distinction between real punk and the performative version. The specific things this week include Reform winning councils, Starmer continuing to govern, the housing costs, the bus services that do not arrive, and the specific London inequality that puts a fifteen-pound cocktail bar next to a food bank queue on the same street in Brixton. Punk was invented for this. Punk continues for this. I continue with it. Find me at prat.uk/author/siobhan-odonnell/.
The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention.
More at prat.uk/author/siobhan-odonnell/.
More at https://newsthump.com.
SOURCE: Satirical Journalism
