For Once, You're Right, Rhiannon - Why Should I Care?

What do James McAvoy and my three-year-old son have in common? Very little, you might think, notwithstanding their shared awareness of the book The Dinosaur That Pooped a Planet. Yet their lives overlap in a more tangible way, because they, along with Benedict Cumberbatch, patronise the same cafes on Hampstead Heath. Both actors have signed a petition protesting against the takeover of four family-owned north London cafes by the Australian-inspired chain Daisy Green. It’s a move that has dismayed the local community, leading to protests, and threats of legal action against the landowner, the City of London Corporation, whose new funding model for green spaces prioritises “income generation”.

You’re probably wondering why you should care, either about what Hollywood actors think, or about this notoriously chi-chi part of London.

Yes, you're right.  

And yet, like them, and like me, you probably have a favourite cafe, one that feels very special.

OK, back to wrong again! My, that was quick. I certainly don't.

The UK used to be full of cafes such as this: often immigrant-owned, and serving a combination of cuisines. On the surface they seem basic, perhaps even a little scruffy. They are certainly not Instagrammable. Yet what they offer – friendliness, inclusivity – is worth more to the clientele than social media kudos.

So why are they threatened? Is it because in Labour's failing economy, they are unsustainable? 

This isn’t just a story about gentrification and the homogeneity that comes with it, but one of social atomisation. As more and more chains dominate high streets all over the country, truly mixed, inclusive spaces become rarer and rarer.

If mixed, inclusive spaces were so desirable, wouln'y these high street chains offer them?  

I know I am not alone in not wanting my local cafe to turn into what so many others have across the UK and beyond: a list of signifiers, part of a corporate, global language that masquerades as friendly and laid-back but is – in its aesthetic and its pricing – tailored only for a certain demographic, and is indistinguishable from a thousand other similar places.

It sounds as though Rhiannon doesn't consider herself part of the demographic that patronises chains like Costa and Starbucks. Is that maybe the real issue. Certainly, every one of these chains I've been in is full of immigrants serving the coffee and cakes, so it can't be that. It has a name, you know - snobbery. Why not use it?