Set My People Freeps!

Below: Photo from the London Free Press website, which was also printed in the Saturday, October 18 print edition.

The semi-literate caption in the online paper was:

Londoners at Dundas Street part of the city on Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. (Derek Ruttan/The London Free Press)

….but that caption is not what I want to write about.

This picture also appeared on the first news page of my Saturday morning real-on-paper edition of The London Free Press. The caption there was actually grammatically sound, but that is not the point of this post. This photo shows four derelicts lying on a sidewalk in London with some of their possessions. This is a regular sight all through London’s downtown and other places, like the Old East Village (OEV). What is new is that the Freeps is willing to show it on their front page, as the editorial position of the paper up to now has been to downplay any notion that downtown is going to hell. They will write about it from time to time, but have previously always been careful to follow such stories up with predictable statements by ‘activists’, ‘advocates’ and politicians that either things are not so bad, or that people who are upset about these folks lying on the sidewalk are just being nasty and should be ashamed of themselves.

In fact, one member of City Council, Susan Stevenson, was reprimanded by her fellow councillors a while back for putting photos like this on her Facebook page, to show what people living and working in her OEV ward were having to live with. That move was pure bullshit, it happened because Council did not like having Londoners see what was going on under the current leadership, but one stated reason for it was that Stevenson was posting photos of people who had not consented to have their images displayed.

Do you suppose the Freeps photographer asked those people lying on the sidewalk for consent?

Do you suppose Council is going to lodge a protest with the Freeps? Maybe send a couple of constables around to visit the editor?

I can’t wait to see.

In fact, the online version of this story includes more photos, including the one below:

A man smoking drugs at a bus shelter. Oh, my. ‘Do you mind if we post a photo of you smoking drugs, sir?’ I doubt that question was asked.

And then there was this graphic:

Yea, gunshots. There have been three or four homes in London shot up over the last couple of months. Do not expect either the Freeps or the London Police Chief to suggest what is perfectly clear to thinking adults; that we have become a city in which armed gangs operate.

In any event, I have no doubt that Council and our Mayor will be unhappy about the appearance of the first photo on the Freeps front page, as well as the other graphics above. What is less clear is whether they will understand that it might just signal that the Freeps editorial staff, such as they are, may have lost their willingness to go along with the narrative the Council wants to spin regarding our fair City.

The next municipal election is next year.