What has Amy Lamé actually done for London?

It’s no surprise that Britain’s night economy is in dire straight given a quarter of people told pollsters they would like to see nightclubs permanently closed even after the pandemic. Yet nobody embodies modern society’s contempt for club culture quite like Amy Lamé, Sadiq Khan’s embattled ‘Night Czar’.

Yes, as she stressed in a recent op-ed defending her record, she did her stint on the scene herself. But as any investor will tell you, past performance is no guarantee of future returns – and Lamé’s record speaks for itself. According to figures from the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA), since she was first installed in 2016, the capital has lost almost half of its nightclubs.

The Night Czar has plenty of excuses, first and foremost the pandemic. But while lockdown obviously had a impact on the scene, the problem long predates it: between 2007 and 2018, London lost 40 per cent of its live music venues and half its clubs.