Who could object to the Windrush line?

Sadiq Khan has announced six new names for the previously boringly-named Overground. The practical point of it is that the Overground goes everywhere and is quite confusing to navigate if you’re an occasional visitor. Breaking up the orange (which only stayed that way because Boris Johnson liked it being the same colour when he was shown a draft map) isn’t particularly disputed, but what has excited interest is the choice of names. Lioness, Mildmay, Windrush, Weaver, Suffragette and Liberty have a certain progressive ring to them. They’ve been received in some quarters as names that are seeking a reaction rather than just reflecting London’s heritage.

Interestingly, Khan isn’t the only politician who has been after a ‘woke’ update to the tube map: when Rory Stewart was running for Mayor of London in 2020, his team drew up a list of new Overground line names, including Seacole, Pankhurst, Brunel and Churchill. That last would also have provoked a reaction from a different noisy group in politics.