The middle classes have lost faith in the Met
One golden autumn afternoon, in a quiet North London suburb, I stumbled across a portal to a possible English future. Hadley Wood sits on the fringes of the city, between Barnet and the M25, seemingly forgotten in its own little world of metroland Tudor houses, dotted with fields of ponies and commemorative plaques to steam age pioneers. Yet between the wisteria and the Jags, there is a sense of unease.
Roving bands of career burglars stalk the area. “They come every day whether you’re inside or not,” explains one local man from behind his wheelie bin. “They don’t seem to care.” Everything is up for grabs, the man tells me, from Amazon packages in doorways to the Lexus in the drive.
