Ladbroke Groovers unmoved by threat of barbarians at the Gate

"Rape, what rape? Why do you always have to be so depressing?" The girl in the black hipsters turned away, gliding swiftly across the room to where a group of fashionable thirtysomethings were talking about commitment phobia in the Nineties.

It could have been a million miles away from where five schoolchildren allegedly raped a nine-year-old girl during a lunchtime break.

But it wasn't. In fact it was less than a mile - at Liza Campbell's lively exhibition on the Portobello Road - a stone's throw from the White City estates. And it took place on the same day as the Sun splashed the horrific attack on its front page - although few people at the exhibition had read the Sun that day, or any of the other papers which reported the crime.

Here in Notting Hill Gate, heartland of trendy intellectual London, home to the Who's Who of people who control newspapers, television, film and music, there is still a powerful mood of triumphalism - of celebration of Labour's victory. And they don't want anyone to spoil the party.

In recent years these leafy streets of stucco terraced mansions have become the epicentre of media power as editors, pundits, columnists, producers, film directors and musicians have moved in to colonise an area once dominated by new immigrants and working class families

Heading south from what residents call No-Go (North of Golborne Road) and No-Way (North of the Westway) - roads that locals regard as insurmountable barriers - live a galaxy of people who set the media agenda.

The area still retains a cosmopolitan mix - pockets of Spanish, Portuguese, Afro-Caribbean, Algerians and Moroccans - but they are receding rapidly in the face of the media advance and surging house prices. Small two bedroom flats go for pounds 250,000, a house for more than pounds 1 million.

East of Portobello, home to the "Westbourne groovers", is also being overrun. You can always tell by the arrival of fashionable watering holes - The Cow, Coins coffee store and Jak's Bar.

Nothing is more symbolicthan the transformation of the Cobden Working Men's Club into a hip late night members' club where the media crowd seem to spend more money in the toilets than at the bar.

Of course, the Gate and the Grove have long enjoyed a bohemian edge. But the front line moved away long ago and what was once bohemian is rapidly becoming establishment.

The restaurant 192, designed by long-term residents Tchaik and Melissa Chassey, remains the cultural pinnacle. Pitches for new television shows, books and records fly through the air from one table to another. Pundits, editors and ordinary hacks dine together - talking to themselves as they do through thepages of the quality newspapers.

Few venture outside the area. And when they do it's usually only as far as Soho - to the Groucho Club, Soho House or Quo Vadis. Occasionally, at weekends, they head for the country.

Most of the media crowd have sealed themselves in concrete as thick as the flyovers on the M40. Occasionally there is a very personal wake-up call to the problems of areas like White City - like when someone we know is brought face to face with their liberal sensibilities by a cudgel applied to the back of the head down the Portobello Road.

But generally we are as far away from delinquency, permanent unemployment and cuts in housing benefit as our minds can carry us. Taking that on board and shaping a new media agenda is a challenge yet to be met.