London
The latest stories from independent london media.
Lime axes speed limits for Deliveroo riders
Plus: How to end the tube strikes • Did a London school really ban ham sandwiches? • Who's reclaiming lost sex toys from TfL? • Was a Waymo really lost on Waterloo Bridge?
Interview: London Conservative Festus Akinbusoye on his mayoral bid, his policies and his party
The announcement by James Cleverly that he hopes to become the Conservative candidate for Mayor in 2028 has dominated discussion of his party’s hopes of winning. That is unsurprising: Cleverly is the high-profile figure some London Tories have long been hoping would step forward.
‘Airbnb for sheiks’: the Shard's £50m empty apartments that just won't sell
Ten “cursed” apartments have sat empty since 2012 • The Qatari state can’t find buyers • The local council has approved plans to turn them into short-term lets at up to £18,000 per week
New study reveals scale and detail of misperceptions of London
SOME OPINIONS Denigrating, misrepresenting and generally portraying London as an urban dystopia brought low by a combination of criminal immigrants and a traitorous “metropolitan elite” has been a transatlantic mob propaganda exercise for years.
London drug dealers are hijacking Google Maps
Plus: Lime hands customer’s name to the police • More from inside the Shard • Soho box stacking mystery • The AI takeover of humanity begins with a fixation on Lambeth council
Julie Hamill: Remembering 9/11 in a London square
This year’s anniversary of 9/11 has been the toughest for me yet. Recalling living through that New York day, being in my flat nearby when it happened and seeing what I saw becomes harder as time passes.
Charles Wright: Sadiq Khan’s new London Plan – What Londoners need to know
With under six weeks of consultation left for City Hall’s draft London Plan, Sadiq Khan’s new development blueprint for the capital, there’s been something of a feeding frenzy within the “built environment” community of developers, builders, consultants and lawyers – an array of…
The Last King of Lewisham
Plus: Have we found London’s scammiest building? • The flat with the curious VIP party room • Greens’ by-election confusion • The political implications of liking to eat at Borough Market
James Cleverly's pitch to make London a Conservative city
The would-be Tory mayoral candidate makes his opening pitch to London Centric readers.
The man targeted by Ukrainian assassins — and Islington Council
Plus: Mr Whippy in flames • Elizabeth line to Staines • A £9m townhouse by Buckingham Palace • Self-driving cars with drivers
John Vane: In the footsteps of The Angry Brigade
Approaching Monkenholt, a late 18th Century, Grade II listed house just north of Chipping Barnet, I tried to imagine the scene in January 1971 when two bombs were placed outside it.
Lewis Baston: Labour’s Wandsworth by-election win restores fragile balance of power
The Conservatives lost control of Wandsworth last Thursday after having a slim majority of councillors for just over a month. That had occurred because in July a Labour councillor for Trinity ward resigned, meaning the council was technically no longer under No Overall Control…
Dave Hill: Any Tory, James Cleverly included, will face an uphill fight to become Mayor
Many Conservative activists in London will be excited by Sir James Cleverly’s announcement that he has resigned from Kemi Badenoch’s shadow cabinet with the aim of become his party’s candidate for Mayor of London in 2028 – and, of course, winning the mayoralty itself.
Prince Charles Cinema closure threat returns
Plus: Restaurants charging diners to pay the bill • Bring back the Woking 925 • Forest bike crime spree • TfL weight-loss advert loophole
How to end rough sleeping in London
Plus: Hampstead Heath's new chain cafe review • Knightsbridge Ferrari rental scam • Can you spot the notable south London mum?
London landlords’ latest tactic: Inverse bidding wars
Plus: London’s most ‘given up on August’ street • What caused the big fire? • Dodgy shops raids to come • Buy a kayak, the floods are coming.
Dave Hill: Soho’s saviours and the future of the West End
Along with heatwaves, keeping the small boats “invasion” story going and unravelling a Cambridge professor, media herd attention this silly season has been captured by a campaign to save the “spirit of Soho” as those involved perceive it and, indeed, that of the West End as a…
Should London’s Mayors retain a share of Corporation Tax too?
The government’s intentions for Income Tax and Business Rates are clear in outline if not yet in some important details – City Hall will be very interested in those – with the Overnight Visitor Levy, better known as the “tourist tax”, is on its way too.
Should London shut down in August?
Paris does it. The Italians do it. London is already seeing "shutdown by proxy". Why not just formalise it?
Westminster and Sadiq Khan continue to disagree about Oxford Street and nightlife
The disturbingly hot summer, with its concocted media furore about “vertical drinking” and its heroic claims about late night alcohol consumption being a mighty force for growth, is fading into autumn (just about).
London's air con era is here
Plus: Kid's Meal Summer is coming to London • Petition to save a restaurant that doesn't want saving • A Wicked strike • The £5.5m London home for people who want to slide into their private cinema
On the trail of a London gift shop owner
Plus: "Vertical drinking" politics • Robocop comes to Greggs • Robotaxis controlled by humans • London's festivals-in-parks mess
John Vane: Life and changing times of what was once called the Post Office Tower
From 1914, residents of Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia who possessed telephones had their calls connected through the Museum Telephone Exchange. A building on the North Crescent of Chenies Street, it owed its name to its closeness to the British Museum.
London's first month without rain
Plus: There's nowhere to bury the dead • London wants to keep its money • When will it stop being so damn hot • Who is to blame for turning off the air conditioning in the tower block?
"If you're poor, you can sweat": One building's air conditioning divide
The struggles of residents in a London tower block sum up the challenges of heatwave-era London.
Intimidation, illegality and Mr Whippy: We join London’s ice cream wars
enters the ice cream trade • The capital’s soft serve vendors act like they can ignore the law • It turns out they probably can
Sadiq Khan to the Lords
What's up with the mayor's peerage? • The Soho House founder and the women-only sculpture gallery facing eviction • In court for the sentencing of the TfL hackers
Asif Aziz's hotel and a "mystery" fire test
Plus: Self-driving taxis with a human in the driver's seat • Pizza Pilgrims' HMO failings • Labour sued by one of its own ex-councillors
How American tipping culture came to London
Plus: Andy Burnham's copy-and-paste pledge to the capital • Dawn Butler's mayoral fundraiser • The ongoing hunt for a luxury children's meal.
We tried London's first driverless bus
Scroll to the end for: Berlin Wall latest • More on the TfL hacker's motive • Picturehouse Central fully reopens • London's Norwegian connections
Talk About London podcast: How higher education powers the capital
In many ways, London’s universities and other higher education institutions encapsulate the character of the capital: international, innovative, highly varied, renowned as a world leader and big – there are about 140 organisations of different types and sizes across the city.
The teenage millionaire hacker from Tower Hamlets who took down TfL
Traced through his takeaway order • Began playing Roblox • Allegedly handled £200m in Crypto • Based in his family flat near Bow Road station • One of the country's leading hackers
London's rental scammers have infiltrated the schemes meant to stop them
London's scammers find a new tactic • "I felt sick... They’re doing everything except for actually having a flat." • What happens when the scammers get inside the systems?
John Vane: Hammersmith memories
I went to Hammersmith to learn about lesbians, to cross the Thames and to construct in my mind’s eye a pop star domestic scene that unfolded there four decades ago.
Who wants to be the Greens' mayoral candidate?
Plus: High street scam shops go to parliament • Palantir sues the mayor • Google's foxy HQ finally opens • Pret cornichon shortage latest
Charles Wright: London is now attracting more visitors than pre-pandemic
London seems increasingly to be the place that keyboard warriors and malign bots love to hate, to the extent that Sir Sadiq Khan will be launching a new £7 million mayoral tourism campaign later this year to counter a “flood of disinformation being peddled online”.
The heat is too damn high
The politicisation of air con • Frozen treats for animals • Deliveroo pays heat bonuses • Exclusive photo essay • Flash flood sewage spills • Refuse collectors talk maggots • When will it end?
London's schools can't cope with the heat
Plus: Boris Johnson's mystery plan for a second cable car • TfL hackers plead guilty • Brixton Market community bid submitted • It's really, really hot
What's really going on at Brixton Market?
The rush to raise £15m by Monday • London's indoor markets are facing fresh challenges • Who's actually wanting to buy it?
"Bring swords": The viral riot that didn't happen
Plus: Why hasn't the Putney Pusher suspect been named? • Wooden sleep boxes for bus drivers • Who wants our stories taken off Google?
Harry Potter shops raided after London Centric investigation
Plus: Is London’s iPhone theft era really coming to an end? • A £9.5m mansion next to Henry VIII's childhood home • Go underground for your phone coverage
London’s A-Level results: uneven outcomes, uncertain futures
As usual, headline reactions to the latest A-Level results, published last week, focussed on how bad it is that London schools did best. Almost 33 per cent of A-level entries were awarded A* or A grades, extending their lead over the rest of England.
Charles Wright: The impressive comeback of Hornsey Town Hall
The reorganisation of London local government in 1965 left a crop of redundant town halls across the capital. Hornsey Town Hall was arguably the finest of them.
Are goats being sacrificed in this Hackney office?
Live animals dragged into a trendy east London building and never seen again • Fire rituals in London cemeteries • Bones left by strangers' graves • What is going on?
What new powers over taxes do Londoners think City Hall should have?
Andy Burnham has made giving more power to regional and local government a centrepiece of his programme for national government. This has been welcomed by politicians, think tanks and business organisations alike.
Westminster: A further corrective to the confected ‘vertical drinking’ row
This might be labouring the point. But a vast and bovine media herd continues to swallow whole and passively regurgitate the arrant soufflé of a story that Westminster Council, in a frenzy of un-British, puritan fervour, intends to force alcohol consumers in Soho, Mayfair and…
Richard Derecki: Beyond food banks
It is a dark cloud hanging over our dynamic and wealth-creating economy that people, many people, continue to face food insecurity. They lack ready access to enough nutritious food for an active, healthy life, creating a toxic combination of hunger and uncertainty.
Festus Akinbusoye: Safer homes in London will make for safer streets
Sadiq Khan deserves credit for following the Scottish public health approach to serious youth violence with London’s own violence reduction unit (VRU).
John Vane: Passing time in DSQ
Arriving at SpecSavers early meant finding something to do. From the other side of Bishopsgate, Liverpool Street beckoned, with its milling travellers and safe retail.
Julie Hamill: Escher at Somerset House – marvellous, if overfull
As a young teenager I had loads of time with nothing to do. Outside of school, the paper round, homework and housework, I spent a lot of time…staring. My imagination was never more captivated than when inside a good stare, usually with headphones on, listening to music.
Richard Brown: London’s population fall results from politicians cutting immigration
The sense of glee was palpable yesterday in the Daily Telegraph’s reporting that London’s population fell last year for the first time since the pandemic.
Dave Hill: Number 10 North is style. Devolution is substance
It’s been a mixed picture so far. The new Prime Minister’s policy announcements about a bus fare price cap and cuts to Value Added Tax on electricity bills and to Business Rates for pubs, clubs and live music venues have the strengths of directly affecting everyday lives and…
James Cracknell: What next for Enfield’s New Town plan?
The government announced in March that London would be getting two New Towns, one at Thamesmead in Greenwich and the other at Crews Hill and Chase Park in Enfield, where housebuilding is set to be “accelerated”.
The Thames Water customers who can't shower in their own homes
Plus: The Oxford Street cable car that never was • Khan and the Met go to war over Palantir • The London council closing its children's water play areas in a heatwave
Julie Hamill: Come to the Cabaret, old chum (but maybe don’t sing along)
I recently went to the Harold Pinter Theatre to see Liberace and Liza: A Tribute, an affectionate homage to those showbiz giants, Wladziu Liberace and Liza Minnelli. The two performers’ impressions of the stars were uncannily accurate.