Category Archives: London

Local election leaflets show Tory candidates are ‘ashamed’ to be associated with Boris Johnson, Labour says – as it happened

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Angela Rayner says Tory candidates at the local elections ‘are trying to hide from their own government’s record’. This live blog is closed – please follow this one for updates on the war in Ukraine

Savanta ComRes has published some new polling on voting intention in Scottish parliaement elections. Here are the figures for the constituency section.

And here are the figures for the list section.

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Crossrail: much-delayed Elizabeth line to open on 24 May

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Tunnelled section of £19bn project through centre of London finally ready for passengers

London’s Elizabeth line is to open on 24 May, it has been announced, with the long-delayed tunnelled central section of the £19bn Crossrail project now ready for passengers.

Transport for London (TfL) said the line would open, subject to final safety approvals, the week prior to the Queen’s jubilee celebrations.

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Met police commissioner: likely candidates to succeed Cressida Dick

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The possible contenders remaining in the race to take the top job in London policing

It is not the done thing for candidates for the Metropolitan police commissionership to publicly discuss their candidacy, and those who apply will face an anxious wait to see if they have made the shortlist.

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White, male field likely in search for new Met head as frontrunner steps aside

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Decision by Lynne Owens not to apply leaves former top officer turned thriller writer Mark Rowley a favourite

A frontrunner to be the next Metropolitan police commissioner has said she will not apply, leaving a former top cop turned thriller-writer as one of the favourites for the role.

Lynne Owens was the previous director general of the National Crime Agency and stood down last year to focus on her treatment for cancer. On Tuesday she wrote on Twitter that she had spent weeks considering whether to apply for the post of Britain’s top officer, but her decision was not health related.

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Met seeks further bid to challenge high court ruling on Sarah Everard vigil

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Scotland Yard seeking permission from court of appeal to challenge ruling that Met’s decisions in run-up to vigil were ‘not in accordance with the law’

The Metropolitan police is seeking a further attempt to challenge the high court’s ruling that officers breached the rights of organisers of a vigil for Sarah Everard last year.

High court judges earlier this month refused the Met permission to appeal against its ruling in March about the force’s handling of the planned event.

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Met officer accused of paralysing black man loses bid for anonymity

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Imran Mahmood was charged with grievous bodily harm after Jordan Walker-Brown was left paralysed from the chest down

A Metropolitan police officer accused of grievous bodily harm after a black man was left paralysed from the chest down has been named after losing a bid to keep his name from the public domain.

Imran Mahmood, 35, was charged with grievous bodily harm on 31 March and had sought anonymity from Westminster magistrates court after expressing concern of Jordan Walker-Brown’s alleged links to criminal gangs, according to the PA news agency, which sought submission of the officer’s name alongside other media organisations.

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Play about ‘great escape’ from German prison camp to be staged at Alexandra Palace

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The story of the real-life escape from Stalag Luft III in 1944 is to be told at the London venue used as an internment camp for ‘enemy aliens’ during the first world war

The story behind the audacious 1944 escape from the Luftwaffe’s Stalag Luft III prison camp is to be retold in a new play at London’s Alexandra Palace, which was itself used as an internment camp for German, Austrian and Hungarian “enemy aliens” during the first world war.

Tom, Dick and Harry will recount the breakout of 76 allied airmen from the camp at Sagan in Germany (now Żagań in Poland) which inspired the 1963 film The Great Escape, featuring an all-star cast and a thrilling though fictitious motorbike exploit for Steve McQueen. The play is written by Theresa Heskins, Andrew Pollard and Michael Hugo with Heskins also directing.

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Volunteers to be used for 999 calls in London as ambulance service struggles

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Pilot scheme will see trained volunteers responding to ‘category three’ calls where extra help needed due to mobility problems

Volunteers could be responding to urgent 999 calls in London within weeks, as the capital’s ambulance service tries to tackle mounting delays.

A pilot scheme, revealed in London ambulance service (LAS) board papers at the end of March, will focus on people who fall into “category three”, where they require a response within two hours, and need extra help because of mobility problems.

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UK rail passengers face ‘disastrous weekend’ of Easter travel disruption

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Dozens of services to and from London cancelled, and strike action hits TransPennine Express routes

Rail passengers face a “disastrous weekend” of disruption as engineering works and strikes hamper one of the busiest Easter getaways in years.

Dozens of services to and from London have been cancelled as Network Rail carries out 530 engineering projects across the bank holiday weekend.

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Metropolitan police officer found guilty of child sex offences

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Francois Olwage convicted of grooming after arranging to meet undercover officer he believed to be 13-year-old girl

A Metropolitan police counter-terrorism officer has been found guilty of three child sex offences after he arranged to a meet a 13-year-old girl for sex when he was “on duty working from home”.

Francois Olwage, a detective constable who was serving with the Met’s specialist operations unit, was convicted of grooming someone he believed to be a 13-year-old girl he had met on the Lycos online chat forum.

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XR scientists glue hands to business department in London climate protest

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Affiliates of Scientists for Extinction Rebellion highlight climate science they say government is ignoring

Twenty-five scientists have pasted pages of scientific papers to the windows of the UK Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, and glued their hands to the glass to highlight the climate science they said the government was ignoring.

The scientists, affiliated with Scientists for Extinction Rebellion, swooped on the department’s building at 1 Victoria Street, Westminster, London, just after 11am. Doctors and health professionals staged a decoy action to give them space to get into position.

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At least 40% of child-to-parent violence in UK unreported, study finds

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Rate of abuse against parents is highest among 19- to 25-year-olds and most perpetrators are male

At least 40% of child-to-parent violence and abuse incidents are unreported to police, according to research.

The study into the “hidden harm” commissioned by the London mayor’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) found that the rate of violence and abuse against parents and carers was highest among those aged 19-25, and 81% of perpetrators were male.

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Extinction Rebellion stages mass protest in central London

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Activists call for end to fossil fuel investment at sit-down demonstration in Regent Street and Oxford Circus

Supporters of the environmental activist group Extinction Rebellion have taken part in a mass sit-down protest in the heart of London’s shopping district.

Several thousand demonstrators with multicoloured flags bearing the group’s “extinction” symbol gathered near Marble Arch on Saturday morning as samba bands warmed up.

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Family of Sabina Nessa call killer a ‘coward’ for refusing to attend court

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Koci Selamaj did not attend sentencing for murder of 28-year-old primary school teacher in London

Sabina Nessa’s family called her killer a “coward” when he refused to come to court to be sentenced for her murder on Thursday.

Koci Selamaj, 36, drove to London from his home in Eastbourne on the south coast to carry out a premeditated attack on a woman after being spurned by his estranged wife.

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Cressida Dick to leave Met police with £166,000 payoff

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Met commissioner to step down on 10 April, with search for replacement expected to take months

Cressida Dick will leave her role as commissioner of the Metropolitan police with a payoff of £166,000, the Guardian understands.

Dick announced her resignation in February after clashing with the London mayor, Sadiq Khan. She officially ceases to be commissioner on 24 April.

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Environmental protesters block oil terminals across UK

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Activists climb on tankers and glue themselves to roads around London, Birmingham and Southampton

Hundreds of environmental protesters have blocked seven oil terminals across the country as part of a campaign to paralyse the UK’s fossil fuel infrastructure.

Early on Friday, supporters of Just Stop Oil began blockades at oil refineries around London, Birmingham and Southampton by climbing on top of tankers and gluing themselves to road surfaces.

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Cressida Dick to leave Met police role in April, says Priti Patel

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Home secretary says deputy commissioner Sir Stephen House will cover until successor appointed

The Metropolitan police commissioner, Dame Cressida Dick, will leave her job in April, months before her replacement is named, the home secretary has confirmed.

Dick resigned last month but agreed to stay on in the post until arrangements to appoint her successor had been finalised.

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Goverment agrees to review of how Cressida Dick was ousted as Met chief

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Review may look at communications between police and City Hall after clash with Sadiq Khan but will not ‘change any outcomes’

Cressida Dick has won a victory after the government agreed to a review of how she came to leave office after a clash with the London mayor, Sadiq Khan.

The Home Office is expected to announce it will ask Sir Tom Winsor to examine how Dick came to be ousted as commissioner of the Metropolitan police last month, a government source confirmed.

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Hundreds of boaters join London protest against ‘cull’ of waterway life

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Boat dwellers stage demonstration about new moves by the Canal & River Trust to restrict mooring spaces

Hundreds of boaters converged in west London’s Little Venice area on Saturday to protest about what they say is a “cull” of a traditional way of life along the capital’s waterways.

The boat dwellers staged a demonstration about new moves by the Canal & River Trust (CRT), a charity which manages the waterways in England and Wales, to restrict mooring spaces in some parts of the capital and to issue enforcement notices against some who officials say are mooring their boats in the wrong areas. The CRT began issuing enforcement notices in January of this year.

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