I plug in my iPhone to charge but no zig zag appears in the box. The settings indicate that the battery needs replacing as it’s almost four years old and lead me to the Apple Genius Bar. I get a same-day appointment for 10.50am at the Regent Street Apple HQ. Clever. History has taught me these appointments are always longer than ten minutes, so I take my laptop with me so I can work while I wait.   I’m seen by a guy named Steve. He is quite familiar to me but I’m not sure why.    As he is running all the diagnostic tests I pull out my laptop and open it to a flyer on Canva ..read more

Sadiq Khan had Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner at his manifesto launch for next week’s mayoral election, and Liberal Democrat candidate Rob Blackie attracted his party leader Ed Davey, but Conservative contender Susan Hall took a lower-key approach this week. She chose to launch her manifesto in a car repair shop in Bexley, perhaps befitting a concise set of pledges on “bread-and-butter” issues billed as her “contract with London”, albeit with a distinctly outer London tinge at least in parts. The headlines have, of course, been extensively trailed since campaigning started – more “bobbie ..read more

Look at the poverty map of national charity Fair By Design and discover, had you not already known, that London has more than its fair share of people struggling to get by. A city defined for some by The Apprentice and tales of the global super-rich is thrown into sharp relief by the dark bruises covering much of the map. They represent percentages of households paying a “poverty premium” or, as Fair By Design puts it, “the extra cost of being poor”. Fair By Design is dedicated to alleviating that extra cost, which accrues from the higher amounts paid by people on low incomes for everyday prod ..read more

With just a week to go before the election for Mayor on 2 May, dividing lines between the main City Hall contenders became clearer as they went head-to-head last night in an hour-long BBC London debate. BBC Radio London presenter Eddie Nestor quizzed Labour incumbent Sadiq Khan and his Conservative rival Susan Hall on crime, housing and transport, the three main areas of City Hall responsibility, alongside Liberal Democrat and Green Party candidates Rob Blackie and Zoë Garbett. The Ultra-Low Emission Zone expansion was inevitably a focus, despite the debate audience not being so sure when aske ..read more

Building more council homes – 40,000 more by 2030 – is a central pledge in Sadiq Khan’s manifesto for the coming mayoral election. It’s an eye-catching promise at a time when 78 per cent of Londoners say the capital is facing a housing crisis, according to recent Redfield and Wilton polling for On London. Almost nobody would deny the city needs more homes. But Khan’s performance to date, his manifesto says, shows that “with the right approach and the right priorities, it’s possible to make progress” in delivering “homes that Londoners can actually afford”. So how does the Mayor’s record stack ..read more

London’s nightlife has been taking a pasting: a recent (not very scientific) survey suggested that the city has the worst nightlife in the UK; pubs and clubs are closing down, their numbers falling by eight and 30 per cent respectively since 2010 according to UK business counts; industry bodies say that London is losing nightlife faster than other regions; and social media reports frequently bewail empty pubs, dead streets and early closing times. What is to blame for this thinning out? There is a grim alignment of factors: changing drinking habits, higher prices and constrained wages, staff s ..read more

Sadiq Khan is consistently ahead in the polls and even if the gap may be closing slightly parts of Redfield and Wilton’s recent detailed survey for On London confirm the strength of his position. However, it also provides plenty of reasons for expecting the election result to be tighter than those polls have been suggesting. First, the good news for Khan. Redfield and Wilton found over half (55 per cent) of Londoners think him a strong candidate for Labour, compared to 35 per cent who say the same about the Conservatives’ Susan Hall – not too bad for an incumbent seeking an unprecedented ..read more

I find organising events nerve-racking: there are so many arrangements to be made and things to remember. Then, having barely crossed the final item off my list, I find myself alone in an empty venue with 20 minutes to go until the start, hoping and praying that enough people turn up to save me from acute embarrassment. Then, my grateful relief as the seats start to fill up is rudely disturbed by my remembering something else. Help! I’ve got to stand up and speak! All of those anxieties and emotions featured in my build-up to last night’s On London gathering above my local Lower Clapton corner ..read more

I got a phone call last week from a lady from Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ, the people who’ve lately brought you a TV interview with Sadiq Khan doctored to make it sound as if Labour supports antisemitism (“it’s been clipped”: R. Holden) and the video that famously contained footage from a station in New York, portrayed London as so crime-ridden that children cower in fear inside their own homes, and described Khan as having “seized power” (all excused as probably the work of an “inexperienced intern”). What did the CCHQ lady want? She was solicitous and polite. “I’m calling about ..read more

Big ticket pledges on free school meals for all London primary school children and the Transport for London fares freeze were the centrepieces of Labour contender Sadiq Khan’s manifesto for the coming mayoral election, launched yesterday at a venue on the Greenwich peninsula. The manifesto says that the meals programme, introduced last year, will be made permanent, with its complementary school holiday provision for low-income families continuing as well. The pay-as-you-go fares freeze, currently running until at least 2025, will also stay in place “as long as economic conditions allow”. The m ..read more