The plight of London’s renters grows worse by the day. Accommodation in the capital devours 40 per cent of their income. Supply has fallen and rents have soared, hitting poorer households hardest. The number of Londoners in temporary accommodation matches the population of Blackburn. Cross-party local authority body London Councils has declared a “housing emergency” with private sector renting a prime cause. That emergency is dragging London down. What is to be done? Generation Rent believes it has some answers. Launched in 2014, it speaks up for private renters and has clout with landlords, p ..read more

There are number of reasons why a car repair shop in Bexley was an apt location for the launch of Susan Hall’s London Mayor manifesto. One is that it highlighted a feature of the biography the Conservative Party candidate has presented to the London electorate: learning how to strip down an engine in a garage owned by her father. Another is that a counter-offensive against the so-called “war on motorists” spearheads her attacks on Labour incumbent Sadiq Khan. A third, if we’re being impolite, is that certain events on her campaign journey have attracted the description “car crash”, such as liv ..read more

I was looking for the synagogue when I saw the flag of Palestine. It wasn’t all that prominent in the Newbury Park streetscape – not hung high in full view – but flying from the front of a fast food shop. It was, though, quite visible enough to make its point to customers and passers-by. The synagogue was very near, but hard to find. I had to telephone to get directions. It was set back off the street behind security gates. But once through them, the welcome I received was warm. Jordan Helfman showed me round the building, putting on his kippah as we entered the prayer hall. Aged 40, he has be ..read more

The number of babies born in London has been falling of late but the capital still saw 107,000 of them enter the world in 2022. Are their mothers doing well? The answer in many cases will be not as well as they should be. In the most recent major study of discrimination faced by women during pregnancy and early motherhood three out of four mothers said they had faced a “negative or possibly discriminatory experience” during pregnancy, maternity leave or on returning to work. Eleven per cent said they had had to leave their jobs, the vast majority taking that decision themselves because they fe ..read more

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