The government today accepted recommendations from a report about improving public-military relations which included the appointment of a "cadet ambassador" for London to do "everything possible" to urge schools to start Combined Cadet Forces and get their pupils to join them and enjoy "a taste of the military". Currently, there are 253 CCFs in England and Wales but only about 60 are in state schools. They provide extra-curricular "military-orientated and adventurous training" with the......

Westminster Council, never known for grand philanthropic gestures, is now leading calls for a curb on soup runs and food distribution to the homeless. The argument, which is supported by no less than homeless champion John Bird, is that easy access to food will only proliferate homelessness, as it removes some of the spur to find work and shelter. It is also true that there are some who have accommodation but still seek to cash......

Four Tories want to be our next Mayor. We contacted each of them to see where they stand on London's most pressing issues. And, of course, whether they've ever been sick on the Tube. Andrew Boff was the first to return answers. As Mayor, the Boffmeister would shrink the Boroughs, remove the C-charge...and use Second Life instead of the airports? Where do you live in London and what do you like best about it?......

Apologies for the first-person perspective - normal service will resume after this post. About a year ago, Phil, a friend of mine, had a run-in with the British Transport Police over the use of a four-letter word - "shit" - when describing the accuracy or otherwise of a metal detector set up at Highbury & Islington station. I witnessed the whole thing and wrote about it on Londonist; the story was then picked up......

If you've ever taken a river taxi or party boat you'd probably like to think you're in as safe hands as you were boarding a 747. Today the Transport Select Committee urged that the current Boatmaster's Licence held by captains of such vehicles be suspended pending further review. An updated licence was introduced by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency in January of this year and immediately criticised by boatmen themselves, the RMT and representatives......

This looks like a fun (and illegal) read: Glorifying Terrorism is a science fiction anthology. With an introduction by Andrew McKie of the Daily Telegraph, it features contributions by top UK SF writers Ian Watson, Gwyneth Jones, Ken MacLeod, and Charles Stross. The anthology highlights the flaws in recent UK government legislation that criminalizes ‘encouragement of terrorism’. The 2006 Terrorism Act makes it a criminal offence to incite or encourage others to commit acts......

Event of the Week Battle of Ideas at the Royal College of Art, all weekend The Battle of Ideas is, according to their website, 'an annual festival of social, political, scientific, academic and cultural discussion'. In other, more juvenile words, it's a mass debate. And it's probably going to get quite messy. The panel-led discussions, organised by the Institute of Ideas, are designed to cut through the crap and get down to some genuine......

September 29th, 1829 Scotland Yard was founded along with the Metropolitan Police by Sir Robert Peel. Legislation introduced by Peel reorganized the London police force and policemen were affectionately nicknamed 'Bobbies' and 'Peelers' after him. Originally, there were only 1,000 constables employed. Although at first unpopular, they proved very successful in cutting crime in London and by 1835 all cities in the UK were establishing their own police forces. A principled man (and overseer......

Crossrail news: Macca is furious. He has joined a campaign to block legislation which proposes to allow the proposed rail link to be built underneath his London headquarters. The former mop-topped Wings legend is convinced that the Crossrail Bill, if given the go ahead, will render the recording studio at his Soho office useless due to the vibrations caused by tunnelling, and then passing trains. Paul McCartney is a fool – Crossrail will never......

Are you worried about the creeping loss of civil liberties in Britain? We are, having had our own run-in with heavy-handed police not so long ago. So when we received the following email, we thought it'd be a great idea to post it up here, in order that as many of you as possible might read it and with any luck decide to take part: A recent law has made it illegal to protest......

Poor Eric Forth. He died rather suddenly and tragically last week, which came as a great shock to his fellow M.P.s, to whom Forth was a well-liked and revered character. He was a parliamentarian to the core, making speeches without notes, and filibustering government legislation (whilst this can be seen to be purely obstructive, the way he did it was most erudite). Forth's colourful ties and waistcoats reflected his character. He will be sorely......

The traffic warden - one of the most hated jobs in London. The hatred is especially prominent in Camden, where a protest will take place against the number of tickets given in the borough. At least 200 cars will encircle the Town Hall, their disgruntled drivers dressed as pirates, to reinforce their claim that parking enforcement is banditry. The oddest display, however, will be a picket consisting of cabbies and local celebrities, including Michael......

It's been a good week for pissing off the neighbours. Firstly it was a couple of ickle pussy cats in Camberwell, now it's the thought of thousands of James Blunt fans roaming endlessly across London's green and pleasant spaces, high on spritzers and Sainsburys' bacon crunchies. Let's face it, London isn't Worthy Farm, probably looked a bit like it once, but isn't likely to do so again (unless TMFB has his way). So if......

A quiet day today. Nevertheless... Sleaze Enquiries Must Improve, says Graham Chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Sir Alistair Graham has today criticised the Prime Minister for not conducting decent enquiries into sleaze. After the recent Jowell incident, Sir Alistair said that a clearer system for investigation into sleaze should be set out in the ministerial code itself, and that the current system is responsible for the public's distrust of politicians.......

Clarke Remains Defiant After Lords Defeat Home Secretary Charles Clarke has vowed to battle on with his proposed ID cards legislation after it was defeated in the Lords last night. Their Lordships, many of whom come from a law background, feel that making the cards compulsary, is an infringement of people's human rights, and as such, is beyond the power of Government. They duly voted 227 to 166 against the proposal last night. Whether......

This Londonista lives on a 'block' with 15 properties. Amongst those living there are a musician, a photographer, a teacher, three social workers, a business counselor, an actress who played a small role in The Empire Strikes Back, a technical manager and production manager for two well respected London theatres, a guy who runs his own cleaning business, a long distance lorry driver, and a river pilot. Apparently even Caroline Quentin lived here once.......

There can be few buildings in Europe to match the splendor of the Palace of Westminster. Millions of tourists, some of them off-worlders, flock to the landmark each year, even if few actually enter. But a couple of weeks back (and sorry to keep going on about it) Londonist did just that. Our tour of the houses of parliament inspired us to find out more about the architect, Charles Barry. Was this his only......

David Cameron has barely been Leader of the Opposition for a quarter of a year, and already he seems to have abandoned his aversion to the "Punch and Judy politics" of Prime Minister's Questions. He and Blair tossed "flip flop" insults at each other today. Mr. Blair is apparently flip-flopping over his educational reforms. It seems that he has realised how embarrassing it would be if the only reason his reforms passed through the......

We all know that you don't put diesel in your tank if your car takes four star unleaded. But we're still more than happy to fill our bodies full of shit, happily ignoring the damage we're doing to our own internal engines. Obesity levels in the UK have doubled since the 1980s and the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) now claims that over a third of 2 to 15 year olds in the UK......

With a lot of media attention diverted towards Ruth Kelly's supposed misdemeanors over at the Department for Education and Skills, it has been a fairly subdued week here in the Palace of Westminster. However, the fires are still raging over government plans to combat terrorism, including implementing biometric ID cards. The Terror Bill, which contains a clause that outlaws the "glorification of terrorism", was defeated in the House of Lords yesterday by 270 to......

Shock news: People weren’t arrested outside parliament yesterday. Indeed, a group of carol singers, who were previously threatened with arrest under the Serious Organised Crimes and Police Act, were allowed to wassail unmolested in Parliament Square. The law bans demonstrating without police permission within a half mile radius of the Palace of Westminster, as Maya Evans, one of last night’s carollers, found out recently when she was arrested outside Downing Street for reading out......

Following on from Blair's defeat over the 90 day nonsense there's a brilliant piece in The Guardian that pulls apart The Sun's pro-Tony stance by talking to the person whose photograph from the 7th of July was placed under their headline 'Tell Tony He's Right'. Not only was bomb victim John Tulloch against yesterday's proposal he's also anti Blair and outlines very eloquently exactly why. "This is using my image to push through draconian......

If you read our little report on the growing tensions between the capital's Critical Mass movement and The Met last week and were wondering what the upshot was, then read on... If you remember the Met had warned Critical Mass that unless they received prior warning of the route then arrests may have to be made. The test of the police's resolve took palce last Friday when Critical Mass held their first event since......

There's been a quite a few Olympics stories popping up over the past few days, but we're quite aware that it's still seven years away and we're not all that bothered yet. So we thought that we'd save them all up and stick them all in one post to save a bit of time and energy. So, here we go: The story that's probably of most interest to the average Londonist reader (and the......

The BT Tower is 40 years old today! Staff at the tower are marking the celebration with a party , so if we hear of a rash of fatalities in the West End caused by vol-au-vents thrown from 620ft above ground level, we'll know that things have got out of hand. It seems to us that the Tower, formerly known as the Post Office Tower, is one of those structures that we can always......

82 year old Labour actually. Londoner Walter Wolfgang made the mistake of disagreeing with Jack Straw at yesterday's Labour Conference and found himself manhandled and ejected by security guards. The pensioner shouted "nonsense" in reply to Straw's defense of the government's Iraq policy and was pounced upon by three men the size of sumo wrestlers. Another man sat nearby tried to intervene and was also thrown out. An over reaction by security staff perhaps,......

A woman walks up to a bar. "Can I have a glass of water, please." A questioning look from the barman. "Could I see some proof of age, Madam?" No, it’s not some Orwellian union betwixt ID card legislation and the new drinking laws - not yet, anyway. Rather, it’s an exchange that’s sure to be heard this week on the South Bank, where over-18s are being offered the chance to drink the river......

Yesterday we had quite a discussion in the comments sections of a couple of posts concerning the police action that resulted in the death of Jean Charles de Menezes (whose body was flown home earlier today). One of the participants in yesterday's discussion pointed us in the direction of an article by John Gardner, a Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Oxford, and occasional Visiting Professor at Yale Law School. In it Professor......

Well it really does seem to be 'Free London papers day' today. First of all there's all the London Line news (did we mention what a great alternative paper that is yet?). Then there's the announcement by the Office of Fair Trading confirming that Associated Newspapers, has agreed to give up its exclusive rights to the afternoon and evening 'tube slots'. And now Ken has said that he wants to go one step further......

160 Londoners have been struck down by a menace that even the tightest of totalitarian legislation would have been powerless against - the humble kebab. Environmental health officers have traced a trail of "severe diarrhoea, vomiting, fever and cold sweats" to a single kebab shop in Manor Park according to the Beeb. At one point ambulances had to be diverted to other A&Es and away from Newham hospital in scenes that must have resembled......