It may sound like a stage direction from Star Trek: The Musical, but plans to "rephase" London's traffic lights have been unveiled by transport czars. In the days following his election in May, Boris Johnson demanded an improvement to traffic flow, and transport commish Peter Hendy has authored a report that finds adding a mere two seconds onto each cycle of traffic lights could drastically reduce congestion. The adjustments are already underway, and around......

Plans for a pedestrianised Parliament Square piazza (a tautology, surely?) have been scotched by City Hall. Mayor Boz has decided to review an £18m plan minted by his predecessor to "do a Traf Square" on the area, paving the southern bit beside Westminster Abbey and putting in extra benches in aid of turning it into a nice spot to gather and graze. The reason for this rethink? Concerns over traffic congestion, an issue that......

Nelson Mandela arrived in London yesterday in anticipation of his 90th birthday concert that takes place in Hyde Park this weekend. The former South African president is a frequent visitor to these parts: just last year he unveiled his statue in Parliament Square, and he has long recognised London's contribution to the overthrow of apartheid in his native country. Mandela probably wants little more than to relax, but for such a statesman, politics are......

Bush Protest, Parliament Square courtesy of randydandy via the Londonist Flickr pool Following on from our weekend report on the anti-George Bush protests in Parliament Square on Sunday a whole crop of photos have been posted in the Londonist Flickr pool capturing the passion behind the protest and the frankly alarming flashpoint as police barricaded Whitehall. Courtesy of Simon Rigglesworth via the Londonist Flickr pool 25 arrests were reported as allegations of heavy handed policing......

Amid the soap opera of the US Presidential Elections, and with all eyes focused on who will be next in the White House, it has become all too easy to forget that George W Bush is still officially the man in power across the pond. Having been something of a forgotten figure in the British press of late, Bush arrived in the UK today to fulfil the demanding task of sipping tea with the......

It seems Ken Livingstone isn't content with the new, faster Eurostar, but wants to make London actually resemble Paris. He is proposing pedestrianised, tree-lined streets a la the French capital and even wants to get us our own version of the famous Paris Plage, the artificial beach that takes over the Right Bank of the Seine. For this, the Mayor wants to shut a section of the Victoria Embankment's four lanes from traffic. Other......

Meet Language. Based in East London (but not defined by it!), they've chosen their myspace category to be "melodramatic popular song", are obsessed with falafel, like dressing in black, have a song called "Theme for a Porno", record on Hornsey Road and were screwed out of a producer by Kate Nash. They're not bitter mind. We were going to tell you our favourite song but having just listened to them all again on myspace......

After seven years of speculation and debate, London today finally unveiled its tribute to Nelson Mandela. The 9’ high, 1 tonne statue was unveiled by the man himself in the presence of an impressive cast of London’s ‘great and good’, including Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Ken Livingstone and Lord Richard Attenborough. The proceedings were watched by a vast and cheering crowd, and overseen by Disraeli, Churchill, Lincoln and former South African leader Jan Smuts from......

This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 14. The Right To Protest It seems to me that the government is particularly exposed whenever it is seen to block the right of its citizens to protest. Freedom of speech and the right to protest are two of the founding pillars of democracy, and that is what the government is fighting so many wars......

This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 9. Corporate Social Responsibility? I reckon the Tories were on to a goodun when they began their social responsibility gubbins which, throbbing away, is “the heart of modern conservatism”. Not sure who started it first but all the big corporate have been lapping it up too for a while now. As Mr Google will show......

The one-man protest that is Brian Haw, the only demonstrator allowed to air his views inside Parliament Square, may find himself surrounded soon. Instead of police circling him, however, it may well be other placard-waving peaceniks. Newly-minted PM Gordon Brown has called for a change in laws squelching the public’s right to protest within the grounds immediately surrounding Parliament. Currently, demonstrating in this area without prior police permission is prohibited by the Serious Organised......

This is a new weekend column brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 3. Moustaches and Manifestos So far, it’d been a pretty action packed day. First we’d seen the Shadow Minister for London, who had suggested that regard for issues of respect and social responsibility appeared to be on the rise after a period of neglect over recent years and decades. We’d then encountered the......

This is a new weekend column brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 2. The difference a few metres of tarmac makes Last week, Liz mentioned our meeting with Jacqui Lait, the Shadow Minister for London. Having left her office, we went in search of a pint but got sidetracked at Parliament Square. As you may know…on 2nd June 2001 Brian Haw set up a demonstration......

The kind of record-breaking attempt where you balance an egg on your head while performing La Traviata backwards in a vat of custard - Londonist thinks those are pretty lame, on the whole. The kind of record-breaking attempt where you stand up for free speech in the UK while pointing out the ridiculousness of the paranoid laws introduced by the government which curb the right to protest, however - those are the kind of......

There have been some pretty big acts of protest in the past. The self immolation of Thích Quảng Đức as protest against the treatment of Buddhists by the authoritarian administration governing South Vietnam; the lone protester who tried to stop four advancing tanks in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989; Brian Haw's protest in Parliament Square since June 2001. However, these efforts have all been eclipsed by workers from a Burberry factory in South......

Someone has updated the statue of Sir Winston Churchill standing in Parliament Square: A statue of Sir Winston Churchill has been attacked by vandals. Red paint was streaked across the stone plinth on which the statue stands... The Metropolitan Police said the incident, which was reported on Sunday afternoon, was being treated as criminal damage. Well it depends which way you look at it. A splash of colour cheers everyone up and the old......

Kentish Town Cyclist, Nik Shah, is taking the time to try and make the morning commute a little more interesting by using it as a poke in the government's eye. PledgeBank is the implement of choice in an attempt to organise a Valentine's Day protest against The Serious Organised Crime and Police Acton: "I will commute past Westminster on a bike wearing a vest that says "SOCPA sucks" but only if 10 other local......

It's New Years Eve and if like us you're very bad at making plans more than 12 hours in advance, you might be looking for something to do tonight. Equally if you were planning to go to The Truman Show in Shoreditch then you should probably know that it's been cancelled due to 'surprise' secret acts The Kooks pulling out due to illness. In any case here are our top tips: For the danceheads:......

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......

As we reported earlier, Parliament Square protestor Brian Haw has had his protest stripped down to just a couple of placards. Police turned up at 2:45am and removed most of his placards, and many of his possessions. Naturally, Londonist just had to go down to Westminster and ask Haw what was going on. When we arrived, Haw being mobbed by photographers, cameramen and reporters, including a crew from an Iranian TV station. A group......

According to the BBC police visited Parliament Square in the early hours of this morning to remove placards from the scene of Brian Haw's vigil. The placards are apparently a "breach of Mr Haw's demonstration condition" since the Court of Appeal overturned the ruling that allowed Haw to demonstrate outside Parliament despite the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (aka 'the Haw Law') which outlaws unauthorised protests within a 1km zone of Parliament......

We promised to keep you updated on what was happening with the statue of Nelson Mandela that Westminster City Council wanted no part of. Well it finally looks like it'll be finding a place in Parliament Square. Or Canning Green. "The clock would start ticking as soon as we have a planning application. With all this pre-planning hopefully it would be a matter of months before it would come through." Good grief. We're not......

Quite often, one can be walking/cycling/driving through Parliament Square and see Brian Haw, the now world-famous protestor, standing in his underpants washing himself. Now it's not a pretty sight, and nor are some of his posters, but you have got to admire the man's conviction. Whether you think he's a champion of the anti-war movement, or a few sandwiches short of a picnic (he DID leave his family to hold his protest, which has......

Stretching from Euston Road to the Thames, the inscrutable red marking appeared a couple of months ago. Londonist was unable to get to the bottom of it, despite walking the entire route. BBC London TV also investigated, but were similarly baffled. Step up to the plate Robert Elms, host of Londonist’s favourite radio show (BBC London 12-3pm). One of his listeners raised the question of the line, and Robert decided to investigate. A series......

After spending last week photographing dead presidents, we thought it only decent to turn our services to former British prime ministers. The Parliament Square Collection Dead monarchs have Westminster Abbey; prime ministers have Parliament Square. There’s six of the blighters here, with a seventh – David Lloyd George – in the works if funding can be raised. Canning by Richard Westmacott (1832); Peel by Matthew Noble (1851); Lord Derby also by Noble (1874); Palmerston......

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, How are thy leaves so verdant! O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, Much pleasure doth thou bring me O chipping machine O chipping machine, How are thy teeth so razor sharp! O chipping machine O chipping machine, Much mulch doth thou bring us. Did you like that? It's just our little ode to the Norwegain Christmas tree which got shredded today by Jenny Jones of the Green London......

That’s right. This week we decided to track down the Leader of the Free World. He might sit in the oval office but, when in London, it seems that he prefers to hang out in squares… FDR, Grosvenor Square You can’t sit comfortably in Grosvenor Square. Armed guards doggedly patrol the Western end, protecting the US embassy. The giant gilt eagle nesting atop this concrete cliff adds another layer of menace. And then there’s its......

If you are willing to step out tomorrow night despite the impending tube strike then you'll probably be wanting to catch the New Year's Eve fireworks display put on by Ken & Co. All the details are here but, as you might imagine, the fireworks will commence when Big Ben strikes midnight and will last for a good ten minutes. Apparently the display will be visible from "wherever you can see the Eye." There......

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......

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......