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Richard Brown: Burnham should help London address its rising rough sleeping problem

Britain's street homeless are more numerous in the capital than anywhere else but more devolved powers and resources, not national programmes, are key to tackling the problem
Richard Brown

New Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s first-day pledge “to end long-term rough sleeping across the UK” is interesting, not only for confronting head-on a persistent and complex problem that shames our society, but also in choosing one which is at its most acute in London.

Rough sleeping is the most visible symptom of a system in crisis. On one night in autumn last year there were 1,277 people recorded as sleeping on the capital’s streets, around 27 per cent of the total number in England. These figures have more or less trebled (both in London and nationwide) since 2010, with a decrease during the pandemic when space was found in hotels to get “everyone in”. A different survey found that around 13,000 people were sleeping rough in London during the course of 2025/26.

As the Mayor’s Rough Sleeping Plan of Action (published in May last year) observes, London’s numbers are high not only because people in crisis often move to the capital when they have nowhere else to go and because London is a first port of call for many migrants, but also because other parts of the system are under such intense strain. London’s local authorities have a duty to prevent homelessness but have to deal with many more households in need than in other parts of the country: 55 per cent of English households in temporary accommodation are in London and 59 per cent of those with children.

This massive caseload means that councils’ ability to intervene to prevent homelessness, or to help those who are not defined as in “priority need”, is constrained. It also results in London boroughs placing more people in temporary accommodation in other towns and cities, causing additional stress for homeless people and knock-on effects for housing availability outside the capital. There is no way to tackle the crisis nationally without tackling it in London.

The exceptionally high number of households being supported in temporary accommodation (75,000 in London towards the end of 2025) is in turn a symptom of the deepening unaffordability of private rented accommodation and the shortage of other move-on options for people living in B&Bs or hostels. London Councils research from 2024 found that only five per cent of London rental listings were affordable to people receiving housing benefits (compared to the 30 per cent that are meant to be).

Through a system-wide approach to these interlocked crises, the Mayor’s plan sets out an objective for 2030, which reflects ambition but also reality: “We will aim to prevent rough sleeping wherever possible, and where it does occur we will aim to make it rare, brief and not repeated.”

The plan seeks a boost to provision of affordable and specialist housing supply to enable people to find sustainable and affordable homes. In the medium-term, it argues for local housing allowances that reflect the price of private renting in London, so that people are not evicted for being unable to afford their rent. And in the immediate term, it proposes better co-ordination between public services and voluntary organisations, simpler ways for people at risk to access services before they end up on the street, and targeted support for vulnerable people such as migrants and those leaving prisons and hospitals.

There is, of course, a list of “asks” for central government. I suspect Andy Burnham knows that other cities and city authorities are dusting down their own lists following his remarks on Monday. The problem is, many of those requests involve more money (for housebuilding, for housing benefits, for local authority services) in the short-term with longer-term returns on that investment quite possibly enabling savings in the long-term, though these might benefit other departmental budgets, be elusive or difficult to clearly quantify.

Burnham may already be hearing Whitehall whispers that his pledge can only be delivered by a major new national programme co-ordinated across different government departments with which he can be personally associated. This would entail grants being distributed to local authorities for delivering a package of reforms that central government experts think will make a difference. He should ignore ignore these voices, and instead devolve faster and further, so that London and other big cities can make the necessary changes themsleves.

The Greater London Authority’s integrated funding settlement for the next three years already includes more than £100 million for homelessness, rough sleeping and supported housing services. Tying this in with welfare payments, with health services, with prisons and probation budgets offers the opportunity to share investment, risk and returns. More importantly, it could save more people from the trauma, danger and indignity of having to sleep on London’s streets.

Follow Richard Brown on Bluesky. Photo by Omar Jan.

OnLondon.co.uk is funded by sales of publisher and editor Dave Hill’s twice-weekly newsletter On London Extra. To start receiving it, become a paying subscriber to Dave’s personal Substack. Thanks.

Categories: Comment
Tags: Andy Burnham, Devolution, housing, rough sleeping

Richard Derecki: Whistler at Tate Britain

The recalcitrant American artist lived for some time in Chelsea and produced numerous evocative and memorable images of London, in particular the Thames
Richard Derecki

Brawler. Womaniser. Forever in debt. An untutored genius. James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) was one of the most controversial artists of the Victorian era. Once described as the best etcher since Rembrandt, he produced thousands of paintings, drawings, etchings and lithographs.

And now a major new exhibition at Tate Britain reveals the extent of his creativity ranging from sumptuous society portraits to the atmospheric, near abstract riverscapes of the Thames at Battersea.

Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, into a well-connected military family, Whistler was wilful, with a rebellious streak. He failed his final exams at West Point. But all the while he drew compulsively, sketching faces and painting in watercolours. He determined to become an artist and, using a small legacy from his father, travelled to Paris to copy the Masters in the Louvre and then to London, where his sister was living in Chelsea, close to the river.

For all his love of the Masters and the rural idylls many of them painted, Whistler was inspired by the modern landscapes of cities: shop fronts, back streets, the bustle of people going about their business, the rag-pickers and, most importantly for him in London, the panorama of the river.

Whistler lived for a time in the East End, where he produced several fine etchings now displayed in the new exhibition, and where he painted Wapping (1860-64). In this work, he deployed what was to become a familiar technique of his, using a few people to anchor a scene and guide the viewer’s gaze beyond the initial plane and on into the maze of ships, barges, lighters, wharves and docks.

Screenshot 2026 07 12 at 15.17.54

Part of what drove the controversy around Whistler’s art was that he was not trying to tell a story in his paintings; not seeking to create a narrative that the reader needed to pick up through clues in order to interpret or understand the piece. Rather, he was interested in how, through a harmony of colours, he could capture the atmosphere of a moment. For him, art was the poetry of sight.

Settling in Chelsea, where he commissioned a purpose-built house complete with artist’s studio on Tite Steet, the Thames was to become his model. At around this time, several of the old wooden bridges, including the 90-year-old Battersea Bridge, were replaced with new ones.

Whistler made friends with a local boat builder and waterman who took him out and taught him how to navigate around Chelsea Reach so he could develop a deeper understanding of the movement of the ebb and flood tides.

At the Tate, a whole room is dedicated to his Nocturnes – his use of this musical term demonstrates his emphasis on atmosphere rather than story – which include those of the working river at Battersea. He captured a particular time of the day, twilight into nightfall, and the effects of mist and factory smoke on the river; a stillness, a timeless beauty.

Throughout his life, Whistler was embroiled in disputes with wealthy patrons and other artists, with the critic John Ruskin – which ended in a famous court case – and his many creditors. By the age of 45 he was bankrupt and had to sell his possessions and his beloved house. From then on he led a peripatetic life, travelling through the major cities of northern Europe, living off commissions and making etchings which were profitable for the growing middle-class art market.

He returned to Chelsea in the mid-1880s, living in a variety of rented accommodation. But around him all had changed. The re-building of the Embankment, the new bridges and roads, the increase in traffic and spreading urban development. He never again produced a painting or an etching of the area. Instead, he turned to society portraiture to pay his bills.

Whistler died in 1903 and is buried next to his wife at Saint Nicholas Parish Church in Chiswick. There is a statue of him on the north side of Battersea Bridge, palette and brushes in hand, looking down the Thames that inspired so much of his art.

The exhibition at the Tate takes you on a journey through Whistler’s art and life. It is beautifully hung, as he would have wanted, and includes some real gems. It is not to be missed.

Follow Richard Derecki on Instagram. Image: Whistler’s Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea and Wapping, from Tate Britain. The exhibition will continue until 27 September.

OnLondon.co.uk is funded by sales of publisher and editor Dave Hill’s twice-weekly newsletter On London Extra. To start receiving it, become a paying subscriber to Dave’s personal Substack. Thanks.

Categories: Culture
Tags: Chelsea, James McNeill Whistler, Tate Britain

London Explained: Making More Of The Thames

The latest documentary podcast from The London Society explores ways of improving the north bank of the river where it flows past Parliament and the Embankment
Dave Hill

The latest edition of The London Society’s London Explained podcast series took a long time to put together, and I should know: I researched, wrote and presented it. However, I and the show’s producer, Andrew McGibbon, of BBC Radio 4 fame (and other sorts as well) got there in the end. You can listen to the result of our efforts HERE.

Our mission was to emphasise the fundamental importance of the River Thames to London’s past – it literally gave the city life – to its present and to its future as an attraction, as a place where Londoners gather to celebrate their city, and as an environmental asset too. The focus was on the north bank of the river where it flows past the Houses of Parliament and the Victoria Embankment.

I am very grateful to the four people who agreed to be interviewed for the project:

Along with some choice pieces of historical archive material, the podcast also contains painstakingly gathered “found sound” from beside Big Ben and along the Embankment. I am particularly proud of the bits where you can hear the tidal waters slopping up against the steps in front of Cleopatra’s Needle that lead right down to river. I even managed to avoid getting my feet wet.

Img 8524

The podcast was funded by LHQ, with The London Society, as always, retaining full editorial control. All concerned are very grateful for the BID’s support. The podcast is 30 minutes long. Enjoy.

Follow Dave Hill on Bluesky and at LinkedIn. Photo: Inside the Soho Theatre.

OnLondon.co.uk is funded by sales of publisher and editor Dave Hill’s twice-weekly newsletter On London Extra. To start receiving it, become a paying subscriber to Dave’s personal Substack. Thanks.

Categories: Analysis
Tags: River Thames, The London Society, Victoria Embankment, Victoria Embankment Gardens

London Borough Elections 2026: The Results

The outcomes in all of the capital's 32 boroughs and what happened in the days and weeks that followed
Dave Hill

As expected, the 2026 London borough elections resulted in some dramatic changes to the capital’s political map, most notably Labour’s loss of control of about half of the boroughs it had won in 2022 and the Green Party’s winning control of three. It is the first time London voters have put the Greens in charge of a local authority. The same applies to Reform UK, which won one of the 32 boroughs.

At the same time, however, Labour again won more London councils than any other party and the Conservatives again won the second highest number. The Liberal Democrats retained the three they already held. The local Aspire Party retained its control of one borough.

Labour also received the largest share of the Londonwide popular vote with 25.6 per cent, though this was a big fall from the 40.3 per cent it secured in 2022. The Greens came second by this measure with 22.3 per cent (up from 11.4 per cent) and the Conservatives third with 20 per cent (down from 24.8). Reform UK got 13 per cent (up from 0.2) and the Lib Dems 12.4 per cent (down from 13.8).

Depending on how No Overall Control is defined, either seven of nine boroughs ended up that way. Two of the five boroughs that use the Mayor and Cabinet governance model did not see any party win a council majority, a situation that to some extent limits the executive powers of the Mayors.

Following post-election negotiations in the seven boroughs with no council majority and no Mayors, by 1 June, 2026 the following outcomes were arrived at:

  • Labour had majority control of nine boroughs, led minority administrations in two boroughs and held the mayoralty in one non-council majority borough. The party was therefore pre-eminent in 12 boroughs altogether.
  • The Conservatives had majority control of six boroughs, led minority administrations in two boroughs and held the mayoralty in one non-council majority borough. The party was therefore pre-eminent in nine boroughs altogether.
  • The Greens had majority control in three boroughs (and held the mayoralties of two of those) and led minority administrations in three others, making them pre-eminent in six boroughs altogether.
  • The Liberal Democrats have majority control in three boroughs.
  • The Aspire Party has majority control and holds the mayoralty in one borough.
  • Reform UK has majority control in one borough.

Labour won 696 of the capital’s 1,817 seats on 7 May, the Conservatives won 407, the Greens 297, the Lib Dems 243, Reform 79, Aspire 33 and various others, including candidates from other local parties and Independents, 60. The contest for two seats in a ward in Hillingdon was postponed until 18 June due to the death of one of the candidates.

The majority of London’s councils didn’t begin their counts until the morning after Thursday 7 May, when the elections took place. Only ten stuck with tradition and counted overnight. Some didn’t complete the job until Saturday 9 May.

London Decides, the ward-by-ward guide to the elections compiled by Lewis Baston and Dave Hill in collaboration with public affairs specialists Lowick and Hedry, is here.

This article received its final update on 30 June 2026. All figures in brackets show changes in seat numbers compared with the results in 2022.

***

BARKING & DAGENHAM: Labour hold

Con 0 (-), Green 4 (+4), Lab 38 (-13), Lib Dem 0 (-), Reform 9 (+9).

Labour’s leadership in this borough, with its recent history of support for far-Right parties, was quietly confident that it would blunt Reform’s attacks. It also correctly anticipated that the Greens would take votes from them too. But although the one-party state has fallen, a big Labour majority remains.

BARNET: Labour loss to No Overall Control

Con 31 (+9), Green 1 (+1), Lab 31 (-10), Lib Dem 0 (-), Reform 0 (-).

The Conservatives fell just one seat short of recapturing one of the three councils they lost control of in 2022, leaving the extraordinary situation of a lone Green councillor holding the balance of power between the two biggest of the traditionally big parties. However, at the council’s Annual Meeting on 19 May, Labour’s Barry Rawlings, who had led the previous administration, was appointed to continue as council leader with the help of the Conservatives.

BEXLEY: Conservative hold

Con 29 (-4), Green 0 (-), Lab 9 (-3), Lib Dem 0 (-), Reform 7 (+7).

This looked bound to go Reform, but although the party came close to breaking through in several wards, they’ve fallen way short in terms of seats to finish third behind Labour. Interviewed last autumn, the borough’s then-outgoing Tory leader Teresa O’Neill insisted Bexley voters would stick with her party. She was right.

BRENT: Labour loss to No Overall Control

Con 11 (+6), Green 9 (+9), Lab 26 (-23), Lib Dem 11 (+8), Reform 0 (0).

There were heavy losses here for Labour, which seemed likely to hang on to a majority but in the end fell three seats short of the 29 required. In an unexpected twist, the council’s Annual Meeting on 20 May saw the Labour group strike a deal with the Conservatives which left Muhammed Butt as leader of a minority administration but was followed by his deputy disclosing that Labour’s national executive committee had banned Labour groups from reaching agreements with Greens.

BROMLEY: Conservative hold

Con 35 (-1), Green 0 (0), Lab 8 (-4), Lib Dem 6 (+1), Reform 6 (+6), Ind 3 (-2).

The Farage kite barely got off the ground here, with Reform finishing only joint third and the Conservatives, safe as houses in the end, losing only one seat compared with 2022. The Independents are from the Chislehurst Matters local group.

CAMDEN: Labour hold

Con 3 (-), Green 11 (+10), Lab 30 (-17), Lib Dem 10 (+6), Reform 0 (-), Ind 1 (+1).

This looked like a strong contender to go NOC, but Labour has clung on with a slim majority. Among those to lose a Labour seat was Richard Olszewski, the borough’s now former leader who had switched to Holborn & Covent Garden ward in the hope of staying safe, only to be unseated by three Greens. He will be succeeded by new Labour group leader Sagal Abdi-Wali. The Independent is a Your Party proxy who won under the banner Camden People’s Alliance.

CROYDON: Conservatives hold mayoralty, no council majority

Mayor: Jason Perry (Con) came first with 30.7 per cent of the vote (35,871), followed by Lab (29.7 per cent), Green (16.6 per cent), Reform (12.4 per cent), Lib Dem (6.7 per cent) and others. 

Council: Con 28 (-5), Green 8 (+6), Lab 30 (-4), Lib Dem 2 (+1), Reform 2 (+2).

A second very close mayoral result has seen Perry re-elected for a second term. The council results too are very similar to last time, with Labour again just about the largest party although newcomers Reform, the Lib Dems and, in particular, the Greens have between them made a larger dent in the big duopoly than the latter pair achieved in 2022 (though one of the Greens has been suspended by his party). The overall composition means Mayor Perry and his cabinet will be very much running the show, as before.

EALING: Labour hold

Con 5 (-), Green 5 (+5), Lab 46 (-13), Lib Dem 13 (+7), Reform 0 (-). Ind 1 (+1).

Ealing Council outcomes used to reflect those of the nation. These days it is one of Labour’s safest London boroughs. The Greens and the Lib Dems made inroads along with a single Your Party proxy (Ealing Community Independents) but Labour’s majority, though reduced, is still large. On 18 May it was reported that a newly elected Green councillor had resigned, meaning a by-election will have to be held.

ENFIELD: Labour loss to No Overall Control

Con 31 (+6), Green 5 (+5), Labour 27 (-11), Lib Dem 0 (-), Reform 0 (-).

The Conservatives came very close to winning the majority they craved, but fell one seat short of the 32 required. The outcome leaves the five Greens holding the balance of power, raises the novel possibility of they and the Tories forming some sort of alliance against Green Belt development, including the government’s New Town proposals. Early indications of that were reported by Enfield Dispatch.

GREENWICH: Labour hold

Con 6 (+3), Green 13 (+13), Lab 35 (-17), Lib Dem 0 (-), Reform 1 (+1).

This one looked holdable for Labour, but NOC was also a distinct possibility. In the end, the party won with 15 seats to spare despite a fall of 17 compared with 2022. The Greens will form the opposition group.

HACKNEY: Greens gain mayoralty and council majority from Labour

Mayor: Zoë Garbett (Green) came first with 47.2 per cent (35,720 votes), followed by Lab (35.5 per cent), Con (8.4 per cenr), Reform (5.3 per cent) and Lib Dem (3.6 per cent).

Council: Con 6 (+1), Green 42 (+40), Lab 9 (-41), Lib Dem 0 (-), Reform 0 (-).

The Greens have stormed and overrun a formerly rock-solid Labour borough, ejecting councillors who have been in their seats for many years. The new Mayor Garbett was already a councillor – re-elected in her ward, she will now have to resign her seat – and was a member of the London Assembly for two years before resigning following her mayoral win, so she has some relevant experience. By contrast, many of her new councillor colleagues have none. Garbett quite quickly announced some of the members of her cabinet.

HAMMERSMITH & FULHAM: Labour hold

Con 12 (+2). Green 0 (-), Lab 38 (-2), Lib Dem 0 (-), Reform 0 (-). 

Extraordinary to recall that this was a trail-blazing Conservative borough, PM David Cameron’s favourite, until its surprise capture by Labour in 2014. Since then, the Tories have been firmly shut out. That has continued, even in this very bad year for Labour.

HARINGEY: Labour loss to No Overall Control

Con 0 (-), Green 28 (+28), Lab 21 (-29), Lib Dem 8 (+1).

The Greens came tantalisingly close to another win here, devouring wards in the centre-south of the borough and taking other seats in split wards to finish just one short of a majority. The Lib Dems would have hoped to have gained more than just one seat. Since the elections, it has emerged that one of the successful Green candidates was ineligible to stand and then a Labour councillor stepped down for personal reasons. Two by-elections will now have to be held.

On 20 May, a full meeting of the council resulted in a minority Green administration being formed after the Lib Dem group abstained. The new leader is Mark Blake, previously a Labour councillor.

HARROW: Conservative hold

Con 42 (+11), Green 0 (-), Lab 12 (-12), Lib Dem 0 (-), Reform 0 (-), Ind 1 (+1).

No unpredicted outcome this time from the Metro-land borough, with the Tories enjoying a swing in their favour, though one of their winners was suspended by the party shortly after he appeared the ballot papers after some obnoxious social media activity was unearthed. Local Your Party proxies Arise managed to deprive Labour of a seat too. A successful Conservative candidate was suspended by his party during the election campaign and therefore currently sits as an Independent, pending an investigation.

HAVERING: Reform gain from No Overall Control

Con 0 (-23), Green 0 (-), Lab 2 (-7), Lib Dem 0 (-), Reform 39 (+39), Residents 14 (-9)

Reform UK has won its first and only London council, expunging the Conservatives from Havering completely. The borough’s famous Residents’ Association candidates, who have led a minority administration for the past four years, hung on quite well in the circumstances. Assuming they can agree among themselves, they will form the opposition.

HILLINGDON: Conservative hold

Con 32 (+2), Green 1 (+1), Lab 16 (-7), Lib Dem 0 (-), Reform 4 (+4).

Hillingdon Tories are famously resilient. On 7 May they won exactly the same number of seats as in 2022, with Reform making little progress and went on to top that up to 32 when their two candidates retained their seats in Hillingdon West ward in a contest that was postponed until 18 June due to the death of one of the original candidates after the official campaign period had begun.

HOUNSLOW: Labour hold

Con 17 (+7), Green 3 (+3), Lab 32 (-20), Lib Dem 1 (+1), Reform 8 (+8), Ind 1(+)

Always one of the more likely Labour holds, though it turned out to be very close indeed. The local party has survived having its majority eroded from an assortment of directions. It stands at just one. Given Hounslow Labour’s rather fractious recent history, it will be interesting to see if it lasts.

ISLINGTON: Labour hold

Con 0 (0), Green 19 (+16), Lab 32 (-16), Lib Dem 0 (-), Reform 0 (-).

There are lots of Green-minded people in the original “trendy” Left borough but also lots of Labour loyalists and that’s why Labour has been able to survive, despite losing a lot of seats.

KENSINGTON & CHELSEA: Conservative hold

Con 34 (-1), Green 0 (-), Lab 13 (-), Lib Dem 3 (+1), Reform o (-).

An emphatic hold for the Tories in their safest London borough. They lost one seat to the Lib Dems (in their Earl’s Court stronghold). Otherwise, no change. (For consistency, I’ve linked to the BBC website above, but it contains two mistakes: Labour did not increase its representation in 2026 and the Greens did not see a loss of one seat, as they didn’t win any seats in 2022).

KINGSTON: Liberal Democrat hold

Con 2 (-1), Green 0 (-), Labour 0 (-), Lib Dem 44 (-), Reform 0 (-), Residents 2 (+1).

The Lib Dems have consolidated their dominant position. The Conservatives have managed to slip even further behind.

LAMBETH: Labour loss to No Overall Control

Con 0 (-), Green 29 (+27), Lab 26 (-32), Lib Dem 8 (+5), Reform 0 (-).

The Greens had long had a foothold here, though they actually slipped back in 2022. Not this time. Hopes that they could win a majority went unfulfilled, but they became the biggest party on the 63-seat council with Labour three behind. There was, though, a hiccup: prior to the election, but too late to remove her from the ballot papers, two of their candidates were arrested over alleged antisemitic social media posts and one of them got elected in Streatham St Leonard’s ward.

At some point her party suspended her, meaning she would have to sit as an Independent pending an investigation. She then resigned from the council, meaning a by-election will have to be held. On 18 May it was announced that another councillor elected as a Green had resigned, giving poor health as her reason. These departures reduced the size of the Green group to 27.

However, by 22 May the Greens had struck a deal with the Liberal Democrats, who had improved their position at the main elections. This involved uniting around ending the leader and cabinet local government model and reviving the old committee system in its place, and enabling a Green leader to be put at the head of a minority administration.

An Extraordinary Meeting, was scheduled for 1 June with a view to adopting the principle of that change and the council’s preceding Annual Meeting was adjourned so that it could continue after the Extraordinary Meeting and vote in favour of the change. However, before that happened the Greens changed their minds, resulting in a “hybrid cabinet committee” – a tweaking of the existing model – being adopted instead.

LEWISHAM: Greens gain mayoralty and council from Labour

Mayor: Liam Shrivasta (Green) came first with 40.4 per cent (35,265 votes), Lab second (34.8 per cent), Reform third (8.4 per cent), Lib Dem fourth (7.3 per cent) and the Conservative fifth (5.3 per cent) followed by three others. 

Council: Con 0 (-), Green 40 (+40), Lab 14 (-40), Lid Dem 0 (-), Reform 0 (-).

This was a staggering result for the Greens, who have enjoyed low level support in Lewisham before but have now conquered it in style, making 2026 only the third local election year in the borough’s history when Labour hasn’t won.

MERTON: Labour hold

Con 4 (-3). Green 0 (-). Lab 32 (+1). Lib Dem 19 (+2). Ind 2 (-).

As anticipated in London Decides, the Lib Dems had to climb some pretty steep hills in strong Labour wards to win. They didn’t make it and Labour actually went up by one seat compared with 2022. The famous Merton Park Independents have won their two seats again.

NEWHAM: Labour holds mayoralty, loses council to No Overall Control

Mayor: Forhad Hussain (Lab) came first with 30.4 per cent (25,538 votes), followed by the Newham Independents Party candidate (24.1 per cent), the Green (22.6 per cent), Reform (8.7 per cent), Lib Dem (4.5 per cent) and others.

Council: Con 0 (0), Green 16 (+14), Lab (26 (-38), Lid Dem 0 (-), Reform 0 (-), Newham Independents 24 (+24).

In the mayoral race, the anti-Labour vote split allowing Hussain to prevail with a very small share of the vote. As executive Mayor, power is centralised with him and councillors will have difficulty impeding his will even though Labour does not have a majority. However, the relationships between the three party groups and how they play out in the various committees will be interesting. The long-fractious state of the Labour Party in Newham suggests there is potential for defections.

At the council’s Annual Meeting held at East Ham Town Hall on 20 May, 20226, the council elected Green councillor Nate Higgins as its civic mayor and council chair.

REDBRIDGE: Labour hold

Con 5 (-), Green 5 (+5), Lab 43 (-15), Lib Dem 0 (-), Reform 1 (+1), Redbridge Indepdents 9 (+9).

As anticipated, this borough has generated an exotic mix of councillors, from Green to Reform, from the Muslim-based Redbridge Independents Your Party proxies to surviving Conservatives. However, it also looked a banker to go to NOC, yet Labour candidates have done surprising well and the party’s majority remains formidable.

RICHMOND: Liberal Democrat hold

Con 0 (-1), Green 0 (-5), Lab 0 (-), Lib Dem 54 (+6),  Reform 0 (-).

A full house for the Lib Dems. No pact this time with the Greens, who’ve lost every seat they won in 2022. The Tories are down to zero, as they had been since a by-election in Jan 2024 deprived them of the only seat they won last time.

SOUTHWARK: Labour loss to No Overall Control

Con 0 (-), Green 22 (+22), Lab 29 (-23), Lib Dem 12 (+1), Reform 0 (-).

Another big rise in the Green tide in the sort of inner borough you’d expect it. The Lib Dems had entertained thoughts of becoming the largest party, but in the end increased its tally by only one. Yet Labour is still the biggest party. Might the Labour group do some sort of deal with one of the others? It’s hard to imagine Labour and the Greens getting along in view of recent history, which has seen some councillors elected for Labour in 2022 change sides. So if there is to be some sort of cross-party collaboration, it seems most likely to be between Labour and their older, more experienced, opponents, the Lib Dems.

SUTTON: Liberal Democrat hold

Con 0 (-20), Green 0 (-), Lab 1 (-2), Lib Dem 51 (+22), Reform 2 (+2), Ind 1 (-2).

A huge win for the Lib Dems. The right-wing vote in this Leave-voting borough went in two different directions. As a result, the Tories have been wiped out and Reform has become the new opposition group – of two.

TOWER HAMLETS: Aspire holds mayoralty and council majority

Mayor: Lutfur Rahman of the Aspire Party came first with 38.8 per cent (35,679 votes), followed by Lab (21.1 per cent), Green (20.9), Reform (7.8), Con (4.1), Tower Hamlets Independents (3.4), Lib Dem (2.6) and two others.

Council: Con 1 (-), Green 5 (+4), Lab 5 (-14), Lib Dem 1 (+1), Aspire 33 (+9).

Lutfur Rahman has won for a second time since returning from his ban and his third time in all following his win as an independent in the borough’s inaugural mayoral contest in 2010 (the 2014 mayoral election in which he also topped the poll was later declared void). The Aspire party he leads has increased its majority too.

WALTHAM FOREST: Green gain from Labour

Con 14 (+1), Green 31 (+31), Lab 15 (-32), Lib Dem 0 (-), Reform 0 (-).

This is arguably the most stunning Green victory because they have literally raced from nought in 2022 to a majority in 2026. The result is also notable for the Tories picking up a seat when it seemed very possible that Reform would break its Waltham Forest duck.

WANDSWORTH: Labour loss to No Overall Control

Con 29 (+7), Green 0 (-), Lab 28 (-7), Lib Dem 0 (-), Reform 0 (-), Ind 1 (-).

This very close outcome placed Malcom Grimston, the sole Independent (and a former Conservative) in the interesting position of numerically holding the balance of power. But although the Tories didn’t quite get over the line in their their former flagship borough, they have formed a minority administration with Grimston’s backing on a “confidence and supply” basis.

WESTMINSTER: Conservative gain from Labour

Con 32 (+9), Green 0 (-), Lab 22 (-9), Lib Dem 0 (-), Reform 0 (-).

The Tories, as anticipated, have taken back the prestige council they lost for the first time ever in 2022. Headline results can be a little deceptive in Westminster, because the distribution of support across the borough is uneven – popular vote shares tend to be closer than seat results suggest. But the Tories won where they needed to.

Follow Dave Hill on Bluesky and at LinkedIn. Read London Decides here.

OnLondon.co.uk is funded by sales of publisher and editor Dave Hill’s twice-weekly newsletter On London Extra. To receive it, become a paying subscriber to Dave’s personal Substack. Thanks.

Categories: News
Tags: Borough elections 2026, Conservatives, Green Party, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Reform UK

Tim Donovan: Interview with Haringey’s new leader Mark Blake

The Green politician with a Labour background faces major financial challenges at the head of the north London council, but remains optimistic about delivering positive change
Tim Donovan

Days after becoming the first Green Party leader of Haringey, Mark Blake is confronted by some hard truths. The council’s auditors, KPMG, have just warned it about the dire state of its finances.

“The overall financial health of the Council has deteriorated to the point where it is no longer able to set a balanced budget without relying upon significant amounts of EFS [exceptional financial support, a form of borrowing from central government] to fill any shortfall,” they say. “The Council has not demonstrated an ability to successfully deliver relatively modest savings programmes, nor has it committed to and subsequently implemented large-scale transformational efficiency savings.”

It’s quite the reality check, and Blake is required to respond immediately, addressing the failings in public. A full council meeting has been convened for that purpose. Ahead of that, and shortly after we meet, he is due to shoot a video explaining the council’s predicament directly to the people of Haringey. Getting the excuses in early, some may say. Just being open, honest and transparent, he says, adding that he wants to adopt a style of proactive communication inspired by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

In a situation inherited from Labour, Haringey is set to borrow £80 million in EFS this year on top of £50 million over the last two years. Blake describes these as “payday loans” with punishing repayment terms. Within three years, he claims, Haringey will face a debt of nearly £350 million.

It is a “contagion,” he says, and the council “cannot afford to suffer in silence”. With the possibility of external commissioners – accountants who choose to cut where they think fit – being sent into Haringey, he says he is opting to go on the offensive with a campaign to have the government support scheme dismantled and more sustainable funding put in its place.

“A lot of people say to me, ‘you’ve taken on this poisoned chalice’,” he says. “But actually, for me, I quite relish the opportunity of taking on what I would call absurdities. I think the EFS is absurd. It’s been established somewhere in the Treasury. It feels as though it’s highly punitive. I can’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. I want to have a dialogue with government. This is unsustainable.”

Blake was not widely expected to take the helm at this north London council after May’s local elections, not least because he was a Green candidate in a borough that Labour had controlled without a break since 1971. And he had only joined the Greens in June 2025, following a long, up and down relationship with Labour.

His membership of the party preceded the 2003 onset of the Iraq War, which prompted him to resign from it. He rejoined under the leadership of Ed Miliband, which began after Labour’s general election defeat of 2010, and he was a fully-fledged supporter of the Jeremy Corbyn project. He was first elected as a Labour councillor in Haringey 2014 and remained one until 2023, when he resigned from Labour over Keir Starmer’s position on Gaza.

For a while, Blake sat as one of a pair of councillors under a “green socialist alliance” banner before being lured to the Greens after they won their first council seat in a by-election last year. He was drawn by the “camaraderie” of that local campaign, during which Zack Polanski himself suggested he join the party. “I suppose it is flattering when someone does that,” he says.

Labour’s loss of control of Haringey was a shock, including to Blake. He says he had been optimistic about the Greens winning winning 10 to15 seats and forming a strong opposition to Labour. But at the election count came a “penny-dropping moment” when the Labour leader of the time, Peray Ahmet, lost her seat in Wood Green ward to a Green, even though the Greens had not mounted a serious campaign there.

It showed that the Greens would do better than Blake had expected, and they ended up being the largest party with 28 seats, though this fell agonisingly short of a majority, with Labour holding on to 21 seats and the Liberal Democrats winning eight. As Lewis Baston has reported, two by-elections last month failed to change that overall picture.

Unlike in Lambeth and Southwark, Blake was unable to make any arrangement to govern with the backing of the Lib Dems, although he claims he thought he had an understanding with them until being surprised by manouevres at the decisive annual general meeting at the end of May. Labour and the Lib Dems did not oppose him becoming leader, but joined forces to reject his choice for the role of civic mayor and voted to divide up between them – and exclude the Greens from – the chair positions on all but one of the key council scrutiny committees. That is an important potential brake on Green ambitions.

Blake says he is happy to “fess up” to naivety over the inability to get the Lib Dems onside, but does not want to criticise his opponents when he is now actively seeking their buy-in and involvement in sorting out the current financial crisis. He dismisses what he calls “the idea that I’m going to hold grudges in this context where we’ve got the threat of a bunch of accountants running the council, which I think will be a disaster, not just for the council as an entity, but more importantly for the people in Haringey.”

I ask him if Labour and Lib Dems were happy for him to become leader because they were confident that he would fail. “That could be their grand plan.” he replies. “Who knows? The consequences of that too, in terms of, as I’ve said, commissioners coming into the borough, I think will be awful. And it will be our poorest, most marginalised constituents who will bear the brunt of that.”

Despite the financial straits, Blake says council officers are telling him that much of what he wants to do is achievable, adding that he went into the election with limited spending commitments. “We deliberately set a manifesto that didn’t have a lot of large ticket items, and if there are large ticket items which are not going to be realistic, then that is something I will have to go back and explain to my party.” The noticeable change is going to be “cultural”, he says, including setting up a “popular assets commission” to ensure the community is getting maximum benefit from council properties and being more responsive on housing repairs.

There is no word yet about how much it will cost to deliver a two-year service charge freeze for tenants, or to stop using bailiffs to evict tenants, although Blake says the latter could save money in court and enforcement costs. He cannot guarantee not having to sell off some council property, but promises “no fire sale”. The cost of landlord licenses will rise, but it has not yet been decided by how much.

On housing, Blake praises the social housing programme of his Labour predecessors, but says it should have delivered more, citing the development of three and a half thousand homes around Tottenham Hale in the last decade – much of it on land owned by Transport for London – of which 18 percent was affordable. “I don’t think that is a great return to be honest,” he says. “And it is source of disappointment and resentment.”

He insists he is not “anti-development” but is critical of developers waiting for the right market conditions and calls for an annual land-bank charge for sites left undeveloped for more than five years. He cites the major High Road West regeneration plans for the Tottenham area that have been in gestation for more than a decade. “I don’t think it is acceptable for sites to hang in limbo for that length of time.”

Blake said there were “delicate negotiations” going on with lead developer Lendlease around next stages, after plans for 61 social rent homes came forward last week, but he suggested they should sell up and “exit” if the scheme no longer works for them. “I would like to see them engage with us about how we take this schedule forward, and if they can’t, how they can exit it in way that is beneficial to all parties.”

Wasn’t there a danger in such an approach that developers would simply look to build elsewhere, to the detriment of Haringey? “I think they will adjust to market conditions. But if we are building more social homes, that might be a general stimulus to the market across the board. In London the housing market has got out of kilter with the real economy because we have so much investment-led housing and people parking money.”

There are firm words too for Tottenham Hotspur FC, which moved into its new stadium seven years ago. Blake says they are a key partner with the council, but that Labour signed a “bad deal” with them and he and the club have “lots to discuss” at a first meeting next month.

“The stadium sits in the midst of one of the poorest wards in the country in a ward that desperately needs investment,” Blake points out. “I’ve knocked on a lot of doors in Tottenham, and people are not happy with the level of events they have at the stadium, the disruption. So we think there’s a lot more that they can do. We’ve suggested that they can contribute to an endowment fund for the locality. So we’ll be discussing that.”

As he prepares for the painful budget-setting and cost-cutting process ahead, Blake is frank about the political landscape shifting with the arrival in Down Street of Andy Burnham, who he says is “assumed to be progressive” and wanting to “park his tanks on our lawn”. The Greens will need a “re-think” on policy and positioning. In the course of our chat, he is positive about Burnham’s views on devolution, council housing, a national care service and Gaza.

Blake also reveals that he and the capital’s five other Green Mayors and leaders recently (10 July) met Sir Sadiq Khan at City Hall. The Mayor was “undoubtedly” courting Green support, in his view. He left the meeting with a strong impression that Khan might want to run for a fourth term, potentially buoyed by the arrival of Burnham, though he was talking ahead of the announcement Khan’s peerage, which many are interpreting as indicating he will not stand again.

What does this all potentially mean for the Greens, if some of their vote in May proves to have been a protest against a Labour leader and a Labour Party in a previous shape that has now changed?

Blake thinks the Greens have established deeper roots than that among younger, poorer and ethnic minority voters. He says, “We’re going to have to do some thinking in terms of how we position ourselves. But I think that’s fine. Look, I think we’ve had an incredible rise within the last year. We need to consolidate. We’ve got a base. We’ve got six councils across London where we are Mayor or in a leadership position. That’s a real platform to show what we can do. We’ll have to assess what Mr. Burnham comes forward with in his first six months in terms of devolved powers, shifting the economy, and on housing which is so crucial.”

Tim Donovan is the former political editor of BBC London and now a trustee of Centre for London and political adviser to Kanda Consulting. Follow him at LinkedIn. Photo of Mark Blake from Haringey Council. 

OnLondon.co.uk is funded by sales of publisher and editor Dave Hill’s twice-weekly newsletter On London Extra. To receive it, become a paying subscriber to Dave’s personal Substack. Thanks.

Categories: Analysis
Tags: Green Party, Haringey Council, Mark Blake

Talk About London: Inside the plans for Oxford Street. With Nabeel Khan

The chief executive of the organisation implementing the Mayor's vision spoke about progress so far, the need for consensus and what will happen next
Dave Hill

Nabeel Khan has, since February, had one of the most exciting and daunting jobs in London. As the inaugural chief executive of the Oxford Street Development Corporation (OSDC), he is, in his own words, “responsible for delivering the long-term regeneration, activation and stewardship of one of the most important destinations in the world”.

The transformation of Oxford Street, including through pedestrianisation, has been a major ambition of Sir Sadiq Khan since he first became Mayor in 2016. Good progress was made during his first two years at City Hall, only for Westminster Council, a key partner at the time, to take fright in the face of resident objections just before the 2018 borough elections and abruptly withdraw its support for the plans.

Since then, much has changed. Oxford Street, along with the wider West End, suffered badly during the pandemic, leaving many empty shops and an air of dilapidation and fatigue. In 2022, Labour won control of Westminster Council for the first time in the local authority’s history and painstakingly assembled plans for improving Oxford Street that eschewed pedestrianisation. But just as these were about to start being put into effect, the Mayor announced his intention to take control of the area and push pedestrianisation through.

The OSDC is the vehicle for that ambition. Nabeel Khan came on board following several years at Lambeth where, among other things, he developed the council’s growth plan and was involved in its promotion of “active travel” and the shaping of the Waterloo Station Masterplan. He’s also been a non-executive director of Barking & Dagenham’s Be First regeneration company, and between 2012 and 2020 held a variety of economic development roles at City Hall, including securing the devolution of the adult education budget from national government.

My podcast co-host London Society chair Leanne Tritton and I were very pleased to lure him on to the show at such a busy time in the project. As we heard, the section of the mile-long road now dubbed Oxford Street West, which stretches from its junction with Great Portland Street to its junction with Orchard Street, is expected to be closed to traffic “by the end of October” but that will be just the start of the process.

An ongoing “live test” of the road will inform what is required in terms of a its final design, taking on board accessibility, public safety and the sorts of things visitors enjoy doing in the new, traffic-free environment. Meanwhile, the OSDC is gearing up to become the planning authority for area, taking powers away from Westminster Council and, to a much smaller extent, next-door Camden. Added to Transport for London becoming the transport authority for Oxford Street itself, this will cement mayoral control over the future of the OSDC area.

The OSDC already has powers to make Compulsory Purchase orders and grant Business Rate relief. Nabeel made the point that mayoral and also governmental development corporations (such as Ebbsfleet) have varying sets of powers and said the OSDC has “the full suite”. The OSDC board has set up its own planning committee. Chaired by board member Margaret Casely-Hayford, it is made up mainly of independent members plus representatives of the two boroughs. The OSDC will, like a local authority, draw up its own Local Plan, a process that could take up to two years.

Meanwhile, two design teams have already been chosen. Landscape architects East will lead the way on the Oxford Street West phase, with input from other companies including Gehl, J & L Gibbons and Publica. The other team will work on a “whole street concept” and be led by Hawkins\Brown, with Urban Movement, Michael Grubb and more in support.

There will be tensions and trade-offs involving the area’s very many interested parties, ranging from businesses, to pedestrians to local residents. Discussions are already with the two councils about how future Section 106 payments from developers will be spent.

All of that is to come. For now, our talk about London guest is clear in his view that the beauty of mayoral development corporations is that they bring “a single guiding mind to a regeneration project in a local area”. Watch the full show below or listen to it here.

Follow Dave Hill on Bluesky and at LinkedIn. Image from East.

OnLondon.co.uk is funded by sales of publisher and editor Dave Hill’s twice-weekly newsletter On London Extra. To start receiving it, become a paying subscriber to Dave’s personal Substack. Thanks.

Categories: News
Tags: Nabeel Khan, Oxford Street, Oxford Street Development Corporation, planning, transport

Mayor’s draft new London Plan takes fresh approach to housing targets and opposes Heathrow expansion

Sir Sadiq Khan has tailored his proposed blueprint to economic practicalities while making it plain that more parts of the capital will experience change
Charles Wright

Sir Sadiq Khan will continue to oppose Heathrow airport’s third runway plan, according to the draft new London Plan, the blueprint for development across the city over the next two decades, published today. In a snub to government ambitions, the draft says that Heathrow expansion “should be refused unless no unacceptable environmental, transport and congestion impacts are demonstrated.”

But a more surprising headline feature is the draft Plan’s rejection of the government’s target of 85,000 new homes a year for the capital, amounting to 850,000 by 2036. Instead, the Mayor has set his own target of 558,000 additional new homes over the coming decade, balancing need against what the draft Plan argues could “feasibly be deliverable” and proposing detailed delivery numbers for each of London’s 33 local authorities.

The new target, the Plan says, reflects the current “difficult economic conditions for housebuilding in London” – a “perfect storm”, as Khan puts it in his introduction to the document – due to a “combination of high interest rates, the rising cost of construction materials, the legacy of the pandemic, a shortage of skilled workers and the lasting impact of Brexit”.

Jules Pipe told On London: “The draft London Plan identifies a target for 558,000 new homes over the next decade, based on the evidence, and securing key transport infrastructure investment. This is the most ambitious and credible plan for delivering more homes now, while also setting out how London can unlock significantly more homes over the longer term.”

Councils may welcome being set a lower target than the government’s, but the totals are still challenging. The draft Plan calls for more development on all fronts: on previously-developed brownfield sites first, but also on small sites; more “mid-rise” suburban and town centre “densification”, particularly around stations; well-connected industrial sites which could be re-designated for housing; and, perhaps most controversially, an easing of long-standing restrictions on building in the capital’s extensive Green Belt.

Under the draft Plan’s policies, 90 per cent of new development would still be on brownfield sites, but the the document identifies potential space for some 56,000 homes on Green Belt land in eight boroughs: Barking & Dagenham, Barnet, Croydon, Harrow, Havering, Hillingdon, Redbridge and Enfield, where plans have already been proposed (and vehemently opposed by some) for a New Town scheme at Crews Hill. Brownfield land alone “cannot meet London’s long-term housing needs”, according to research underpinning the Plan, City Hall said.

Boroughs will also be pondering the draft Plan’s second major departure – a new, three-tier, system of incentives for developers to devise schemes that contain minimum percentages of homes deemed “affordable” by the Mayor. Planning application that meet these “thresholds” are rewarded with a “fast track” route by City Hall’s planning gatekeepers, whereas those that fall short become subject to lengthy “viability” assessments.

City Hall’s original, Londonwide 35 per cent minimum threshold was dropped to 20 per cent last year as part of an emergency package designed to support developers facing increasing financial challenges and plummeting demand for the homes they build.

The new approach will see the 35 per cent threshold restored from 2028 for 12, mainly inner London boroughs: Wandsworth, Lambeth, Southwark, Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea, Westminster, Camden, Islington, Hackney, Tower Hamlets, the City of London and Richmond upon Thames.

A mostly “middle” ring of eight boroughs, Merton, Lewisham, Greenwich, Newham, Waltham Forest, Haringey, Brent and Ealing, will be subject to a 25 per cent threshold, while that for the remaining 13 outer London boroughs will be set at 20 per cent. Separately, the draft proposes that the thresholds for Green Belt and publicly-owned land be set at 50 per cent and 40 per cent respectively.

The proposals reflect what City Hall calls “updated evidence on development viability across the capital”, showing that “this is the best way to unlock more housing delivery and maximise the delivery of affordable homes for Londoners,” the Plan says. Khan’s ambition remains to return to 35 per cent thresholds across London “as economic conditions allow“. Applications can exceed the threshold where feasible, and improved viability data would allow boroughs to move to a higher banding under the “flexible” policy.

As well as that uptick in the economy boosting affordable quotas, City Hall says that the entire 558,000 target – which includes some 220,000 low-cost rent and 120,000 “intermediate” homes over the decade – would “need to be underpinned” by investment in transport and community infrastructure, with support from national government.

That support should include cash for the Bakerloo line extension and the West London Orbital rail plan and more Transport for London control of suburban rail lines. A significant hike in affordable homes funding would be required too, over and above the current record £11.7 billion 10-year allocation, which is expected to fund only some 53,000 homes.

The draft Plan represents a challenge to the boroughs, which will need to bring their statutory Local Plans into “general conformity” with the London Plan, including on the release of Green Belt land, and also to the national government. The influential business group BusinessLDN has already called for Whitehall to “devolve powers and resources to enable London to invest in the infrastructure projects that are critical to unlocking sites for housebuilding and development across the city”.

There will be plenty of debate about the draft Plan’s policies on housing, but also its wider proposals, which address its other main focus of delivering growth and supporting the “economy of the future” while maintaining City Hall’s long-standing sustainability commitments.

What is becoming clearer though is that, as Khan said, “change will come to more parts of London as we seek to accommodate new homes and jobs”. He referred to his own challenge too: “If we avoid making the necessary decisions and bold choices, the significant long-term challenges the city faces will deepen further. This would leave us with a city that is unaffordable for an ever-increasing number of people. “

The draft Plan is out for public consultation for 13 weeks, until 15 October. A further draft will undergo a formal Examination in Public next year by independent planning inspectors, prior to a Whitehall sign off, which is expected in early 2028.

Follow Charles Wright on Bluesky. This article was updated at 8:20pm on 16 July, 2026 with the addition of the quote from Jules Pipe.

OnLondon.co.uk is funded by sales of publisher and editor Dave Hill’s twice-weekly newsletter On London Extra. To receive it, become a paying subscriber to Dave’s personal Substack. Thanks.

Categories: News
Tags: Heathrow, housing, planning, Sadiq Khan, The London Plan

Lewis Baston: Greens hold one and lose one in Lambeth by-elections

The Lib Dems were the biggest winners overall and Labour the most disappointed
Lewis Baston

There were three by-elections in London on Thursday 9 July, one of them in Camden and two of them in Lambeth. Camden’s Regent’s Park election has been given special treatment in a separate piece but the Lambeth polls had interesting results that conflict with the mild encouragement for Labour in Camden.

The 7 May elections left Lambeth under no overall control with 29 Green, 26 Labour and eight Liberal Democrat candidates elected following 20 years of Labour majorities. While the Regent’s Park contest was caused by an ineligible Green candidate being elected the previous month, the two Green defences in Lambeth arose from councillors who could have validly served but chose to stand down almost immediately: Saiqa Ali for Streatham St Leonard’s and Joanna Eaves for Clapham Park.

Ali was arrested during the campaign on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred as a result of social media posts. The law prevents extensive discussion of the matter, but the political implication was that Ali offered an apology at the time which proved not to be good enough for the local Greens, nor indeed for many of the electors of Streatham St Leonard’s: her two running mates polled over 2,000 votes while she received only 1,437, though that was still 353 more than the highest-placed Labour candidate.

Following her election, Ali was not admitted to the Green group on the council and her brief term of office was as an Independent. Many of those who voted for her would have been unaware of her posts or the arrest they led to and by-election campaigners encountered expressions of regret from some voters.

Streatham St Leonard’s is a ward with an interesting social and electoral history. It runs along the western boundary of Lambeth where it meets Wandsworth around Tooting Bec Common. Before the reorganisation of London government in 1965, Streatham had been part of the old Wandsworth borough. St Leonard’s voters live in residential avenues, mostly to the west of the A23 Streatham High Road, running from Streatham Hill station down to the edge of Streatham Common.

All three Streatham stations are on the corners of this irregularly-shaped ward. In the interwar years, the High Road flourished as a shopping and entertainment centre and the architectural heritage remains, although it has fallen on harder times. It has the lowest proportion of social housing of any ward in Lambeth (14 per cent) with the rest divided evenly between owner-occupation and private renting.

St Leonard’s is a microcosm of how certain parts of inner suburban London have evolved politically. It used to be extremely Conservative back in the days when Cynthia Payne became famous for running a brothel on Ambleside Avenue, voting 61 per cent for the Tory slate in 1982. But the Conservative vote, weakening for a while, collapsed to third place in 1998, when the Lib Dems won St Leonard’s.

The coalition era then saw Lib Dems crash to defeat in 2014, when they lost all of their Lambeth seats. Two Labour councillors one Green were elected in St Leonard’s in that year, and the Greens won all three seats in 2018, but it was split two Green and one Labour in 2022. That councillor was Martin Abrams, who defected to the Greens in August 2025 and is now leader of the council, though he now represents a different ward (Streatham Hill East).

Despite Alli doing less well than her two fellow Green candidates in May, the party finished with a 24-point lead over Labour there, making it the biggest Green majority in Lambeth. The Conservative share shrank to seven per cent.

By contrast, the Lib Dems saw a bit of a revival of their pre-2014 strength. Streatham as a whole was the best part of Lambeth for the Lib Dems in 2026. They polled 28 per cent of the vote across the five wards, a healthy increase of nine points since 2022, and gained Streatham Wells from Labour.

St Leonard’s was their weakest ward in the area, although their lead candidate finished only 107 votes behind Labour’s third-placed hopeful and they had local campaigning resources and street knowledge. Their candidate, Alex Davies, had been a Streatham Wells councillor in 2010-14. Lib Dem activists enjoy leafleting and canvassing, and this ward was easy for helpers from across London to reach.

The Greens’ by-election defence was put in the hands of Dario Goodwin, a climate campaigner and author who missed out on a seat in the neighbouring Brixton Acre Lane ward by 17 votes in May. Labour’s candidate Jade Albás contested St Leonard’s in May. Candidates also came forward from the Conservatives, Reform and the Christian People’s Alliance.

The Green campaign basically reprised the themes of May, criticising the Labour government and the previous Labour administration in Lambeth and warning – inaccurately – that Labour could be back in charge if the by-elections went the wrong way. The Lib Dems took a different tack, emphasising very local issues.

The result was the most startling in London since the full elections in May: the Lib Dems came from third to win a seat where the Greens seemed to have a strong grip. Davies was elected with 1,161 votes (42 per cent, up 26 percentage points on May), and Goodwin came second with 972 (35 per cent, down 13 points on May). Labour slid further to 421 votes (15 per cent) as did the Conservatives (119 votes, four per cent) and the others polled 109 votes between them. Turnout was 26 per cent (down from 39 per cent in May).

Never underestimate the Lib Dems in a local by-election where they have some sort of base and the folk memory of previously representing the seat. But the result is also a caution for the Greens: they have been winning seats in this ward since 2014, but much as it looked as if they had in May, they have not quite nailed it down.

Lib Dems are able to see off opposition once they have established a ward as a beachhead in a local authority, but the Greens have been oddly inconsistent in Lambeth and elsewhere. This comes despite the importance of a very local focus in Green political thinking and the undoubted qualities of many of their elected representatives.

***

Clapham Park ward, where the other by-election took place, is a transitional area between Clapham Common and Brixton Hill. It is centred on the Clapham Park estate, an area originally called Bleak Hall Farm but laid out in the 1820s by the architect Thomas Cubitt as a high-class suburb.

The plan never really worked. The Clapham Park site became Lambeth’s largest single council estate, which was built in two stages in the 1920s (east) and the 1950s (west). It is a mixture of houses and blocks of flats and accommodates around 2,400 households. Residents of the estate voted for a stock transfer in 2005, so management and ownership are no longer directly with Lambeth. A regeneration project is providing new homes at higher densities, although all the political parties have criticised the management company.

The ward extends in a somewhat jagged fashion south of the South Circular and west to the Wandsworth border, not far from Clapham South station and just south of the wealthy “Abbeville Village” area. This is the most stereotypically Clapham part of the ward. There are also Victorian and Edwardian terraces in the streets south of Brixton prison. It is densely populated and the largest open space is Agnes Riley Gardens. The ward is 38 per cent social rented, 35 per cent white British and 27 per cent black. In terms of socio-economic classification, it is almost as middle-class as Streatham St Leonard’s: 42 per cent of people working in managerial and professional roles compared to 45 per cent.

Clapham Park ward was created by the boundary changes introduced before the 2022 elections. Like a lot of south and east London, it voted Labour in 2022 by a large margin with the Greens a clear second, and swung so heavily to the Greens in 2026 that a 36-point cushion was not quite enough for Labour to retain all three seats. The two incumbent Labour councillors were re-elected, but the Green Party’s Joanna Eaves beat a new Labour candidate Louie Somerville-Sutherland by 37 votes.

Soon after winning, Eaves stood down on health grounds. Somerville-Sutherland, a support worker for SEND children, was renominated as the Labour candidate. Replacement Green candidate Michael Ball (pictured) runs a charity in the north of Lambeth and had stood in Kennington in May and in the 2022 elections. Clapham Park was virtually a straight fight between Labour and the Greens, with Labour trying hard to regain what looked like a promising seat. Lambeth Labour has a record of being a strong campaigning force ever since regained the borough against the trend in 2006 under the leadership of Steve Reed, now a government minister.

All five main English parties stood candidates. They were joined by representatives of the Christian People’s Alliance (CPA) and the Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB), which is unkindly sometimes called the Socialist Party of Clapham because its electoral bids tend to be confined to that locality.

The SPGB is a venerable organisation, founded in 1904 by Marxists who objected to their party (the Social Democratic Federation) helping to found the Labour Party, but it has found the electoral route to socialism difficult and received only six votes in Clapham Park this time. The CPA did little better, with twelve, though of the “others” only the Lib Dems struggled above a hundred votes. Somerville-Sutherland, surprisingly, was denied again, losing out this time by 43 votes this as he polled 799 (42 per cent). Ball was elected with 842 (44 per cent). Turnout was 20 per cent.

While Streatham St Leonard’s was a bad result for the Greens, Clapham Park was something of a triumph, even though their majority was narrow. In May, Labour’s share of the vote in the ward was four points ahead of them. But for the by-election, the Green share rose by 12 percentage points, and Labour’s by Six, meaning there was a three per cent swing from Labour to Green. It was their most impressive result in any of the by-elections since May.

***

In wards like these two, where the political Right is electorally irrelevant, there are still multiple dimensions to tactical voting. Labour’s vote held up best in May 2026 among its more comfortable liberal professional supporters, and there is a trace of anti-Green sentiment in this quarter. The Lib Dems can appeal to this if they can establish themselves, as in St Leonard’s, as the main alternative.

In Clapham Park and the two Haringey wards the anti-Green vote consolidated around Labour, but the – usually larger – anti-Labour vote consolidated around the Greens. There has not been sufficient time, nor enough visible change, for voters to have come to firm conclusions about the new Green administrations. There is not much sign of a wish to revisit the verdict reached in May despite the impending changes at national government level. On average the Greens are down 0.2 per cent and Labour up 4.5 per cent in the nine London by-elections since May.

Green council seat defences have been unusual in the past, with only one happening (Camden Highgate in November 2023) during the previous council term. But the party’s increased representation has already brought with it far greater exposure to by-elections, with eight of the nine seats contested since May being Green defences. Their three losses have been Streatham St Leonard’s, where Ali’s situation was unique, and in two of the three cases of nominating disqualified candidates (Haringey Northumberland Park and Camden Regent’s Park).

There could be more to come: Green councillors may find that their personal values and their commitments to their ward electors conflict with the disillusioning choices of running local authorities under financial pressure and with limited autonomy. But there won’t be any for several summer weeks. The one current London council seat vacancy, a Labour-held seat in the Trinity ward in Wandsworth, should be a high-pressure contest between what we used to call the two big parties.

Follow Lewis Baston on Bluesky. Image from Lambeth Greens Instagram.

OnLondon.co.uk is funded by sales of publisher and editor Dave Hill’s twice-weekly newsletter On London Extra. If you don’t already receive it, become a paying subscriber to Dave’s personal Substack or follow any Support link on this website.

Categories: Analysis
Tags: Green Party, Labour, Lambeth Council, Liberal Democrats

John Vane: England-Argentina football rivalry – its London birthplace

The capital had never seen such scenes
John Vane

Football unpleasantries between England and Argentina were born at the Empire Stadium in London in 1966, the place more often known as Wembley.

It all kicked off when the Argentine captain, Antonio Rattin, attempted to trip Bobby Charlton, hero of England, when in full forward flight and went into the referee’s book – the equivalent back then of receiving a yellow card. Shortly afterwards he upended West Ham’s Geoff Hurst, later to become the hat-trick hero of the final. By then, a fistful of Argentinians had been booked. Seconds later, a further one was added. Rattin protested to the German referee. He was told to leave the field.

Famously, Rattin did not wish to go. And when, at last, he did, following several minutes of protestations, it was a departure for the ages. There was shock at the time: Argentina’s tactics were uncompromisingly negative and Rattin’s recalcitrance was sensational, confirming everything all of England believed to be unsporting and unmanly about the way the game was played just about everywhere else in the world, and especially in some parts of South America.

But the full glory of Rattin’s exit was most fully immortalised later, in the movie documentary Goal! Footage captures Rattin’s long, slow walk down the touchline, his demeanour exuding a sulphurous mix of wounded pride, furious incomprehension and sullen insubordination as the match, almost mockingly, resumes without him. The moment when he plucks at a corner flag, which is flying a union jack, is simply epic. So is the musical soundtrack.

The match took place almost exactly 60 years ago, on 23 July, 1966. More than 90,000 were in the ground. Rattin’s dismissal took place early the proceedings, at around 35 minutes. Despite facing only 10 men from then on, it took England until the 78th minute to score the game’s only goal, a glancing header by Hurst. It was a bad-tempered affair throughout. Diego Maradona’s Hand of God (1986) and David Beckham’s sending-off (1998) were to come, preceded by the small matter of the Falklands War (1982).

Rattin died three days ago, having left an indelible mark on the capital’s sporting history.

John Vane’s London novel, a political satire called Frightgeist, can be bought from this very website. This article originally appeared on the Substack John Vane: London Stories.

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Categories: John Vane's London Stories
Tags: football, Wembley stadium