For some months, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has faced criticism and legal pressure for facilitating housing schemes in his area that are all “luxury” and no “affordable” – the sort of thing his counterpart in London, Sir Sadiq Khan, has rules against. Burnham’s administration has been loaning many millions of pounds to […]
For most of this century at least, a conspicuous strand of opinion has declared that everything precious about London is being destroyed by big money, especially from abroad. These narratives construct causal connections between property development, especially of housing, and neighbourhood changes that bearers of those narratives dislike, such as the replacement of council-built housing, […]
Coverage of national politics is often focussed on the challenge to Labour of Reform UK, which has been running close behind the party of government in opinion polls, and sometimes just ahead. But in much of Greater London, recent election results show that Labour faces stronger opposition from very different parts of the political spectrum, […]
The politics of the East End have never been known for being dull. That is a decorous way of saying they have frequently been factional and fraught. They have also often been suspected of malfeasance and subject to interventions from above. The latest example came in January when the government announced that what it called […]
Early last June, one month before Labour’s general election landslide triumph, a London politician who had led the party to a succession of such triumphs in east London stepped down as parliamentary candidate for Barking. The news inspired a lot sympathy. Darren Rodwell was regarded among local government peers and within the capital’s housing and […]
Last year, 2024, was a big deal for elections in London – the Mayor and Assembly in May and the General Election in July. But there was also a steady stream of by-elections for seats on London borough councils, which gave us a continuous although not always easy to interpret commentary on London’s electoral temperature. […]
The number of households on waiting lists for social housing in London last year hit the highest level for more than a decade, according to newly published data. A total of 336,366 households were waiting for a council or housing association home as of 1 April, 2024. The figure for that same April date has […]
A police investigation of a senior member of the London Assembly has been concluded with no further action to be taken. In a statement released by his solicitor, Unmesh Desai, who represents the City & East Assembly constituency, confirmed that “between late December 2024 and today” he had been “the subject of a police investigation” […]
