The BBC licence fee pays for me and 164 colleagues to cover the activities of practically every single district and county council in the country. It's really important that public service journalism has a long-term and independent source of funding
BREAKING: Sadiq Khan's night czar, Amy Lame, is standing down after eight years at City Hall.
She says it's “the right time” to “move on”, but it's been “a real privilege to serve Londoners”. It's unclear if the £132k role will be given to someone new.
NEW: Duncan Baker MP calls for Matt Hancock to resign
He is the first Conservative MP in the country to do so openly.
“In my view people in high public office and great positions of responsibility, should act with the appropriate morals and ethics that come with that role...”
Deputy PM Oliver Dowden told me yesterday that the Government ran out of time before the election (which it decided to call) to deliver a ban on ‘no fault’ evictions (promised since 2019) and a ban on LGBT conversion therapy (promised since 2018)
🚨🚨🚨 Really excited to be moving home to London next month after a fab two years at
@EDP24
, to take up the role of Local Democracy Reporter for London with the
@EveningStandard
, covering Sadiq Khan, City Hall, TfL and more
NEW: Science minister George Freeman refuses to confirm whether he will be supporting the PM this evening.
“The Government will have to take some very grave decisions in the coming months, for which it will be critical to command public trust and confidence”.
🚨🚨🚨 It's official: I'm moving to East Anglia! Thrilled to announce that from Thursday I'll be working on the Eastern Daily Press
@EDP24
as a senior reporter covering Dereham and Mid-Norfolk. DMs open.
Lib Dem AM
@CarolinePidgeon
asks Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley about the investigation into the “Shaun Bailey for London Holiday Party”.
Shaun Bailey, still a member of City Hall’s police and crime committee, is sitting a couple of seats from Pidgeon.
I’m back! And what a fantastic result - tackling the climate and ecological emergencies & air pollution is the right thing to do! It was
#ULEZ
wot won it!
With my final project done (and coated in salmon pink), I've finished my Newspaper Journalism MA! It's been a great year
@cityjournalism
and I'm glad to have met so many fab people. Has there ever been a better time to enter the jobs market and this particular industry? Ye-
MI5 need to have confidence in the Home Secretary - whoever that might be. It’s a vital relationship of trust, key to the UK’s security & democratic oversight of MI5. Any breakdown in that relationship is bad for the Security Service and the government. It needs to be sorted asap
Great to finally meet the woman I've been incessantly tweeting about for weeks. I asked how Norfolk will benefit from her as PM, if she'll commit to rebuilding the shamefully dilapidated QEH hospital and if she'll really take the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights
An emotional evening last night as Londoners gathered on the South Bank to mark a decade since nine-year-old Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah died from asthma caused by air pollution.
I spoke with Ella's mum Rosamund and mayor Sadiq Khan about her legacy
The power of local journalism: in February I wrote a story about a Dereham artist painting watercolours of Norwich in lockdown.
ITV picked up the story, Delia Smith watched it, and they now hang at
@NorwichCityFC
Shirley Conran, named tonight as a Dame on Liz Truss's Resignation Honours List, donated £5,000 to Truss in August. A further £2,000 at the start of the year to the Conservative Party in South West Norfolk (Truss's constituency)
The first hustings of the London mayoral campaign is about to start - but the Greens’
@ZoeGarbett
is the only one to show up.
Sadiq Khan has sent his deputy
@JoanneMcCartney
, Lib Dems have sent assembly member
@HinaBokhariLD
, Tories have sent assembly candidate
@nick_cannonhill
NEW: London’s deputy mayor for planning
@JulesPipe
has granted permission for a 1,500+ homes to be built on the Aberfeldy Estate in Poplar, overturning Tower Hamlets Council’s decision to reject the scheme last year
🚨 NEW:
@SadiqKhan
telling reporters he intends to press ahead with the
#ULEZ
expansion on August 29, despite the Uxbridge by-election result.
He says City Hall will continue to monitor the uptake of the scrappage scheme.
After weeks of talks with
@GBNEWS
, resulting in exit settlement, the channel then broke it by briefing Mail on Sunday with load of smears/lies then unilaterally cancelling exit deal. Leaving me free to do, say whatever I want + never again be on GBNews. Couldn’t be happier.
London Assembly chair
@AndrewBoff
is removed from the Home Secretary's speech
#CPC2023
after saying: "There's no such thing as gender ideology" and calling it "homophobic rant".
New: the Lib Dems have announced Rob Blackie, a prominent campaigner against Russian propaganda, as their 2024 London mayoral candidate (via
@RachaelBurford
)
Very excited to be joining the BBC's Local Democracy Reporting Service, starting in September.
I'll still be working for
@EDP24
but will be joining
@George_Thompo
in covering Norfolk's councils, MPs, Police & Crime Commissioner and more!
New: A letter issued by Susan Hall's campaign and written by Tory MP Steve Tuckwell urges Londoners to ensure Sadiq Khan "wins by a smaller margin than he's expecting".
It suggests voting for "someone else" than Khan, without naming Hall (except for in the imprint).
Hate to be that guy but I went on, I think, 14 train and tubes across Belgium and Germany last few days and literally not a single person I saw was unmasked. My assumption had been there was a small core of people everywhere who don't bother with them - not the case it would seem
.
@TfL
today unveils this stunning wrapped bus which will form part of this year's
#NottingHillCarnival
- with a design marking 75 years since passengers on the Empire
#Windrush
arrived in the UK.
The wrap will be kept for Black History Month in October
At City Hall this morning. Social housing campaigner
@KwajoHousing
is asked by the London Assembly’s Housing Committee whether he can describe the issues he’s seen tenants encounter, and whether current regulations are good enough.
“How long have I got?” he says.
#LDReporter
Hancock's use of private email account "means the government does not hold records of much of Hancock’s decision-making, including negotiating multimillion-pound PPE contracts, setting up the £37 billion test & trace programme and overseeing the government’s care homes strategy"
EXC: Matt Hancock faces investigation after using personal Gmail instead of official account during pandemic
Leaked emails show officials warned he spoke to aides "via Gmail" and had no "DHSC inbox"
Fears of transparency blackhole ahead of Covid inquiry
Lib Dem candidate
@robblackie
says the letter is "a clear admission that the Conservatives have given up on winning in London".
@Councillorsuzie
's team had no comment. Tuckwell's office did not respond to a separate request for comment
NEW: Conservative London Assembly Member Nick Rogers says he is considering standing to be the party's 2024 London mayoral candidate, saying he would "stand up for millennials" in the city and broaden the Tory electoral base
TfL launch their Pride-themed bus and Overground designs. These two vehicles will be operating across the network throughout Pride month, along with a similar Elizabeth line design 🏳️🌈
Breaking: Green assembly member
@sianberry
has resigned from City Hall, just three days after winning re-election to it.
Her resignation means that Green mayoral candidate
@ZoeGarbett
will join the Assembly
“Matt Hancock, on a number of measures has fallen short of that. As an MP who is a devoted family man, married for twelve years with a wonderful wife and children, standards and integrity matter to me.”
The Foreign Office refused to give me any detail this week on the 'overseas shared values children's project' which apparently required £1,841-worth of Norwich City FC merch...
This is public money. We should know what it is being used for
NEW: Green mayoral candidate
@ZoeGarbett
would consult with Londoners on replacing Ulez and congestion charge with a 'pay-per-mile'-style system.
She also told
@LBC
today she would "absolutely" agree to be
@SadiqKhan
's deputy mayor, "if he'll have me"
THETFORD TOWN COUNCIL - BOUDICA. Conservative gain (formerly vacant seat).
Ricky O'Connor (I) 120
Stuart Terry (LAB) 246
Barbara Tullett (CON) 329
Maj: 83
Turnout: 26.18%
@EDP24
#LocalElections2021
All references to
#Foucault
, the Left and "Conservative values" have now been removed from the official text of
@trussliz
's speech last night, after I asked her department whether such content followed the Government Communication Service's propriety guidance.
Green assembly candidate for City and East
@joehudsonsmall
tells me the Greens are feeling “pretty confident” about achieving a “strong third” in both his constituency and in the mayoral race overall.
This year’s local elections across England could be “one of our best ever”
.
@KwajoHousing
told the London Assembly's housing committee that the number of people affected by poor social renting conditions "only seems to be getting bigger"
City Hall and government have both said they're taking steps to crack down on the issue
Great to speak with
@Zoe4Hackney
on Friday, minutes after she was revealed as Green candidate for the 2024 London mayoral election.
The Greens have increased their vote at every mayoral election since 2000 - and their performance will be a key factor in next year's result
To be clear: I asked George directly how he’ll be voting tonight, or to offer a statement on the matter in general. He chose not to answer the direct question. That’s significant for a minister.
I’ve since invited him to clarify what he meant. He has not yet responded to me.
Mounting pressure on Norfolk County Council this evening as opposition councillors urge the authority to change course over its plan to scrap free school meal vouchers over the Easter holiday.
Travelling by rail London to Stuttgart today to visit my brother studying abroad. My Brussels-Frankfurt connection was cancelled so instead going via Welkenraedt (where?), Aachen and Cologne. I for one am thrilled he asked me to bring his guitar for him.
“I will not in any shape condone this behaviour, and I have in the strongest possible terms told the government what I think”.
Mr Baker then confirmed that he has told the government he believes Mr Hancock should resign.
An example of what
@NesrineMalik
describes as the recycling of an accepted set of myths/tropes by the media - and our discourse suffers for it. Highly recommended listening from
@krishgm
's
#waystochangetheworld
podcast:
Green London mayoral candidate
@ZoeGarbett
is launching her mayoral campaign, pledging to expand free school meals to secondary schools and to lower Tube and bus fares
I’m writing an article for
@hackneypost
about the
@WaterworksLDN
festival
If you're boycotting tonight’s public meeting, it would be great to hear from you. Please DM me why you’re not attending and what most concerns you about the festival.
@saveleamarshes
I’d appreciate a RT
Great to speak yesterday with Lord
@PeterHain
at the site of what will soon be Europe’s first anti-apartheid museum, located at the former London HQ of the ANC in exile.
💥 Clash at Mayor’s Question Time yesterday between Green deputy leader
@ZackPolanski
and
@sadiqkhan
over lobbying the Government against Heathrow expansion ✈️
Depressing read on Eurostar's wasted potential from
@GwynTopham
@seatsixtyone
says “We’re now in a situation where it costs you £110 to get from London to Paris, and then €29 for the seven-hour journey from Paris to Milan with two operators competing.”
NEW: Hundreds of affordable homes are being built in London with “no one to take them” - as housing associations themselves struggle to afford them.
@londonassembly
was today told by
@Barrattplc
that the issue could soon become a "collar on development"
I'm at the Museum of London Docklands this morning, as City Hall announces plans for a memorial to victims of the transatlantic slave trade, to be unveiled here at West India Quay in the summer of 2026.
🔶Lib Dem mayoral candidate
@robblackie
is this morning launching his campaign in Brixton.
He is expected to say that Labour’s Sadiq Khan "blames everyone else" for failures on crime, while Tory candidate Susan Hall is "beyond the pale"
Proud that the constituency with the highest number of signatures to the petition () calling for sanctions against China for its internment of Uyghers in concentration camps is Finchley and Golders Green - the most Jewish in Britain
New polling data reveals that 24 per cent of private renters in the capital (about 650,000 people) are struggling to meet rent payments and six per cent (about 160,000) say they have fallen behind in the last six months
Always great to see my stories picked up on BBC TV and Radio.
#LDReporter
content, produced by myself and 164 colleagues covering local authorities across the UK, is funded by the licence fee and made available for use by more than 1000 local and regional news outlets
I've approached the Foreign Office to ask who requested purchasing items to the value of £1,841 from the Norwich City FC online shop over the last year - and what was purchased.
The Lib Dems say they are on track to receive their best London Assembly result in 20 years and are "optimistic" about the South West London seat.
Meanwhile, Greens hope to win a record 4+ assembly members and Reform UK expect a City Hall "breakthrough"
Today I'm looking into where in Norfolk and Waveney is applying for Levelling Up funds
I promise it's not sad I was able to draw the intersection of eight local authorities and ten parliamentary constituencies from memory
Today’s
@EDP24
looks at a new report from
@eelga
and
@EastEnglandAPPG
on Levelling Up in the East.
Of the government’s 12 Levelling Up missions, the report’s authors had “high” confidence in just 3 being delivered as promised.
4 were “medium” and 5 were “low”.
#buyapaper
Found a 1984 vinyl of Bronski Beat's 'Age of Consent' in Oxfam today. A wonderful touch is the sleeve listing the actual gay age of consents across the continent (and a helpline for legal advice!). Amazing how far Europe has come