London

On Friday 19 August, London Underground will run its first night tube services as the capital congratulates itself on becoming the nation’s first 24-hour city. But while the Mayor’s office is intent on running trains for the city’s night owls, the rest of local government seems determined to tuck them up in bed. In the past 10 years, a savage assault on our nightlife has caused 40 per cent of London’s music venues to close. Those that are left face a constant struggle to retain a late license. George Hull, Mark Wilding and Kevin Dunning on the 24-hour tube: Tonight, if you trek into the city, you’ll be sorely disappointed

Last year, I found a pair of trainers in our communal recycling bin: Nike Air Max in black and grey size 10, very smart and hardly worn. I’d been wearing them a week when the teenager who lives in the flat below pointed at them and laughed. He told me that he’d discarded them because they were scuffed. This is where I’ve got to, I thought: wearing trainers that I found in a bin on a council estate. Such foraging isn’t un-usual for us. The sideboard in our kitchen, the bookshelf in the hall and the big mirror in our bedroom were all found on our street. I worry that

Have you ever wondered what led to the birth of the modern insurance industry? No, me neither. But it turns out that the Great Fire of London was the catalyst for what is today a multi-billion pound industry encompassing everything from contents, cars and caravans to pets, festivals and holidays. I admit to finding that interesting. This year marks the 350th commemoration of the Great Fire of London, an event which started in a bakery on Pudding Lane and went on to devastate more than 13,500 homes and 87 churches, including St Paul’s. Estimated rebuilding costs were £10 million in the 17th century. The Association of British Insurers (ABI) calculates that repairing

In Notting Hill Gate, in west London, the division was obvious. On the east side of the street was a row of privately owned Victorian terraced houses painted in pastel colours like different flavoured ice creams. These houses, worth £4 million to £6 million each, were dotted with Remain posters. On the west side was a sad-looking inter-war council block, Nottingwood House, which had dirty bricks and outside staircases and corridors. No posters there. But that is where my fellow campaigners and I headed — down to the basement entrances with their heavy steel gates. We looked up the names on the canvassing sheets and rang the bell of one flat after

Six weeks ago I was one of the 1.3 million Londoners who voted for Sadiq Khan as mayor. Boy do I regret it now. Because he’s just shown what he really thinks of us inhabitants of the capital: that we’re so mentally fragile, so pathetic, so vulnerable to the wicked charms of advertisers, that he must censor allegedly sexist ads on our behalf and protect us from offence. In proposing a blanket ban on bus and Tube ads that make people feel bad about their bodies, Sadiq has revealed his authoritarian, paternalistic contempt for the people who swept him to power. I’m amazed there isn’t more fury about his extraordinary