London

Very sad to hear of Bob Crow’s death. Doubtless his erstwhile political opponents will be falling over themselves to say that he will be ‘sadly missed’. But I’ve admired him for a while. He was in many ways the last of a breed: a union leader feared by the government. I used to share the view held by all floppy-haired men in pink shirts, that  Crow was basically a thug holding London to ransom by demanding absurdly high salaries for Tube drivers; blokes who just sit there pushing a button while we hard-up arts graduates slave away for much less money. Plus there’s the fact that he lived in social

Sometimes what doesn’t occasion interest or drama or controversy is more interesting – or at least more telling – than what does. So perhaps it is a tribute to the extent to which Nigel Farage and UKIP are now entrenched in the body politic that Farage’s speech to the party’s latest conference appears, as best I can tell, to have been treated as just another routine appearance by just another politician. Move along now, not a lot to see here. Not much news, not many dead. That is, the reaction has been There he goes again. We know Farage’s thing these days and it no longer shocks or even, I

Lucky Lord Adonis has spent the last few days travelling around London by bus as part of his ‘London By Bus’ campaign. He’s been chatting to commuters and sharing interesting facts like bus route 25 carries 64,000 passengers a day which is equivalent to the population of Crewe. As the picture above shows, he’s setting the town on fire. Now, I’m sure that his lordship takes his role as Shadow Infrastructure Minister very seriously (who wouldn’t); but is there more at play here? The sheer volume of pictures of him meeting concerned parties and pointing at various things might indicate the imminent launch of an election campaign. Mr S has

The Ukip candidate for Wythenshawe and Sale East has come up with a rather interesting idea: he wants to move the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to Manchester, bringing 700 jobs to the city. I imagine that a lot of Ukip supporters would be quite happy to see the department metaphorically sent to Zurich for an appointment with Dignitas, but it’s a valid point. Why shouldn’t we send more civil servants out of London, where the cost of office space and decent housing is much lower, compared to the capital with its chronic shortage of affordable homes. Lots of countries have separate political and financial centres; Italy has Rome/Milan,

A tax-cutting budget to support growth — that’s the central, very Conservative message of Boris Johnson’s 2014-15 budget for London. At Mayor’s Question Time today, he bombarded members with all the positive things to have come out of his mayoralty. Unemployment down by 18,000, employment up by 54,000, bus crime down 40 per cent, Crossrail still on time and on budget while the redevelopment of Battersea Power Station and the Northern line expansion are on track. Boris has decided to keep his voters happy with a tax cut. Despite ever decreasing government grants, it’s the second consecutive year he’s cut City Hall’s share of council tax — the Mayor claims

If I was going to measure possible reasons to desert the Tories at the next election, and I can think of a couple, plans to concrete over the countryside would score pretty highly. As a theoretical idea about something happening miles away from my home it almost makes me want to write letters to the Telegraph; if it were in my backyard I’d be shaking my fist at passing traffic or whatever people in the countryside do when they’re angry. This is moderately dangerous to the party, because what’s different now to, say, five years ago is that disaffected shire Tories have a plausible alternative to turn to, one that isn’t