Northern Line extension to Battersea Power Station faces 12 month delay in latest TfL setback December 22, 2018 The £1.1bn Northern Line extension to Battersea Power Station has been delayed by at least 12 months in the latest setback for cash-strapped Transport for London. The two mile spur from Kennington was forecast to open in 2020 but will now not be ready until September 2021 at the earliest, pushing up the project's cost. London mayor Sadiq Khan [...]
Jeremy Corbyn: Brexit will go ahead if Labour win a snap election December 22, 2018 Leader of the opposition Jeremy Corbyn has said that Brexit would go ahead if Labour won a snap election in the New Year. Corbyn has insisted he would try and secure a better deal with Brussels should Labour take power but refused to rule out a second EU referendum. "My proposal at this moment is [...]
US government is partially shutdown in border wall standoff December 22, 2018 The US government was partially shutdown at midnight on Friday with President Donald Trump's demands for billions of dollars in funding for a border wall not met. Trump insisted on Friday that if the Senate could not reach a deal with the House regarding the wall then a "very long shutdown" would commence. It began going into [...]
Here are all the predictions I got wrong in 2018 December 21, 2018 I should have given up making predictions in June 2017. Three months earlier, I had spoken at a conference on Brexit and suggested that the best way forward for Theresa May would be to call a snap election and strengthen her negotiating hand. I don’t know how the Prime Minister got word of my advice, [...]
Grounded: Gatwick airport remains shut down as Army brought in to deal with drone crisis December 20, 2018 The Army has been deployed to assist with the ongoing crisis at Gatwick airport, which has seen flights grounded since Wednesday because of drones flying near the runway. Drones which have grounded all flights at Gatwick Airport are “highly targeted” and have been “designed to close the airport and bring maximum disruption in the run up [...]
Sweat at the Donmar Warehouse review: This Pulitzer winning play is a comprehensive dissection of de-industrialised American heartlands December 20, 2018 Following the US Presidential election in 2016, a slew of reporters were hastily dispatched to the backwaters of de-industrialised America to discover why large sections of the working class population there thought Donald Trump was the answer to their problems. They needn’t have made the trip. This play by Lynn Nottage, first performed in 2015, [...]
Labour MP Ivan Lewis resigns from party over antisemitism concerns December 20, 2018 An MP has resigned from the Labour Party citing the party's failure to tackle antisemitism within its ranks. Ivan Lewis, who was suspended from the party a year ago over sexual harassment allegations, accused Corbyn of being unwilling to allow Jewish people the right of “self-determination in their own state.” The MP for Bury South [...]
Government edits no deal documents to remove the word ‘unlikely’ December 20, 2018 The Brexit department confirmed it had stepped up ‘no deal’ planning by updating government advice to remove the claim it is an “unlikely” outcome. A tranche of technical notices released by the government since the summer repeatedly claimed the chance of leaving the EU without an agreement was “unlikely”. However, following Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, where [...]
Vladimir Putin says UK and Russia must break ‘deadlock’ in sour relations December 20, 2018 Vladimir Putin has held his annual press conference in which he said Russia and Britain must get out of the "deadlock" in the sour relations. The Russian president said he was interested in restoring "full relations" with Britain, which has imposed sanctions on Russia over the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter [...]
Sadiq Khan proposes council tax hike to tackle ‘brutal reality’ of violent crime December 20, 2018 London mayor Sadiq Khan has said he will increase council tax by the maximum amount possible to tackle violent crime in the capital. Khan's proposal would see his share of council tax increase by 9 per cent, or £26.28 a year in cash terms, for an average Band D council tax payer, taking the overall precept [...]