London
The Liberal Democrats have a dangerous vision for the City of London
Liberals have always set great store by laws and declarations. It was joked about Lord Loreburn, the liberal Lord Chancellor…
Spirit of place
In a 1923 book called Echo de Paris, the writer Laurence Houseman attempted to conjure up in a very slim,…
Writers to the rescue
William Loxley’s lively account of ‘Bloomsbury, the Blitz and Horizon magazine’ begins with W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood emigrating to…
The clever radical who led the City’s transformation
It’s a vivid example of unintended consequences that the swimming-pool builders of southern England should owe so much to Sir…
Is London being ‘levelled down’ already?
In his ‘levelling up’ speech in Coventry this week, the Prime Minister insisted time and again that this was no…
Ritz assessment
The Ritz is still here, and still gaudy. No grand hotel in London feels quite so complete, if pink; as…
Don’t ‘Kill the Bill’
Are the rights of protesters and the rights of all other citizens fairly balanced? Think back to the Extinction Rebellion…
A boat trip back through time
I was looking forward to my dinner at Daquise in South Kensington, a Polish restaurant that’s been there for ever…
Capital gains
Don’t pity me for living in London
High life
New York I haven’t felt such shirt-dripping, mind-clogging wet heat since Saigon back in 1971. The Bagel is a steam…
Noble art
Noble Rot sits in Greek Street, Soho, on the site of the old Gay Hussar, which squatted here from 1953…
Artist’s Notebook
I’m blessed by the fact that I live almost smack-bang in the middle of old London, a pebble’s toe punt…
Paling into insignificance
The Roof Garden is a pale, Nordic-style restaurant at the top of the glorious Pantechnicon in Belgravia — formerly a…
Boris’s levelling up risks leaving behind London
Boris Johnson’s plan to ‘level up’ Britain sounds long overdue. It implies the creation of a less geographically unequal United…
Fork in the road
You cannot have cars and dining tables in the same dreamscape: it doesn’t work, unless you think carbon monoxide is…
Sadiq Khan’s victory is good news for the Tories
Sadiq Khan is here to stay. London’s mayor has suggested he wants to stay on until 2040. But is this really good…
The London mayoralty needs to be reformed
Who does a capital city belong to? In the case of London tonight, one answer could be ‘Labour’, now that…
Affronted
The problem with London’s fake facades
Pete the Street
‘I’ve been seeing the bare bones of London,’ explains the landscape artist Peter Brown, who is known affectionately as ‘Pete…
Transported
The St Pancras Brasserie and Champagne Bar by Searcys is as expansive as its name, but ghostly. It is an…
London’s mayoral election is an embarrassment
Count Binface, a man who claims to be a 6,000-year-old ‘independent space warrior’, is running to be London mayor. In…
Back to the future
The west end of London is still pale and necrotic, but there are points of light. Hatchards the bookseller is…
London’s mayoral race is a warning to Tories nationwide
The London Mayoral election is more of a procession than a race. The only real question is whether Sadiq Khan…
What can Laurence Fox hope to achieve with his bid for London mayor?
As if the politics of the Western world wasn’t well past parody already, this weekend sees Laurence Fox throwing his…
Reinventing the wheel
For most London-based politicians, there’s a threat that’s worse than Covid. You’ll begin to notice it as we ease out…
