This does seem just a little bit bad! Idk the sort of thing you’d think politicians might distance themselves from or something!

Excellent piece with echoes of Dickens, perfect New Year reading:

Best article I've read all year!

Set out six months ago to investigative some dubious evictions. Ended up writing a sprawling story spread over 450 years about London property deals, the ethics of money lending, Tommy Robinson, Barbary pirates, Jacobean earls, and wealth in the capital. www.londoncentric.media/p/henry-smit...

Did you know… that in many European countries… they show a long forgotten classic black and white British sketch on New Year’s Eve? YES IT IS THE ONLY THING WE KNOW ABOUT MANY EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.

Tesco Margherita Oven Pizza x Christmas Turkey Gravy. This is British food culture.

Merry Christmas to everyone but especially every dad and granddad in Britain who is unwrapping four copies each of Jonn Elledge’s borders book.

The e-scooter isn’t new – London was zooming around on Autopeds a century ago www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/the...

That’s 48 miles of selling journalism door-to-door across London on Christmas Eve completed! Many commiserations to people who had high hopes for their presents but are instead getting a newsletter subscription!

I’m sure there’s at least one person in inner London browsing Bluesky at 11pm who needs a late Christmas present delivering.

This reminds me! Five years ago I had a chat with the local council official who created “Winterval” in 1998. A real canary in the coal mine of future British culture wars. TBH the real story is that councils used to have money to spend on cultural events. www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Orders still being taken! Get hand delivered local journalism gift cards delivered to your letterbox before dawn on Christmas Eve! Terrible handwriting optional!

@jonnelledge.bsky.social @tom-phillips.com can’t believe I know TWO people on the WH Smith Heston Services bestsellers.

The UK has been exporting loads of its old Intercity 125s with flimsy fibreglass cabs to Cancun. Unfortunately it seems Mexico has slightly different attitude to the question “is it acceptable to have a car on a level crossing as a train approaches”, creating quite a stream of content.

As a former editor of Popbitch – and the proud owner of a legal letter sent by HarperCollins, accusing me of being "highly likely to cause serious harm to [their former star client]’s reputation both as an individual and author” – may I just say: GET IT RIGHT UP YE

One of the awkward things for the last few years has been trying to stop my kid from getting into a certain author's books because of how much of a pain it would be when one of those investigations finally got through a legal team.

ProTEct truSTed LocAL nEWS This isn't even designed to wind people up and hope they share it. It's just an exploitation of Birmingham Live's privileged position on Google Discover/Apple News. The whole point is to deceive people into clicking. An industry built on total contempt for its audience.

"So it's like the Olympics but only for ex-British Empire countries, aside from Rwanda because Paul Kagame, and we sort of kept it going because of the Queen and now no one wants to host it so the UK is now paying for Glasgow to do so." "Oh right. Still, at least it's free sport on TV, right?"

Honestly should have just done the televised briefing plan, would be healthy for both sides. having sat through loads of these briefings I’m not sure it’s a big loss, often relied on one side trying to catch out a spokesperson who would largely read from a big binder of pre-prepared answers.

Best case scenario for a new Leeds tram starting passenger service is now almost 50 years after the proposals were made.

There's an incredibly sad story that's been aggregated across most national and local newspapers today. A 29-year-old mum called Jana Bahvalova found dead in a Manchester canal after failing to pick up her kids. Her family are raising money on GoFundMe for her two small kids on the eve of Christmas.

very helpful, definitive, absolutely nothing to question about it, ranking of global news organisations by the FT giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

The United Grand Lodge of England is seeking a judicial review of the Met police's decision to require all officers to declare membership of the freemasons. They argue the decision is "unlawful, unfair and discriminatory against freemasons" and followed a "prejudicial" process by the Met.

everything is in freefall in ad-supported written news media, abandon ship, just look down those year-on-year audience declines, tide is going out

The description of the dashcam footage from the Liverpool road rage attack is horrific. Worth reading back the Sky liveblog: news.sky.com/story/paul-d...

A fun thing about the spread of dodgy CICs (fake charities) fundraising outside London stations is… they’re becoming increasingly upset as people slowly learn they’re not charities! A guy fundraising for ‘homeless veterans with PTSD’: “We’re not like the knife crime CICs, we’re good.”

It only took a year but we did it, thanks Bluesky people! www.yorkmix.com/pictures-yor... I now know more about the UK artificial tree market than I'd ever expected.

Going to do a full culture war pivot over whoever decided we can’t have cling film on rolls of Christmas wrapping paper.

What if Thames Water aren’t always the baddies when it comes to sewage in London rivers? It’s hard to comprehend, so in April I challenged @rachel-rees.bsky.social to find a single example of a misconnection and chase it to the Thames. It became an epic quest: www.londoncentric.media/p/misconnect...

Some slides from the leaked Reform candidate training guide we obtained this week. They're very aware of the potential for winning lots of council seats on 30% of the vote. www.londoncentric.media/p/reform-uk-... (Any journalists/academics who want the full thing with credit, get in touch.)

Ooooh, this is an interesting bit of breaking London news! The Met police, as of today, will require all officers to declare if they're a member of the freemasons.

Really interesting. Also shows Ref are thinking clearly about the next GE being a Ref/Con coalition vs. a Lab/Lib/Grn/Yorp/Nats fragmentation with London locals next year a dry run for exploiting it. Almost a given they'll win some councils on the edges, it's how they do in zone 1-4 that matters.

London Centric has got hold of Reform UK's internal candidate training plan for next year's local elections, where it hopes to make big gains in London. "Don't drink and tweet", focus on bin collections, and copy the Lib Dems' tactics. www.londoncentric.media/p/reform-uk-... (£/free trial).

Just one of the best bits of journalism and storytelling I've heard in the last year.

We're probably going to miss our target... donate.biggive.org/campaign/a05... But if you donate to this excellent cause by noon today your money will be doubled and (if you drop me an email) I'll give you free access to the members-only London Centric stories I'm working on.

This is a good thread! Every week someone reads out a London Centric story on TikTok without credit and does big views. This isn’t a wah wah moan… more that when a big news outlet steals, they know what they’re doing. I think a lot of content creators sincerely think “reading words” *is* reporting?

It’s about two decades since @popjustice.bsky.social stuck out this Stay Another Day cover and every year I still believe it could make the festive playlist classics list. open.spotify.com/track/2S6LxF...

*Lambeth Country Show axed after 50 years *The 81 year old running as the YIMBY mayor of London *A £500 basement conversion in Lewisham *WHY ARE LONDON’S BUSES GETTING SLOWER??? Completely chaotic mix of stories, what is the editor thinking, all here: www.londoncentric.media/p/lambeth-co...

Morecambe FC ownership group “Panjab Warriors” has distanced itself from its former frontman after he was sanctioned over alleged terrorist links involving plans for a violent uprising in the Punjab. Peak, peak non-league stuff. www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...

Great liveblog content!

Netflix has an agreement to buy Warner Bros Discovery for the film/tv studio and also taking control of HBO and the just-about-to-launch-in-UK HBO Max streaming service. I would be verrrrrry worried if I was Sky. www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/bus...

I wonder how much Ofcom’s failure to use even the limited powers it has against Twitter is based on concern that it would be quite revealing when Musk just ignores any ruling.

@cjayanetti.bsky.social not that it really matters but I think it’s interesting you’re the only person to have posted on X about PoliticsUK being a pay for play front. Would’ve been timeline-dominating fatal to them a few years ago.

I’m flyering for this outside SE London commuter stations every morning this week and if you see me in person and donate (hello to the confused reader) I’ll also buy you a coffee.

My final day at the Guardian was a quiet Friday in August. At 4pm the news editor called me as I was logging out. "Alpacas," he said. "No one's around. Can you do a piece on the woman wanting justice for Geronimo." 
He did this just to ruin my Guardian author page for eternity. Which I respect.

So one of the most viral British aggregators @PolitlcsUK (the second “i” is an L) is actually run by a former Tory MP turned lobbyist and Andrew Rosindell’s office manager? And they interview Rosindell? Such a great era.

Lobbyist / ex Tory MP Ben Howlett has been done by an undercover sting. As ever, the most revealing thing is how very very cheap it is buy access in British media/politics — and especially how Howlett controls one of the biggest UK pol Twitter accounts! democracyforsale.substack.com/p/breaking-o...

GB News now broadcasting calls to remove the ethnic minority MPs from parliament

Babybel has rebranded from “upbeat bouncy red plastic cheese you buy to shut up children for five minutes” to “serious protein source for bro deadlift power up”. In this essay on what this says about our changing culture, I will…

Its official twitter policy that racist abuse is okay, so why is the BBC reporting this like its a mystery of something? www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...