Most days, the UK's top newspapers have a wide range of photos gracing their front pages. But on Friday, every image topping the British front pages was identical.

If you’re wondering how the government’s new towns pitch is going down locally… just driven through one proposed site where there’s giant AI generated posters of Steve Reed with a tank of petrol setting the countryside on fire.

Many congratulations to the @enfielddispatch.bsky.social for finding the London local news angle on the Prince Andrew arrest. enfielddispatch.co.uk/nhs-trust-co...

The media management of this Andrew news… pre-shadowed by an unusually frank interview with the head of the CPS in the Sunday Times hinting there might be action… then BBC getting the story…

Good luck to anyone trying to publish any other news today.

Love this so much, especially the juxtaposition of English folklore paths with an Amazon spokesperson going out of their way to deny a person driving their branded vehicle is an employee.

This image of an Amazon van abandoned in the Thames Estuary faintly evokes an impressionist painting. I am so moved.

London’s got a global viral video malaise www.londoncentric.media/p/london-cri...

I'd missed that the government last week ordered the deletion of the site Courtsdesk. It's hard to describe how impossible it is for journalists to find court listings in UK. There's countless hearings I'd send a reporter to... if I knew they were happening. www.legalcheek.com/2026/02/mini...

I’d pay to see the back-and-forth email thread workshopping this one with the PR advisers.

Italy winning a World Cup cricket match is just very funny, great bit.

the elder millenial poster's retirement home has achieved its final form

Fun thing about being from York is your WhatsApp still pops when the river floods with pics of idiots who didn't move their cars. A *White Range Rover Evoque getting crushed in the process* is a v special catch. (Pic from North Yorks Weather Updates, which seems to be the northern newswire now.)

Sadiq Khan: "Keir Starmer was elected with a huge majority and needs to be given the time to deliver, especially given the extremely challenging circumstances he inherited after 14 years of Tory governments."

A fascinating "why format matters" example here. Making this the text of your post would be standard government minister boilerplate. Posting it as a screenshot in the official font makes it look like you've been asked to carry the portrait of Lenin at the May Day Parade.

Honestly thought I'd have this Wikipedia tab closed for a few years more but there we go. .

Always like reading Andy McSmith just unloading a load of anecdotes www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Re-upping this for the Monday crowd... I think my favourite, most revealing detail is that the guy seems to not realise he's in trouble because London Centric's reporting didn't hit anything like his view counts, so therefore it can't really matter.

If anyone can think of a London equivalent that could be achieved with a budget of about seven pence please send me a WhatsApp: wa.me/447760993558

Ed Miliband backed into second favourite to be next leader on Betfair, now has marginally shorter odds than Wes Streeting.

Hate-filled fake videos about London are everywhere. We've obtained a recording of a TikToker confessing to secretly filming Londoners in their homes for clicks. He says it's not political. He just wants to make money from far-right anger. Read what he says: www.londoncentric.media/p/london-tik...

800 words on newspaper economics in a era where no one will pulp a magazine

Don’t tend to read political books but enjoyed @morganj0nes.bsky.social on 2nd referendum. No big show off explanations you normally get about “how clever we were inside the campaign”. More an anthropology study of the weirdness of FBPE and a two years of Twitter-driven national psychosis.

the headline makes it sound like his lapse was something like appearing in someone’s emails, poor guy simply spoke to the Financial Times!

so a month ago I was reading @markpackuk.bsky.social’s speech on Twitter in the lords and there were obviously fake stats the government used to justify Twitter’s UK reach and its continued importance to British audiences Rob has now found the source of the data was… Twitter

OK well done whoever is doing the Winter Olympics PR for finally getting people interested with the idea that penis injections with acid might make ski jumpers fly faster.

The former Conservative leader of Barnet council in London has just been appointed Reform UK's leader in Wales. (He's originally from Wales and stood down from Barnet council a month ago, having defected to Farage's party last year.)

A growing number of political weirdos are asking Wikipedia "who the hell is Al Carns" and then confidently explaining in group chats what they know about "Al Carns", please look out for your friends at this time.

Jeffrey Epstein’s London. Lots of previously unreported details: *the proposal for Epstein to buy a hotel near Green Park and put a London “playroom” in the penthouse *the mansions he considered buying *a proposed London meeting between Woody Allen and “PA” www.londoncentric.media/p/jeffrey-ep...

the pitch is being rolled for a BBC/Channel 4 merger ahead of the next director general’s arrival www.thetimes.com/article/6c44...

Information Commissioner launches formal investigation in X / Grok over use of people's personal data to create sexual images of children without consent. (The government will continue to post through it, no doubt.)

Mandelson last week did a comeback/damage limitation interview with photographer for the Times magazine, which I'm guessing was planned to run at a future date but has been pushed out online on a Monday night because of events. Anyway yeah. www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

NEW: Who was John Pond? This August 2009 email exchange which was forwarded to Jeffrey Epstein included Mandelson, the PM's PPS Jeremy Heywood, the minister/adviser Shriti Vadera and... John Pond. Two sources have told the BBC that John Pond was in fact Gordon Brown, then the PM

for connoisseurs of local journalism traffic farming, this is the latest frontier – you reprint ancient facts from Wikipedia and present them as news, in order to create curiosity gap headlines that appear in Google Discover / Apple News

Damn that person close to Mandelson must feel stupid now the email has been released.

Unfortunately it appears the fire that has blocked trains out of Euston today is in a building that houses a hot yoga studio that promises "controlled heat". www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

My social video feeds are full of videos *describing* an interview between Tom Hardy and Keir Starmer that… didn’t happen. Everyone loves that Tom stuck it to him! All that stuff about deepfakes being super realistic and it’s just an AI voice saying “Hardy delivered truth bombed”.

Labour government scraps long-planned upgrade of busiest interchange in UK without lifts, because London. Local Labour goes "guys what the hell, PS the Greens". A few million found pre-election for a quick bodge job. (Declaration of interest: my back is broken from carrying prams up those stairs.)

Nice work if you can get it. PwC are paid £4.1m by the UK Government for a set of bookmarks you could vibe code in a few hours. Public procurement is a racket. mahadk.com/posts/ai-ski...

ONS has worked out how to cope with Tesco Clubcard discounts, inflation's over lads, economy's booming. www.ft.com/content/8cf0...

been trying to track down Waymo's self-driving hq in London, just going to be endlessly intriguing to see how the capital copes! Could be totally second nature normal to get a robotaxi to the pub by the start of next year. www.londoncentric.media/i/185941171/...

I love a news story which is so obviously not the full story but you can basically fill in the gaps for your own amusement.

NEW: Former academic Matt Goodwin has been announced as Reform UK's candidate for the Gorton & Denton byelection.

Talking about this on LBC in 10 minutes with @mrjamesob.bsky.social (and there’s much more to come on this story in the coming days and weeks)

Anyone on London Bluesky happen to work in Park Royal, where I am about to die by becoming the first person to cycle it? Or alternatively, have spotted self-driving Waymos out and about?

I am disappointed by today’s NEC decision and concerned about its potential impact on the important elections ahead of us. To whoever becomes Labour’s candidate and to our members in Manchester and Tameside: you will have my full support in this fight and I will be there whenever you need me. 1/2

Thinking of the hundreds of London lobbyists, architects, PR advisers, engineers, etc who managed to buy a house in Clapham after a few years work on whatever this was.

The investigation was also peak Britishness. "First, we identified the design of the rubbish bins visible in some of the TikToks, which confirmed which council area the video had been filmed in."

This is one of the strangest and most screwed-up stories I’ve worked on. www.londoncentric.media/p/tiktok-lon...