Tom Harwood and the Looking For Growth campaign made a splash on X over the weekend by cleaning graffiti off a Bakerloo line train. Why is TfL not doing this themselves…
Guido had a look at how much taxpayers are contributing towards the non-existent graffiti-cleaning services procured by TfL. Since at least 2017 cleaning services have been performed by ABM Facility Services with repeated contract extensions. The bill to taxpayers has only risen…
A 60-month tender from earlier this year for cleaning services including “Graffiti Removal Services” on “London Underground sites and trains” is worth £775 million excluding VAT. That means taxpayers are paying £12.9 million per month for graffiti cleaning on the Tube. £3.2 million per week, £461,310 per day…
TfL’s excuse for the train Harwood cleaned was that “a track defect in the depot meant we were unable to use our automatic train wash for a few weeks.” Guido doesn’t think that will wash with Londoners…
If anything is a sign that the tide is turning against the ECHR, it’s arch-remainer and LibDem leader Ed Davey proposing the convention be changed. Davey was on Times Radio this morning to say he wouldn’t be opposed to the idea of rewriting the ECHR “collectively.” Classic LibDemese…
“However, if you could do it collectively, working through with the court, with European colleagues to try to make sure that human rights are protected fundamentally but it doesn’t have perverse consequences, yeah, one could look at that, but one should tread very carefully.”
Eagle-eyed co-conspirators may have spotted that Starmer’s tech failed at his short speech this morning. As he was launching… London Tech Week…
The PM’s teleprompter clearly failed and he was forced to riff for a couple of minutes about how great it was to see everyone and how many “microseconds faster” AI is than existing systems in medical tech. Eventually an aide rushed to the podium with a paper copy of his speech to put the audience out of their misery. Write your own jokes…
Rachel Reeves is facing a blue light rebellion as top cops issue a blunt warning ahead of Wednesday’s crunch spending review. Senior officers Tiff Lynch from the Police Federation and Nick Smart from the Police Superintendents’ Association have fired off a brutal letter in The Telegraph, sounding the alarm over crumbling forces. They wrote:
“Police forces across the country are being forced to shed officers and staff to deliver savings. These are not administrative cuts. They go to the core of policing’s ability to deliver a quality service. The service is in crisis. When a young constable looks down at their payslip and wonders how they’ll make rent this month, something is deeply wrong. When experienced detectives walk away from decades of service, broken by the demands placed on them, it’s the police service itself that’s broken.”
Meanwhile, the Treasury is briefing that Reeves will promise a real-terms increase in police funding, as home secretary Yvette Cooper is the last minister Reeves has yet to pin down on her departmental spending envelope. Cooper’s camp is said to be “deeply concerned” that Labour’s flagship pledge – 13,000 new neighbourhood police officers – is in serious jeopardy. Expect more interventions after Wednesday…
Zia Yusuf – now back at Reform to head up its roving DOGE unit – has spoken to the Today Programme this morning. On which he repeatedly says Sarah Pochin is a “brilliant MP” after last week’s events…
Yusuf walked back on his tweet referring to Pochin’s PMQs question as “dumb” and said he was actually in favour of a burqa ban:
“It’d be good to actually clarify my view on that because I think there’s been a lot of misinformation out there about that. Look I think that if I was an MP which obviously I’m not I would think about it very deeply but I think I would probably would be in favour of banning face coverings in public – not just the burka but you know I’ve seen Antifa thugs threaten Nigel, threaten our employees and attack one of his security detail and knock a tooth out. It’s a very threatening thing and we do live in dangerous times.”
He went on to say he called the question dumb because “I thought probably at that moment the best thing to do would be ask a question about something that would be policy.” A rollercoaster…
It took a week for Greta Thunberg’s small “Freedom Flotilla” yacht to get from Sicily with the aim of punching through Israel’s sea blockade on Gaza. Over the weekend Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz said the country would “take whatever measures are necessary” to stop Greta reaching Gaza while the “Freedom Flotilla Coalition” said their boat was “prepared for the possibility of an Israeli attack.” Not prepared enough..
Unfortunately for Greta in the early hours of last night Israeli drones dropped an irritant substance onto Thunderberg 2 before it was boarded by soldiers. Greta and her crew were provided with sandwiches…
Hamas has just said this morning the interception of the Madleen is a “flagrant violation of international law.” Greta is being taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod, 27 k.m. north of Gaza. Better luck next time…
Speaking at his speech on how to achieve “progressive capitalism” Wes Streeting fired a dig and Andy Burnham:
“Bond markets are not bond villains and fiscal rules matter.”