London mayoral election 2021: who are the candidates in the race to become London mayor? Katie Strick and Sophia Sleigh
Leaders vote on Super Thursday UP NEXT
The list reads like it could be the line-up from Strictly Come Dancing: an interplanetary space warrior, a YouTuber prankster and a former crime drama star forging a new political career path. But in fact, these are the candidates taking on Sadiq Khan in next month’s London mayoral election.
They are a varied lot - and there is a record-breaking number of them. While 12 nominees ran in 2016, a total of 20 have put their names in the hat for this year’s City Hall contest, which currently sees Khan in the lead, followed by Tory hopeful Shaun Bailey, a former youth worker who has has served in the London Assembly since 2016. Other candidates include UKIP’s Peter Gammons, Mandu Reid for the Women’s Equality Party and the Greens’ Sian Berry.
Emergency services dragged into High Street Kensington cycle lanes row over objections Ross Lydall
Their objections emerged in documents published last night by the council ahead of a crunch meeting next Wednesday at which it will deliberate over four options, including the reinstatement of the lanes or a “do nothing” approach to keeping the road layout without protection for cyclists.
According to the documents, the fire brigade feared its fire engines would get stuck in the lanes, while LAS said they would cause pinch-points. Both feared that vehicle congestion could slow 999 response times and said they would not instruct crews to enter the cycle lanes in an emergency.
Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson: the first review Melanie McDonagh
It’s not every self help book that’s prefaced by an exhaustive description of the author’s ill health but Jordan Peterson’s latest, Beyond Order, starts with an Overture, a journey through his grisly experiences in a succession of hospitals, which could usefully be summed up as: Avoid Benzodiazapine. (Incidentally, as a rule of life that has a lot going for it.)
But there’s a point to sharing his vicissitudes. When he emerged from his ordeal, he revised this book in the light of what he’d been through, only keeping the bits that still made sense. His remarkable openness about an illness, which meant he lost track of time and couldn’t button his shirt or stand upright, did make a useful point about his own vulnerability.