Crayolas, set squares and glue-on sparkles to the ready: a competition has just been launched to design the next generation of Routemaster buses. Voters will of course recall that the much-loved bus was a key plank of Boris Johnson's manifesto, as he tempted bendy-bus loathers by claiming the articulated eyesores would be banished from our streets in favour of a new fleet of Routemasters. Yet during his first two months in office the topic......

In a live broadcast press conference, Boris Johnson has announced an independent inquiry into allegations of sexual misconduct against Deputy Mayor Ray Lewis. The press conference is unfolding with Ray Lewis himself present, and many of the questions directed to him concern his dismissal from the church. He is saying he is unaware of any dismissal. Mr Johnson has mentioned that he will not suspend Mr Lewis from his role as Deputy Mayor for......

Boris has clearly been caught short of a few bob on the long, late night cab ride home. Today, he announced a trial period allowing cab drivers to stop on red routes, in the wee hours, to enable their fares to visit the ATM and pick up cash for their fare, having inadvisably squandered it on that last round of drinks. This move is to improve passenger safety and to help get us home zippily......

Boris may not have been able to save our Post Offices, but he has succeeded in reversing a decision to close dozens of Underground ticket offices. The move, a Livingstone money-scrimping initiative, was opposed by passenger groups amid concerns that safety would be compromised by staffless stations, and Johnson's decision to keep them open was greeted as [cliche alert] a "victory for common sense". As relations between the City Hall incumbent and his predecessor......

It turns out that, contrary to popular media opinion, politics is alive and well with our great capital's young. Last night we squeezed into the State of London Debate, an event at Central Hall Westminster hosted by Boris Johnson and his team. A ticket did not guarantee entry and luckily we got there in plenty of time because the event was full to the brim with Londoners, young and old, anxiously waiting to ask......

Kate Hoey, former Labour sports minister and controversial aide to our new Conservative mayor, has admitted that Boris is not certain where some fairly large and important things are. That in itself might not be much of a revelation, but according to her interview with the Metro he's not the only one searching behind the sofa: Some boroughs cannot even tell you what [sports] facilities they have...We haven't even got a proper absolute plan......

Londoners tired of their foppish Mayor may have an unlikely saviour come the 2012 elections: bombastic businessman Alan Sugar has suggested that he might stand as Labour Party candidate in the next mayoral election. The ex-Amstrad boss and East End barrow-boy would certainly make a tough figurehead for the city. Whether the ability to amass heaps of dosh and shout at hapless apprentices on TV equips one to run the nation’s capital city is......

It's definitely that time of year. Heatbuster ads have been on the tubes for at least 6 weeks and those announcements about carrying a bottle of water with you (too late once you're in the bowels of the platforms) are resonating blandly on a regular basis. So, it's time for TfL's latest wheeze to cool the Underground down. Cue: GIANT FANS! Genius. Around 40 portable industrial fans will be introduced at key stations to......

Honestly, what kind of topsy-turvy world is it where a man can't keep for himself the spoils of war he half-inched on a foreign lark? That's just what Boris Johnson is wondering. The mayor has been forced to hand over a cigar box that he pilfered from the charred remains of Baghdad to Scotland Yard. Boris was in Iraq in 2003, shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein's government, when he visited the home......

When Boris scrapped The Londoner he was fulfilling a pledge to divert the money to tree planting and 'protect and preserve' our open spaces. Today it was announced that we'll be able to vote for our local park to get a slice of the £6m pie set aside for the Priority Parks project. Taking a leaf out of reality TV's preferred way of doing things, he told the BBC: Londoners know best which areas......

Harrow's booze-hounds aren't having a good time of it. WIth Boris decreeing that it's no longer lawful to sup a Pale Ale while rattling up northwest-wards on the Metropolitan Line, the borough is now mulling a total ban on drinking in public. Killjoy councillors are debating whether to extend a public booze ban, which already exists in parts of Wealdstone and South Harrow, to cover the entire borough. But fear not, Pimms quaffers! The......

Happy birthday to you... Happy birthday to you... Yes, Boris Johnson's 44 today. Bet his desk's all decorated with balloons and there's a smashing big cake for elevenses. However, there's no day off for the birthday boy who had to get up jolly early to appear on this morning's Today programme to answer questions about what happens when the Olympics goes over the £9.3bn budget. Boris' was affable and only slightly bumbling and maintained......

Like a newly elected mayor with a point to prove, new London Mayor, Boris Johnson, has continued his pledge to lower the ever spiralling cost of the 2012 Olympics. Earlier this month he raised concerns that organisers of the games were failing to create a legacy master plan regarding facilities. Now, a review commissioned by the mayor has found that the cost of the Olympic Stadium alone has reached £525m – almost double its......

Ken Livingston's vision of driving a Routemaster to Beijing as a 2012 promotional exercise may have been ditched as a total waste of time and money because of the Sichuan earthquake but the bus itself is still in line to be the star of the handover ceremony at the end of this summer's Games. In fact, it's already on it's way in a container ship. As for the spangly ceremonials, as per the rumours,......

The Ramsay brand and a £400 a night hotel were among the items struck from the budget for London House - our city's presence at the Beijing Olympics this August - at last night's meeting of the Olympic Board, chaired for the first time by Mayor Johnson. Bozza's frugality saw over £1 million knocked off the bill for London's PR exercise as 18 Ramsay chefs were deemed unnecessary for hospitality and the City Hall......

A tale here of two local councils and their contrasting approaches to the pressing issue of water usage. Following a government campaign announced earlier this year, Westminster council have binned bottled water from their offices in favour of glugging straight from the tap (via a glass or plastic receptacle, of course). They estimate that doing so will save them in the region of £12,000. The council has also vowed to replace pre-bottled water at......

Wethinks the Livingstone doth protest too much. Our former mayor is upset at the suggestion, made by Boris Johnson, that Ken kept a secret stash of liquor with which to get merry with the wives of Windsor and who knows whom else. A comedy of errors it may be (that's enough poor Shakespeare references. Eds.), but Boris claims that, when he first moved into the Thameside offices, he discovered a secret fridge stocked with......

We can only assume that Boris Johnson, the man charged with finding a solution to London’s spate of tragic youth violence, has been delving into his own past for inspiration. As such, on his 16th birthday, every boy in London will receive a Michelin restaurant guide, a case of Bollinger and a plant pot full of £50 notes. Well, that’s not true, but a suggestion put forward by our new Mayor yesterday, in the......

Those good people at Friction TV sent us this video of Saturday night's drinking party on the tube. Our Nice Liz's experience was "safe and fun". This footage shows another side to the evening. We didn't even make it onto the tube because we were tardy and the stations were shut by the time we rocked up with a bottle of wine and our party frocks. Were you there? What was your experience? embededPlayer(3231, 3546,......

Whether seasoned alcoholic, pre-big-night-out-prepper or civilised imbiber of post work ale tomorrow's your last chance to legally sup an alcoholic beverage on the tube, DLR or buses. The minute our new Mayor announced this, Facebook groups started springing up with the inevitably super idea of Underground parties to mark the momentous passing of public transport subterranean boozing. They soon morphed into one big Circle line shebang comprising a gentrified cocktail party (elegant dress preferred)......

It was just last week that Londonist speculated our new mayor might not be so enthused about the skyscrapers redrawing London's skyline as his predecessor was. Now we have confirmation from the blond-barnetted one himself: he is to demand tougher rules on high rise buildings. Johnson outlined his views on skyscraper requirements thus: "They should be buildings of quality, they should be buildings of distinction... I do think we should be protecting strategic views......

Despite being pro-bicycle, Boris announced yesterday that motorcycles will be allowed to share bus lanes with buses and cyclists. Making good on his campaign promise, the mayor has made his decision based on trials run in Bristol as well as on East India Dock Road, Streatham High Street/Brixton Hill/Brixton Road, and Finchley Road. Boris claims that not only has the change not made the roads any more dangerous, it will actually lead to a......

Boris Johnson has appointed Tim Parker as First Deputy Mayor and Chief Executive of the GLA. Mr Parker is also nominated as Chairman of Transport for London to succeed Boris - who has happily realised he perhaps shouldn't be keeping too many plates in the air - from September. Mr Parker has agreed not to receive a salary but will get a nominal one pound a year for his trouble. £1? Multi-millionaire or no,......

Boris may be scheming to plant new trees, but it may not be enough to recover the foliage losses London experiences every year. According to Trees for Cities, 9,000 trees were felled in London last year, which would eat away the vast majority of Boris’ proposed 10,000 planting project. Trees for Cities works with local communities to create green areas in urban settings. The independent charity is currently campaigning to secure protection for city......

So the local football team failed to clamber up the rope ladder to the departing helicopter of the Premier League, and in truth it's nothing more than an ancient dump where the council will spy on you without reason. Yet Croydon's future looks rosy: Mayor Boris has lavished praise on plans for an exhaustive regeneration of the borough. Croydon Gateway, as this swanky, Flash-heavy website ably demonstrates, is a scheme that aims to "shape......

Have you heard? Boris is banning booze on all London transport come the first of June! Do you care? Many of your fellow Londoners do! And they’re planning parties to prove it. Grassroots campaigns both to bid adieu to booze cruising on the Tube and to openly flout the new ban are sprouting up all over – where else? – Facebook. Garnering the most attention is James Darling’s Last Orders on the Underground. The......

We can't help but be impressed by Boris Johnson's bid to deliver as many of his manifesto pledges as possible in his Mayoral settling in stage. First the tube booze ban, then scrapping The Londoner. Today he's announcing an extra 440 police staff on the buses - his headline promise on transport. Safer Transport Teams were launched in 2005 and in March last year Ken Livingstone stumped up for an additional 400 PCSOs to......

The looming financial crisis and gradual decline in demand for city property may have claimed a victim: the controversial Walkie Talkie tower on Fenchurch street could be delayed until the commercial property market slump has passed. While demolition of the existing 1960s block is due to be completed early next year, the developer, Land Securities, has stated that they will wait to secure a tenant before construction begins on what is arguably the least......

It was one of Boris Johnson's election pledges to bring in mobile weapons scanners and knife detector arches and today saw them appearing at tube stations and on London's streets as a very public and visual response to the knife crime murders of the past week. As one astute Londonist reader has pointed out, where was the swift resort to "in your face" policing after the unfortunate teenage girl was allegedly covered in lye......

Oyster cards will soon be accepted on all mainline trains, or at least they will if Boris gets his way. This first steps were taken yesterday when the mayor signed an agreement with First Great Western, who will implement Oyster on all of their London trains as of September. It will certainly be more convenient, but the real bonus comes in the fact that the reduce rates offered on buses and the Tube will......