Plans for a pedestrianised Parliament Square piazza (a tautology, surely?) have been scotched by City Hall. Mayor Boz has decided to review an £18m plan minted by his predecessor to "do a Traf Square" on the area, paving the southern bit beside Westminster Abbey and putting in extra benches in aid of turning it into a nice spot to gather and graze. The reason for this rethink? Concerns over traffic congestion, an issue that......

Brian Haw arrests 24,000 police for protesting at Westminster. Prisons in London are less popular than ever. We learn the costs of free travel for kids. A touch of glass is coming to South London: Crystal Palace is soon to rise again. Pilot finds God on the way to Heathrow. Fortunately God also seems to have found the pilot, as no harm was done. Is this the real life? We Will Rock You, the......

The Holiday season is in full swing in NYC, with holiday lights in Brooklyn, a giant snow globe in Bryan Park and Chanukah specials for ham. One citizen decided to go vigilante on annoying car alarms, a murder suspect used a fake Asian accent on the stand and a video of a man being beaten up by teenage girls on a subway shocked the city. And we interviewed soon-to-be-leaving-Gawker editor Choire Sicha, who said,......

The Turner Prize may have been spirited away to Liverpool but Mark Wallinger's recreation of Brian Haw's protest camp outside the Houses of Parliament pre-SOPCA nailed the Turner Prize for him last night. Although he chose to exhibit himself dressed as a bear, wandering around a gallery in Germany for the prize exhibition it was clear that the judges awarded the annually controversial £25,000 gong to Wallinger on the merits of his "bold political......

With bonfire night just around the corner, Parliament must be getting a little nervous. Unblinking beady eyes will no doubt be focused on Southwark Crown Court today where Brian Haw takes on Sir Ian Blair over the removal of his placards way back in May 06. No updates as yet but yesterday the BBC reported a master stroke of anti-terror logic in that Haw's camp could present a terrorist target. More specifically that Haw's......

Don't you love it when the fair comes to town? The lights, the candy floss, the 'hook a duck', the grenades, the rocket launchers, the assault rifles! Ahh, takes you back to childhood! Your father lifting you onto his shoulders, getting so full of sweets that you throw up after going on the dodgems, examining the latest in targeting technology, watching footage of fuel-air explosive destroying an Afghan town, feeling the reassuring weight of......

This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 14. The Right To Protest It seems to me that the government is particularly exposed whenever it is seen to block the right of its citizens to protest. Freedom of speech and the right to protest are two of the founding pillars of democracy, and that is what the government is fighting so many wars......

A look at the obscene pots of cash floating around town this week. Money in Sale of Witanhirst, London's second largest house: £32 million (estimated) Average London home: £313,000 Total in: £32,313,000 Money out Michael Barry steals from Bexley Council: £220,000 Ne'er-do-wells posing as Jose Mourinho commit benefit fraud: £60,000 Brian Haw is a drain on police resources: £111,000 Jack Lemley, chair of the Olympic Delivery Authority, nets £400,000 for quitting his job. Metronet......

The one-man protest that is Brian Haw, the only demonstrator allowed to air his views inside Parliament Square, may find himself surrounded soon. Instead of police circling him, however, it may well be other placard-waving peaceniks. Newly-minted PM Gordon Brown has called for a change in laws squelching the public’s right to protest within the grounds immediately surrounding Parliament. Currently, demonstrating in this area without prior police permission is prohibited by the Serious Organised......

This is a new weekend column brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 3. Moustaches and Manifestos So far, it’d been a pretty action packed day. First we’d seen the Shadow Minister for London, who had suggested that regard for issues of respect and social responsibility appeared to be on the rise after a period of neglect over recent years and decades. We’d then encountered the......

This is a new weekend column brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 2. The difference a few metres of tarmac makes Last week, Liz mentioned our meeting with Jacqui Lait, the Shadow Minister for London. Having left her office, we went in search of a pint but got sidetracked at Parliament Square. As you may know…on 2nd June 2001 Brian Haw set up a demonstration......

This is a new weekend column brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. Pendulums So this week, Jacqui Lait MP, the Shadow Minister for London invited Pete and me to Westminster for a chat about niceness. Before I start this – I must stress that Team Nice is not politically biased towards any political party. All we want to do is improve niceness. Jacqui, Pete and......

The kind of record-breaking attempt where you balance an egg on your head while performing La Traviata backwards in a vat of custard - Londonist thinks those are pretty lame, on the whole. The kind of record-breaking attempt where you stand up for free speech in the UK while pointing out the ridiculousness of the paranoid laws introduced by the government which curb the right to protest, however - those are the kind of......

There have been some pretty big acts of protest in the past. The self immolation of Thích Quảng Đức as protest against the treatment of Buddhists by the authoritarian administration governing South Vietnam; the lone protester who tried to stop four advancing tanks in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989; Brian Haw's protest in Parliament Square since June 2001. However, these efforts have all been eclipsed by workers from a Burberry factory in South......

This is great. Brian Haw's protest has been transformed into art and that art itself forms a fresh protest: Now former Turner Prize nominee Mark Wallinger has recreated the protestor's camp, and his banners, in the Tate. The gallery falls within a 1km zone around Parliament in which unauthorised demonstrations are prohibited. Wallinger has placed his exhibition, called State Britain, half inside and half outside the exclusion zone - which is marked on the......

Kentish Town Cyclist, Nik Shah, is taking the time to try and make the morning commute a little more interesting by using it as a poke in the government's eye. PledgeBank is the implement of choice in an attempt to organise a Valentine's Day protest against The Serious Organised Crime and Police Acton: "I will commute past Westminster on a bike wearing a vest that says "SOCPA sucks" but only if 10 other local......

The Met's attempts to remove Brian Haw from outside Parliament have reached new lows by playing on people's fear of terrorism. The anti-war protester Brian Haw could be exploited by terrorists wanting to bomb Westminster, a court heard. Mr Haw's banners outside the Houses of Parliament could be used to conceal a device by extremists, Marylebone Magistrates' Court was told. Well yes they could. But so could a backpack. Or a shopping trolley. Or......

Brian Haw appeared in court today for breaching conditions over his demonstration outside the Palace of Westminster (i.e. his placards exceed an area of 3m by 1m). The case has been adjourned for the defence to apply for a 'judicial review of the conditions imposed on Mr Haw'. A survey has found that a quarter of bankers in the City expect their bonus this year to be more than double what they got last......

So it turns out that it took 78 coppers to remove Brian Haw's placards earlier this week, and that this has been seen as 'overkill' by certain members of the Metropolitan Police Authority. Well, no shit. 78 policemen at 3 in the morning? What were they expecting would happen? "Better send a shit load of men down there sir, Brian 'the most famous pacifist in London' Haw may have a semi-automatic squirreled away somewhere......

As we reported earlier, Parliament Square protestor Brian Haw has had his protest stripped down to just a couple of placards. Police turned up at 2:45am and removed most of his placards, and many of his possessions. Naturally, Londonist just had to go down to Westminster and ask Haw what was going on. When we arrived, Haw being mobbed by photographers, cameramen and reporters, including a crew from an Iranian TV station. A group......

According to the BBC police visited Parliament Square in the early hours of this morning to remove placards from the scene of Brian Haw's vigil. The placards are apparently a "breach of Mr Haw's demonstration condition" since the Court of Appeal overturned the ruling that allowed Haw to demonstrate outside Parliament despite the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (aka 'the Haw Law') which outlaws unauthorised protests within a 1km zone of Parliament......

Quite often, one can be walking/cycling/driving through Parliament Square and see Brian Haw, the now world-famous protestor, standing in his underpants washing himself. Now it's not a pretty sight, and nor are some of his posters, but you have got to admire the man's conviction. Whether you think he's a champion of the anti-war movement, or a few sandwiches short of a picnic (he DID leave his family to hold his protest, which has......

A 23-year old man has been charged over his part in the protests regarding the publication of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons. Speculation is growing over Tony Blair's comments to Australian media regarding his "mistake" in saying he would stand down as PM. Meanwhile, constant thorn Brian Haw, was arrested yesterday on suspicion of obstructing police. Haw has maintained his anti-war vigil outside Parliament since 2001. God bothering ex Iraqi hostage, Norman Kember went to......

After spending last week photographing dead presidents, we thought it only decent to turn our services to former British prime ministers. The Parliament Square Collection Dead monarchs have Westminster Abbey; prime ministers have Parliament Square. There’s six of the blighters here, with a seventh – David Lloyd George – in the works if funding can be raised. Canning by Richard Westmacott (1832); Peel by Matthew Noble (1851); Lord Derby also by Noble (1874); Palmerston......

Shock news: People weren’t arrested outside parliament yesterday. Indeed, a group of carol singers, who were previously threatened with arrest under the Serious Organised Crimes and Police Act, were allowed to wassail unmolested in Parliament Square. The law bans demonstrating without police permission within a half mile radius of the Palace of Westminster, as Maya Evans, one of last night’s carollers, found out recently when she was arrested outside Downing Street for reading out......

The Houses of Parliament are a familiar London sight: visitors and regulars alike gaze wonderingly at the seat of power, steeped in history, majesty... and protest. Parliament Square has seen its fair share of protest by those who have exercised their right to speak out for what they believe at the very site where that right was created. Brian Haw has maintained a vigil of protest outside the Houses of Parliament for four years.......

The BBC are reporting that Westminster's resident protestor, Brian Haw, is to stand as an independent election candidate for the for the Cities of London and Westminster seat. Brian will be up against the usual suspects as well as David Harris of Veritas, Jillian McLachlan from the Christian Peoples Alliance and Tristan Smith of the Greens. It's a pretty solid Tory constituency, but current MP Mark Field only has a majority of just fewer......

It can’t be often that the action of a single protestor has brought about a change in the law of the land, but 55-year-old Brian Haw looks likely to achieve it. Mr Haw has spent three years in Parliament Square voicing anti-war protests through a megaphone. Londonist suspects that if he had been doing this anywhere else in England his activities would have been seen as irritating, but hardly a matter for parliamentary debate. But......