Tired of calls from the chronically clueless about "good stain removers" or "rats in the kitchen" clogging up the switchboard (those are actual 999 calls, folks), the Met has launched an alternative phone line for non-emergency situations. It is hoped the number, 0300 1231212, will help cut down the 50,000 monthly calls - a quarter in all - that do not require an emergency response. A laudable effort, though when people are calling 999 because......

There's something about a certain kind of bigoted individual that compels them to air their privately-held opinions, no matter how ridiculous or inflammatory. When a BNP London Assembly candidate made some daft remarks earlier this year, he was villified: presumably the same fate awaits Rev Peter Mullen, who has made some breathtakingly boneheaded comments about gay men on his website. Mullen, the chaplain to the London Stock Exchange and a man required to offer......

The BBC is often accused of being London-biased and besmirching the country's northern climes, but Auntie has nothing on a report which reckons that cities such as Liverpool, Sunderland and Bradford are 'beyond revival'. Policy Exchange, a favoured think tank of David Cameron, believes that the decline of shipping and manufacturing means former coastal strongholds are doomed, and that costly regeneration across the cities should be abandoned. Moreover, they've advocated a mass migration southward......

We know the various London freesheets aren't exactly worthy of much attention on the commute home. But if you're going to peruse your work on the journey, it's wise to do as the announcer says and "take all personal belongings with you" when alighting - particularly if your work relates to, say, confidential and highly sensitive material. That's exactly what a clutzy civil servant from the Cabinet Office didn't do, when he left a......