It's been a less than stellar year for London as far as knife crime is concerned and yesterday was particularly upsetting as four fatal stabbings took place in different parts of the city. A 19-year-old was stabbed in Edmonton, becoming the 20th teenager to die as a result of stabbing this year. Two arrests have been made in connection with the murder. In Leyton, a man who crashed his car had first been stabbed.......

Reports that hate crime is on the rise don't really surprise us. In the wake of the earlier shocking news about the murdered French students and the relentless wave of violent crime we seem to be riding at the moment, we're not really feeling the love at all. However, Barnet is specifically reporting a 20% increase in reported race crime, whilst other boroughs report a decline. Statistics, of course, can be wonderfully open to......

A pink pot hastily filled with flowers marks the spot in Bellenden Road, SE15, where a girl in her twenties was fatally stabbed last night. Londonist doesn’t have a big powerful camera like the gentlemen of the rest of the press, so we can’t show you the blood-stained pavement. But we can describe the sense of mute shock and disbelief that hangs in the air in Peckham this morning. It was only yesterday in......

Another advert, another controversy, it seems. Just a couple of weeks ago a Grand Theft Auto IV ad was removed from Streatham because its gun-toting avatar was deemed insensitive in an area that had recently seen two gun-related murders. Now an ad in Crystal Palace train station for Chris Ryan's new book, Strike Back, will also be taken down because of its pro-violence message. With a recent spate of stabbings making headlines, it's no surprise......

We don't like to start the week off with a horrifying headline like this. Another tragic teen stabbing story (time to step up those new gory anti-knife ads?) marks this year's 16th violent teen death in the city. We don't have much information, but a 15-year-old girl wearing her school uniform was found in the lift of Matheson Lang House on Baylis Road in Lambeth with at least 10 knife wounds to her front, neck......

Who’s the first performer that comes to mind when you think “Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday bash”? Amy Winehouse? Right, us neither. London housing prices fell by 0.5% in April. Brilliant! At that rate, Londonist should be able to afford a home here around 2028. The deputy mayor for young people warns that there is no “magic solution” to the recent spate of violence among teens. No magic solution, perhaps, but let’s hope that other......

Knife crime has been a big concern for the Met as of late and has led to some rather interesting new tactics to combat the problem that has become especially prevalent amongst London's youth. The latest campaign involves super-graphic images of real-life knife induced injuries. A group of teens that had each been affected by knife related violence were consulted on the campaign, which features the main tagline of "If you carry a knife......

Earth shattering revelation of the day: Met Commissioner says parents key to bringing up children who don't carry weapons. Yep, apparently so. Unlikely news of the day: Hayward Gallery goes psycho. We'll be there later this week. Motoring news of the day: Lorries park up and protest Faintly amusing news pun of the day: Pawn very popular. Hah. Ha ha. Marvel-lous news of the day: 3D comic book superheroes to go on display Image......

Operation Blunt 2 cracking down on knife crime made its first big arrest on Saturday night on the top deck of a bus in Deptford. An astonishing 24 teenagers were stopped and searched after boarding the bus en masse and police officers recovered the following makeshift arsenal: six knives, two screwdrivers, a corkscrew, a golf club, a metal baseball bat, a mallet, two wrench handles, a claw hammer and a metal bar were found......

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......

In the interest of being seen to do something, the Met today announced a ramp up of "stop and search" powers in "areas blighted by stabbings". That's pretty much everywhere in London, then. Assistant Commissioner Tim Godwin admitted that the measures would be "fairly in your face." Apparently the deployment of the 15 strong team had been planned for some time and now rushed forward as a reaction to the latest, depressing string of......

Here’s what we’ve learned this weekend whilst you’ve been taking tea with mother… Greed, stupidity and a gambling addiction are not a good combination: a council housing official is duly jailed. Aspiring immigrant mini-cabbies are to be asked to obtain a ’certificate of good conduct’ from their country of origin. Yeah, like this is really going to work. Did Lucy really want to marry Mike, or did she just want to be on Capital......

This is what we have learned this weekend whilst you’ve been indulging those spring-time DIY pangs: LU has become very censorious of late. What’s to offend about a photo of a fat, pink-boxer-shorted Christ on the cross? A couple of shoppers were so worried about being caught for card fraud that they ran out of a Bromley store leaving their baby behind. High jinx in High Wycombe. Actually a bit more serious than that......

East is the new West. You read it here second. The battle begins. To save our post offices that is. Londonist is certainly not going to walk further or queue longer. Porsche versus Ken. This should be interesting. As another youth dies by the knife in Woolwich, gang members are consulted in Lambeth. Somethinng’s gotta give, that’s for sure. Pint in Peckham courtesy of Mot the Hoople’s flickr photo stream.......

Ken Livingstone's certainly had a tough few weeks. For starters, Boris Johnson finally began to get his act together on a few fronts. He's got a new website, a new team, and he's had some success in generating noise around policy issues - most notably, knife crime. Still, when push came to shove, Ken came out well on ITV's first Mayoral debate, where - as expected - he clearly knew more than his opponents.......