Guns don't kill people, bullets kill people. But bullets need guns to fire them and people to pull the triggers, so it's a bit of a joint effort all round. The technicalities of death aside, one thing we can probably all agree on, and speak up now if you don't, is that we don't need guns on the streets. Of any kind. We'd rather not even have them in the hands of the police......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews continues, courtesy of James Bryan… This week Kidman plays with her monkey in The Golden Compass, The Rock gets confused in Southland Tales, a famous person gets shot in The Killing of John Lennon and Donal MacIntyre cuddles up to some naughty people in A Very British Gangster. Ever since The Golden Compass was announced, devotees of Philip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy have been nervously waiting to......

Here’s what we’ve learned this weekend: Today is Remembrance Sunday which actually falls on 11th November - Armistice Day. The Queen and other Royals attended the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall last night. The Ceremony of Remembrance and Cenotaph Parade take place on Whitehall from 10.30am with Two Minute Silence at 11:00am. There was some pomp, circumstance and kids with strawberries on their heads at the Lord Mayor's Show yesterday. The......

A snack bar in Westminster is fined £2,500 after the council find a whole world of filth. Members of the London Assembly have passed a vote of no confidence in Sir Ian Blair. Doesn't really make any difference. Two of the world's top 10 universities are in London. Tfl's trial of live CCTV streaming on London's buses is shelved. Image courtesy of Homemade via the Londonist flickr group.......

Here’s what we’ve learned while you lot have been out, up and away with the fireworks: The Polish Prime Minister is to make a personal visit to Ealing to thank his, er, voters… The police have sneaked out a discreet Sunday press release about the obscene amounts of money they have spent on PR for PCSOs. Forget gang-on-gang violence... howzabout octogenarian on octogenarian murder? The University of Surrey is to build a hip and......

Anyone looking at this case for the first time would be dumbfounded. Were the Metropolitan Police Force in breach of health and safety laws when they shot an innocent man seven times in the head? Health and safety laws? Isn't that like prosecuting Genghis Khan for illegal immigration? Terminology aside, the Met were yesterday found guilty of endangering the public when, on 22 July 2005, they misidentified Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes as a......

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......

Sir Ian Blair dismissed favouring non-white applicant recruits to the Met as "yesterday's solution" at a National Black Police Association debate yesterday. The recruitment bus rolls into Trafalgar Square's Diwali celebrations this weekend to demonstrate the Met's policy of targeting their recruitment at black and Asian communities. As they say, The better we reflect London's diverse communities, the better we're able to serve them. The Met is still struggling to represent London, however, and......

Extremist literature in our libraries. Filed under 9/11 in the Dewey Decimal system? Man makes 15,000 nuisance phone calls. By way of community service, he's been given Bob Crow's number and unlimited calling credits. Alcoholic jockey tells court "Don't tag me, I won't be able to get my riding boots on". Sir Ian Blair receives another grilling over Menezes shooting. Image of the closing New Piccadilly Cafe courtesy of buckaroo kid via the Londonist......

What we now know about the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes- * The stories that Jean Charles acted suspiciously by running away from the police and jumping the barriers at Stockwell tube are untrue. * He was not wearing a bulky jacket or a bomb belt with visible wires hanging out. * Members of the police force knew this (for instance, the ones that followed and shot him.) * Senior officers knew that......

The fight for London Mayor is seriously beginning to kick off. Our Ken, Greg Dyke, John Major, that the guy from the Big Issue - all have been fingered for the job. Now the latest candidate being touted is none other than Brian Paddick. Paddick is the Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. In Lambeth he famously focused his efforts on class A drug dealers and took a 'relaxed' approach to cannabis use.......

Maybe because it is Friday afternoon and we swtiched off the hard working part of our brains (the Captain's Log for this particular Londonista has been showing "Offline" since Wednesday lunch time) but we thought we would share this WTF gem with you all as a special end of week treat. Brian Gordon, who has served as Tory councillor for Barnet for nine years, is in trouble for his criminal dress sense. Gordon's misdemeanour......

Here's the latest news following the recent fatal shootings: Did 15-year-old Billy Cox die because of a text message? Sir Ian Blair will be meeting John Reid to discuss the shootings. Cameron reckons it's down to the fathers and wants powers introduced to "compel" them to look after the kids. The BBC has been testing the mood on the streets: They have no conscience. They think they can just do whatever they like. They......

As mentioned in the Extra, Extra, Ian Blair finally loses it: Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair has said parts of London are returning to an era of neighbourliness and low crime. He said residents in Haringey, north London, are now happy to leave their front doors open and unlocked. Sir Ian said community-based Safer Neighbourhood Teams were making people feel as safe as they did 25 years ago. He also likened neighbourhood police......

Normal service has now resumed at Heathrow and Gatwick, however... ...Talks aimed at avoiding the bank holiday strike at Stansted ended last night without agreement. Well done Haringey - Sir Ian Blair says you can all leave your front doors unlocked (you're not going to listen to him are you?). London's police are environmentally police; they've just put an order in for 117 Honda Civic Hybrids. The woman with the longest fingernails in the......

First it looked like it was going to be a farce, then we had a report that maybe charges would be brought against the police for the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes. The Guardian now reckons that we're back to health and safety violations: the CPS is expected to announce on Monday that the Metropolitan police as an organisation will be charged with breaching health and safety at work laws over the shooting,......

A 35-year-old man has been arrested in Surrey for the murder of Sally Anne Bowman who was stabbed and seriously sexually assaulted in September last year in Blenheim Crescent, south Croydon. Kings Cross Station has reopened this morning now that the gas cylinders in the nearby building have cooled down. More than half of British Muslims believe that Sir Ian Blair should resign. Thames Water has been warned that unless they act now, come......

We love spy-fi shows like Alias, especially the bits about encrypted data being stolen from shielded hard drives stored behind retina sensitive blast doors in bunkers only accessible via corridors filled with lethal security devices. And then when the data is eventually reached it's encrypted up the wazoo and you need the DNA of six senior officer to decode the key... must be a bit like that working on London's anti terror beat. They......

How did a thirteen-year-old kid end up in Tooting, driving a grey Ford Fiesta which had bullet holes in the door? Sir Ian Blair has said he won't resign, quoting Mark Twain into the bargain: "accounts of my demise are premature." Knob. The London Assembly has noted the number of affordable homes has fallen 'quite sharply from 44.9% in 1997/1998 to 28.2% today. Ken has brought the 'car pollution tax' one step closer by......

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......

Sir Ian Blair flies out to New York to lecture on the threat of 'home-grown mass-assassins'. Delicious opportunity for satire ensues. Meanwhile, his Met minions have 'mapped' the networks of criminal gangs operating in London. Sadly, it won't be available as a Google Earth plug-in. Perhaps they used it this weekend, when 200 officers raided The Fridge in Brixton, on a drugs bust. Eleven people were arrested. Bromley continues to collapse in on itself.......

Commissioner "sorry" For Phone Tap Blair is in trouble again. No, not the PM, the other one! - Met Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair has said he is sorry for recording a telephone conversation with Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith. He claims that he taped the conversation as the two men were discussing a complex issue, and Sir Ian had nobody to take notes. Lord Goldsmith was said to be "rather cross". Liberal Democrat Home......

Met chief Sir Ian Blair secretly recorded a confidential conversation with Attorney General Peter Goldsmith during the investigation into the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. Ironically the call was about the admissibility of telephone wire tap evidence in court. Met officers have contacted lawyers acting for the Jean Charles de Menezes' family to ask for permission to examine DNA samples taken after his death in connection with a rape case. Thames Water is......

Diego Attanasio, the shipping magnate who David Mills claims is at the centre of 'Jowellgate' is holed up in a London flat and is refusing to answer the door. Ken thinks we're at the 'midway' point between the last terrorist attack and the next one. Enjoy it while you can folks. And talking of terrorism: Sir Ian Blair told a London Assembly inquiry yesterday that limiting mobile communication channels on July 7 was "a bad......

Londonist's record at publishing end of year polls has been a little sketchy as of late, so we thought we'd redress the balance a little bit by giving you a sneak preview of Time Out's Top 100 Movers & Shakers list of 2005 which is published this week. The list is designed to rank the "most influential and dynamic individuals of the year, who have had a major impact on the capital in 2005," so......

Sir Ian Blair really is a dick. We'd hoped he'd simply be gone by now, but instead (as mentioned in the Extra below) he's calling for a debate on policing. That in itself isn't a bad thing as we are always up for a good debate (even a mass one) but the reasoning that Blair uses in the BBC story shows exactly how unconnected he is with us regular sorts. the public needs to......

It's a pity that Sir Ian Blair hasn't managed to breathe life into his plans to give the police Judge Dredd style powers of instant justice - with enormous green knee pads and a bloody big golden lion on their shoulder they'd stand out a mile trying to hide in the shadows waiting to hit unsuspecting teenagers with hockey sticks. It's an odd crime. Former Met PC Paul Turpin saw red when he learned......

Another test for Tony Blair today as MPs vote on whether it's a good idea to throw out laws that have stood for 300 years, helped define us as a democracy and give each and every one us the right to avoid imprisonment without trial. Tony wants to lock you up for 90 days without charge or trial and is in the laughable position of having to rely on rebel Conservatives to ram home......

- Sir Ian Blair may be forced to resign over the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. Now all he needs to do... is resign. - A 24-year-old bar manager from south east London has died in hospital from head, neck and facial injuries after a 'homophobic attack' on Clapham Common on Saturday. - Bob Kiley has called for Alstom to lose its Northern Line contract. The service probably won't be back until Wednesday. -......

We tried to watch the live coverage on BBC News 24 of the family of Jean Charles de Menezes visiting the scene of his death, but found the whole thing too depressing. The running commentary didn't help - "His mother is breaking down...", nor the sight of the press pack all huddled round trying to get the 'best' photograph of the bewildered and traumatised family. Not one of the Beeb's best moments. Matozinhos Otone Da......