Sir Ian Blair may be on his way out, but one of the issues that defined his tenure as the Met's top cop rumbles on. An inquiry into institutional racism within the Metropolitan police has been ordered by the Mayor, following an campaign by the Black Police Association to ward potential recruits from joining a "hostile and racist environment". Removing the stigma of racism within the Force was a signature Blair goal, one that......

The last Metropolitan police commissioner to resign, James Munro, did so in 1890 after failing to apprehend Jack the Ripper. Sir Ian Blair's departure may not be the result of so egregious an oversight, yet the reasons behind it have inspired much debate on Fleet Street. The Times is in no doubt that Mr Blair's resignation is the result of a "Tory coup" engineered by the Mayor. The Guardian agrees, and even has Boris......

Scam: be careful if you’re flat-hunting – you might otherwise end up up a Gumtree without a paddle. Scandal: Sir Ian Blair has resigned, blaming Boris for his lack of support. Swindle: meet Mme. de Savigny, a £2m fraudster with a penchant for jewels. Stabbed: a 16 year old Barking teenager was hospitalised with knife wounds late last night. Shock: the American Embassy is moving from Mayfair to Battersea. Sick: a homeless Filipino lady......

Divorced, male lawyer? Man, you must be shattered. Sir Ian Blair's probably feeling it too. 12 naked ladies coming to the West End stage Sinking to new lows; dodgy mortgage brokers exploit illegal immigrants Bikers hit by new Westminster parking fees Unsolved - Jill Dando, what next? Image courtesy of toguko via the Londonist flickr group.......

Ideas above his station? Boris is taking legal advice to see if he can remove Sir Ian Blair. Suspect in the rape and murder of Norwegian student Martine Vik Magnussen named Latest Dando news: Jill's still dead. But the jury is deliberating if Barry is guilty or not Cover your ears: shamed shock jock James Whale returns to the airwaves Britain kowtows yet again to the American legal system as man accused of hacking......

Tyre slashers work. The ones that stop petrol station thieves that is. The Blackwall Tunnel is to get its rush hour tidal flow back. The Olympics people are engaging in a bit of financial nip and tuck. Sir Ian Blair wants more of an example to be made of celebrity drug takers. Spending on two years of Caribbean Showcase events in London is to be reviewed by the mayor’s office Boris’ new airport: where......

Bad news for Haringey residents: a crime survey this week revealed that three of London's four worst burglary hotspots are in the borough. Figures for 2007 show that, despite a borough-wide reduction in crime, parts of Haringey are ridden by burglary. Tottenham Green, St Ann's and Harringay are the spots to avoid if you're partial to your possessions. A one percent year on year increase in home burglaries has been recorded, and the main......

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......

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.......

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......