If only Londonist had a political crystal ball. We've done a quick-and-dirty analysis of this weekend's disquiet on the Labour benches with Gordon Brown/the direction of the Labour party/the lack of an open debate about leadership/whatever-you-want-to-call-the-current-media-bun-fight, and it seems to us that the revolt is being led by MPs who are a) from London; and b) women. So, first off, we had Siobhain McDonagh (MP for Mitcham and Morden) lose her government whip's job......

Must Britain take any more? We are so unfamiliar with the feeling of national sporting success that the past surprising fortnight has tested the nation's cardiac capacity beyond reasonable limits. Now, we have more excitement in store on Sunday, at the handover ceremony in Beijing. Not only will Leona Lewis and Jimmy Page perform a duet, but David Beckham will enter the stadium on a London bus, before staging a kickaround with children representing......

Days after the collective involuntary bowel movement performed by London's Beijing-based 2012 organising team as they witnessed the spectacle of China's opening ceremony, Tessa Jowell has recovered enough to identify the area in which London will excel: getting bums on seats. Reckoning that there's no way our cupcake's icing will best the razzle dazzle that lit the Bird's Nest on Friday, the Olympic minister has claimed they'll attempt to fill every seat in 2012. With......

The Crewe by-election looks like it just might be a bit of a watershed for the Conservatives. It's the first time the Tories have won a by-election in a Labour-held seat since 1978 - 30 years ago. If David Cameron becomes PM, will everyone look back at this moment as the point where he really began to take control? Anyway, Crewe is miles away - why should London care? Well, for one thing the......

Ken's race advisor Lee Jasper steps down Al fresco boozers in Harrow - you're no longer welcome Tessa Jowell unveils Olympic legacy action plan London is Eighties pop star territory: Whitney Houston to follow Prince and Jacko with comeback gig Al Sugar meets Ann Summers: sex shop boss to enter charity Apprentice Cinematic Spitalfields courtesy of Homemade via the Londonist flickr group.......

2008 is Beijing's Olympic year so we're expecting plenty of 2012 related news, rumblings and international comparisons bouncing round the internet. On the last day of January, our Games have already made the headlines 3 times this week: When overall costs trebled at the end of last year, the Lottery stepped in with a mega loan to the Olympics. This week, Tessa Jowell announced it might take 10 years after the event for any......

Tessa Jowell and Ken Livingston sat smiling professionally side by side today at a presentation to members of the International Olympic Committee whilst the press carried gleeful stories about their respective divergent opinions of the infamous logo. Tessa Jowell declared herself, rather touchingly, "unusual" on the Today programme this morning because of her view that the logo is "terrific". Ken, on the other hand, was denouncing the team responsible for the epilepsy inducing brand......

Tessa Jowell, like any avid gambler, feverishly hedged her bets with the House of Lords on Wednesday in efforts to push through her plans for a series of ‘supercasinos’ in Britain. Peers voted 123-120 against the measure that evening, despite Jowell’s last-ditch attempts at swaying on-the-fence Lords in her favour. One wonders what sort of things Jowell was promising the Lords she was trying to influence -- extra chips at the blackjack tables? A......

Tessa 'Watch me keep a straight face' Jowell finally gave in and announced that yes, the 2012 Olympics will cost in excess of £9 billion. Thats a lot of zeros. Can't we just buy everyone a copy of Escape to Victory instead? Everyone's a winner in that except the Nazis. Central government will pay 4.93 billion pounds - in addition to 1 billion pounds already committed - to pay for the games and regeneration......

As London Fashion Week struts onto the headlines catwalk, the debate over whether fashion models are too thin took another thrilling turn when Sasha Wilkins, fashion editor for The Observer Magazine, observed that, no, they weren't too thin. However, on Saturday, Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell, said that, yes, they were too thin. Somebody somewhere tried to divert the discussion toward the national problem of life-threatening disorders like bulemia and anorexia, and how those afflictions......

Wow, they just arrested Tony Blair's personal fundraiser Lord Levy on suspicion of obstruction of justice. Tessa Jowell think the Tories are undermining the Olympics. Isn't Seb Coe a Tory? Last year was a record year for the West End thanks to the singing nuns and Monty Pythons. Bankers vs. messengers vs. media types vs. gym boys. Not bare-knuckle boxing but "old school roller racing". And all in aid of Leukemia research. Our new......

BBC Italian Mario Scaramella, a contact of dead ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko, has tested positive for polonium-210. Mr Scaramella is not thought to be suffering symptoms but significant amounts of the substance are understood to have been found in the academic. He met Mr Litvinenko at sushi restaurant Itsu in central London on the day he fell ill. Meanwhile it turns out that both Tessa Jowell and Seb Coe travelled on one of the 'contaminated'......

Ken announced over the weekend that he'd rather like to keep his job throughout 2012 just to keep an eye on this Olympics nonsense: "But when people get sick of me they will get rid of me. That's up to them. I am very keen to get through 2008 because I want to make sure we deliver the Olympics on time and on budget and get CrossRail under way. But I am sure that......

Turns out London is overcrowded and more houses need to be built. You don't say... Tessa Jowell has told MPs that the cost of the Olympics has gone 'up 900m'. The BBC poll shows 50% of readers currently think it's not worth it. A whopping £200,000 has gone missing from parking meters over the last ten weeks after thieves sawed the meters open. Meanwhile in North London, protesters will gather tonight for a last......

Preparations for 2012 are 'substantially' ahead of schedule reckons Tessa Jowell. London is the 'perfect place' to start the Tour de France says Ken. really? Because we would have thought France would have been top of that list. Bob Marley's heritage plaque was unveiled today, it's at 34 Ridgmount Gardens, Camden if you want to go visit. (We can guaranteee that the number of people cautioned for smoking marijuana in Camden will shoot up......

Well, London Fashion Week begins today and the first story of the week isn't the usual Is London still fashionable nonsense, but something slightly less shallow: thin models. On one side you've got Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell, who wants the LFW organisers to ban what she calls "stick-thin" models from its catwalks. And on the other side you've got the British Fashion Council who run the whole shebang, saying that it's not their place......

Tessa Jowell announced yesterday that a memorial garden to the 52 people murdered on July 7 will be built in Tavistock Square. Obscure fact of the week: Lewisham women have the highest rate of heart disease in South London. Meet Emma Hignett, the 'voice of London's buses'. Woody Allen has cast Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell in his next London-based flick. Sigh...Was Jack the Ripper a woman ask scientists who should probably be off......

A two-minute silence is to be held on 7 July to mark the first anniversary of the London bombings that killed 52 people, Tessa Jowell has announced. The national silence, at noon, is to be followed by a memorial event in the capital's Regent's Park. The culture secretary also announced plans for a permanent memorial to be built in Tavistock Square, where one of the four bombs exploded on a bus. The memorial is to......

A four-week trial of anti-terrorist screening devices is due to start on the Jubilee Line at Canary Wharf later this week (although there's a bit of dodgy scanning going on there already). The Tories have sent Tessa Jowell a nasty letter accusing Labour of playing politics with the Olympics. And the Conservatives aren't too happy about Hugo Chavez's visit either. The final stages of this year's Tour of Britain will take in eight London......

UKIP Demands Apology Over "Closet Racist" Remarks The UK Independence Party have demanded an apology from Tory leader David Cameron over remarks he made on London radio station LBC. Mr. Cameron denounced UKIP as "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists, mostly" as he took part in a phone-in show on the station. The comments are further evidence of Cameron's propsed shift of his party from being a right-wing party to being a more centrist party,......

Ming Campbell Elected Leader Londonist must put its hands up and admit to being entirely wrong about the result of the Liberal Democrat leadership election. We thought Huhne would pip it marginally. The gossip in the House of Commons Members' Tea Room was that Huhne had won it, right up until 2:45 this afternoon, when the tide turned towards Ming. In fact, after Simon Hughes was eliminated from the competition, and the second preferences......

Londonist aims to give you a concise yet informative idea of the daily goings on at Westminster (and the rest of London's political sphere) with this, the Westminster Daily post. Speaker Martin has Heart Op The first big story so far this week is the absence of the Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin. Mr. Martin was admitted to hospital in his native Glasgow during last week's parliamentary recess after suffering chest......

Darwin, of course, is one of the giants of science and, indeed, human history, revolutionising the way we think about life on Earth and our place in the Universe. His theories of evolution by natural selection led to the founding of modern genetics, and modern genetics has led to pigs which glow in the dark. Soon they may finally fly. A clever man, then. And a Londoner too, of sorts. While working on the......

- Ian Blair calls for terror debate and Tony Blair calls for end to elections (one of those stories isn't real...but which one?). - Tessa Jowell has 'challenged' (or should that be ''begged') the toruism industry to generate £100bn around the Olympics. - Talking of the 'lympics: a deal has been struck over the land for the Olympic village. - Robbie did snub his ex-band mates last night (poor Gary). - And Becks and the......

There's been a quite a few Olympics stories popping up over the past few days, but we're quite aware that it's still seven years away and we're not all that bothered yet. So we thought that we'd save them all up and stick them all in one post to save a bit of time and energy. So, here we go: The story that's probably of most interest to the average Londonist reader (and the......

With exactly one month to go until the Internal Olympic Committee makes its decision as to which city is to host the 2012 games, it looks like London's chances are improving all the time. Yesterday's Observer devoted an above-the-fold front page slot to a story stating that London had addressed most of its serious problems and was closing the gap with the favourite, Paris, fast. Insiders say the long-awaited report from the IOC's evaluation......

Never one to mince his words, Ken Livingstone has called for Lord Hollick, chairman of the South Bank Centre, to be sacked over his "blackmailing" of the London Eye. Other Labour bigwigs have now also weighed into the furore, with Culture Minister Tessa Jowell penning a personal letter to Hollick; and Kate Hoey of Lambeth Council is also apparently attempting to "broker a deal", although her diplomacy skills may need some work: Lord Hollick's......

Face it, it's what London is missing. Ever since the dawn of the new millennium the capital city has been crying out for some sort of overblown countdown ceremony...thank God then for the Olympic bid. As it stands there are 75 days left until the International Olympic Committee decides who we will go to war with next who will host the next Olympics, so just to ensure that no one sleeps in that day......

You know what we're talking about here, so let's get right down to it: as thorough a roundup as we can of what Ken said to Finegold and what the papers are making of it all. The actual conversation: Oliver Finegold: Mr Livingstone, Evening Standard. How did tonight go? Livingstone: How awful for you. Have you thought of having treatment? Finegold: How did tonight go? Livingstone: Have you thought of having treatment? Finegold: Was......

Have you ever noticed how cramped the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern feels? Well, all that's about to change. Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota has announced plans to drastically expand the complex, increasing the existing 34,000 square metres of gallery space 50%. The new complex - which will be designed by Herzog & de Meuron, the Swiss architects behind the orginal conversion - will take shape to the south of the Bankside gallery,......