London

Did you think Boris Johnson sucked? Try Ivan Massow, doyen of hipster Toryism (he was the nice version of Michael Portillo before Michael Portillo was the nice version of Michael Portillo) and prospective candidate for mayor of London. Somehow, the mayoralty has become a strange attractor for people who combine vacuous celebrity and a particular…

Read More You thought London mayoral candidates couldn’t get worse

Look at this pitiful mess. People signed up for the shared ownership option on a block of flats in Streatham and paid deposits. Then the developer couldn’t get it built, so they were left waiting. Now, it’s finished, but the developer now wants twice as much money because, supposedly, the block doubled in value during…

Read More Every little helps, so we’re helping ourselves to every little we can

This post is a response to readers’ input to the open newslist Daniel Davies mocked this guy, as having placed his bets on Camden staying deeply cool and missed out on the migration east. But he has a point. Our startup moved to Shoreditch in 2008, making us a relatively early one although not first-generation.…

Read More Shoreditch twats: not quite as bad as property developers

The “Create Streets” lot are being mithered by the very serious people again. Dave Hill of the Guardian and Faisal Islam from the Ha! Ha! Poors Channel have been at it since the turn of the year. London housing crisis: Create Streets? Fine. But who decides? http://t.co/Pz6x2ep2yG — DaveHill (@DaveHill) January 10, 2014 interesting: “@createstreets:…

Read More who you gonna call? the unacceptable behaviour team

The Airports Commission is eventually going to opt for Gatwick. Prediction. How did I come to this conclusion? And how representative is the commission as an institution? Well, we can understand the decision-making process here with a simple model. There are various actors involved, who have preferences. To illuminate this, let’s play a game of…

Read More Boris Island: Shag, Marry, Avoid?

Birdy! For it is he, back out of the woodwork to tell us that there might be a surge in homelessness, up or rather down to the depths of the 80s. Well, that’s grim, and only surprising in that the Tories took just two-and-a-half years to get back to mass homelessness. Unlike Birdy I promise…

Read More TYR Rewind: slip inside this house and fuel the fire