At least 15 people including a London-born rabbi have died and dozens more remain in hospital following a shooting at Sydney's Bondi Beach. The attack was declared a terrorist incident, and targeted a Hanukkah celebration at a park next to the beach on the first day of the Jewish festival of lights. It comes as Victims Minister Alex Davies-Jones has said that Britain is being blighted by an “abhorrent” rise in anti-Semitism. We’re joined by Emily Hilton, who grew up around Bondi beach in Sydney ...
Dec 16, 2025•14 min
Londoners will have to pay more in transport costs from March 2026, as mayor Sir Sadiq Khan has revealed that tube fares are set to rise. The cost of a single tube journey in zone 1, central London will be hiked by up to 7.1 per cent, which is about double the current rate of inflation. According to details published by City Hall, most Tube and train fares – for TfL services such as the Elizabeth line and London Overground – will increase by a maximum of 20p, although many fares will only increa...
Dec 15, 2025•17 min
Londoners are being urged to get the flu vaccine in the next few days to get maximum protection by Christmas Day, as the capital experiences a tidal wave of contagious super flu. Cases are rising sharply in the capital, new figures revealed, as health chiefs warned the NHS was facing a “worst-case scenario” with the doctors’ strike set to start next week. Those with flu-like symptoms are being urged to stay at home rather than risk spreading the virus on the Tube, trains, buses and in the workpl...
Dec 12, 2025•14 min
A “world-leading” social media ban has been enforced by the Australian government, to prevent under-16s from accessing social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube. Platforms that do not comply risk fines of up to $49.5m. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the move as "the day when Australian families are taking back power from these big tech companies". The ban has garnered worldwide attention, with several nations indicating they will adopt a ban of their ...
Dec 11, 2025•15 min
Jamie Oliver is to relaunch his Italian restaurants in 2026 - seven years after the chain went out of business - having reached a deal with Brava Hospitality Group, the owners of Prezzo. At its peak, there were more than 40 Jamie’s Italian sites across the UK, but after rapid expansion and a changing market, the company ran into trouble. Now the first UK branch in six years is set to open in Leicester Square next year, at a time when UK hospitality bosses have complained of a tough trading envir...
Dec 10, 2025•14 min
Nominations for the Golden Globe Awards 2026 are in - effectively kicking off a film awards season that will last until the Oscars in March. Leonardo DiCaprio film One Battle After Another has swept up with nine nominations, whilst Netflix drama series Adolescence and Hamnet actor Paul Mescal are among the other nominees. Other Hollywood heavyweights recognised for their work include Timothee Chalamet for Marty Supreme, Emma Stone for Bugonia, and George Clooney for Jay Kelly. But there was shoc...
Dec 09, 2025•14 min
You might not have heard of the Hinduja family , but with a net worth of over £35 billion, they topped the Sunday Times Rich List for six of the past 10 years. The eldest two of four sons, Srichand and Gopichand, were co-chairmen of the Hinduja Group - which always prided itself on being a family business. They brought billions to London and built the capital’s grandest hotel - the Owo - and their private home round the corner from Buckingham Palace is estimated to be worth over £300 million. Bu...
Dec 08, 2025•13 min
In the blink of an eye, the year is almost over - and that means only one thing: Christmas is upon us once more. Alongside all the playing of board games, eating of turkey and unwrapping of presents, there’s one other thing that remains a mainstay in most British festive households: the telly. Nothing quite beats the feeling of sitting in front of the TV, sliding into a post-feast food coma and drowsily watching the year’s collection of festive specials. And this year, there’s plenty to look for...
Dec 05, 2025•13 min
A special preview from our sister podcast Brave New World , which has just launched Season 4. Host Evgeny Lebedev sits down with Steven Bartlett to talk ambition, mindset, burnout, and the lessons failure can teach us — including one learned on a padel court. Listen to the full conversation on the Brave New World podcast here . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Dec 04, 2025•14 min
A damning inquiry into sex crimes against women and girls in public places has been published, concluding that too many perpetrators are slipping through the cracks and that prevention schemes are often “just words”. Four years after the murder of Sarah Everard in Clapham by a Metropolitan police officer, the second part of the Angiolini Inquiry found that there is a “critical failure” to answer basic questions about sexual violence, including how many women are raped by strangers each year. It ...
Dec 03, 2025•14 min
Paddington the Musical has opened at London’s Savoy Theatre in time for the festive season - and has already proven to be a resounding hit in the capital. Inspired by the beloved children’s books by Michael Bond, as well as the films, it’s directed by Luke Sheppard, the man behind hits such as the Starlight Express, with a music score written by McFly’s Tom Fletcher. So is this the West End’s hottest ever family show? We’re joined by actors Amy Ellen Richardson and Adrian Der Gregorian, who play...
Dec 02, 2025•15 min
High street pubs, hotels and shops face “catastrophic” hikes in business rate bills that will force widespread closures and job losses, the Government has been warned. Less than a week after Rachel Reeves’s Budget speech, thousands of business owners in the retail and hospitality sector have learned their bills will rise by tens of thousands of pounds from April next year as a result of a “broken business rate system". The damage is being done by a combination of huge increases in rateable value...
Dec 01, 2025•12 min
The government could soon come close to scrapping the right to trial by jury , it’s been revealed, with Justice Secretary David Lammy proposing to massively restrict this ancient right, as the criminal justice system is on the verge of collapse. There are plans to create a new tier of courts in England and Wales, removing guarantees to a jury trial for all except those accused of the most serious crimes. But could this still result in a fair trial? The Standard’s Courts Correspondent Tristan Kir...
Nov 28, 2025•17 min
Yesterday Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered a Budget that will hike taxes by £26 billion and bring a huge change to personal finances up and down the country. More than 1.7 million people will face paying more income tax after the Chancellor froze thresholds, meaning people will be dragged into paying the tax for the first time or shifted into higher bands as earnings increase. While there is a new “mansion tax” on £2 million homes and above, a pay-per mile charge for electric vehicles, a new n...
Nov 27, 2025•16 min
Ahead of the autumn budget, support for Labour in London is at a record low , according to a new poll, as Rachel Reeves is set to clobber the capital with a wave of tax rises. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has surged to 23 per cent in the capital, ahead of the Tories on 20 per cent, with Labour on 32 per cent. The Chancellor faces a backlash from voters, particularly those on high and middle incomes, ahead of London local elections next May. London has for many years been a Labour stronghold but the ...
Nov 26, 2025•15 min
Today we’re tackling one of the capital’s talking points - should kids be allowed in pubs? The William the Fourth pub in Leyton , East London, announced a policy change on social media, barring children from 7pm, saying that the move was necessary to maintain a “comfortable and enjoyable environment” for everyone as it had recently come to “resemble a creche”. The new rules mean the pub will be an “adults-only space” from 7pm onwards. The move has proved somewhat controversial, with comments on ...
Nov 25, 2025•14 min
Peter Mandelson recently made headlines after being caught urinating against a wall , having spent the evening at George Osborne's Notting Hill home. But is it any wonder, when so many public loos are being sold off for profit, for example in West Norwood and the Isle of Dogs? Last year, Age UK’s Lifting the Lid report found that in the last decade at least 97 council-run toilets have shut across the capital, and closures outnumber openings three to one. Seven London councils now manage fewer th...
Nov 24, 2025•13 min
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to give the go-ahead for an extension of the Docklands Light Railway to Thamesmead in her Budget next week. London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan has described the news as a “win-win” as it will improve transport links in a poorly connected part of south-east London and should “unlock” thousands of new homes and jobs. But what does it mean in practice? Where will the new stations be built, what difference will it make to commutes – and does it mean that other London tr...
Nov 21, 2025•17 min
In Darfur, at least twice as many people have been killed than in Gaza since 2023. As the crisis looks likely to worsen, one nation has questions to answer over its links to the atrocities. In this week’s special report, The Standard’s Defence Editor Robert Fox shines a light on the situation in Sudan - and specifically how the United Arab Emirates is involved in its war. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Nov 20, 2025•16 min
It’s predicted to be the movie event of the year, and this Friday 21 November, Wicked: For Good is finally released in cinemas - the follow-up to last year’s Oscar-nominated first film, featuring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. We’re joined by The Standard’s Culture Writer India Block, who gave the sequel a five star rating , and said if it doesn’t get more Oscar nominations, she’ll eat her witch's hat! Plus, India is joined by Paul Tazewell, the costume designer behind the epic outfits of the ...
Nov 19, 2025•17 min
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has launched a crackdown on illegal migration , with new reforms aimed at stopping the UK being seen as a ‘golden ticket’ for asylum seekers. They include fast-tracking the deportation of illegal migrants, an overhaul of human rights law and changes to refugee status. The Home Secretary’s proposals are based on those adopted by Denmark, which has seen the number of illegal arrivals in the country plummet in ten years. The plans have been billed as the most radical ...
Nov 18, 2025•17 min
It’s been confirmed that the long-awaited Renter’s Rights Act will come into force next year on May 1, with the government setting out a staggered timeline for sweeping renters' reforms. As the biggest shake-up to private renting in a generation, the lobbying organisation Generation Rent described it as a “vital first step in righting the power imbalance between landlords and tenants”. But critics are concerned it will prompt more landlords to sell up. We’re joined by Matt Hutchinson, Communicat...
Nov 17, 2025•15 min
On 5th November, Ugandan-born Zohran Mamdani secured an astounding, against-the-odds victory in the New York mayoral election, becoming the youngest person in over a century to lead the largest city in the US. It was Mamdani’s message about affordability and the high cost of living that resonated with voters in the Bronx and other underserved areas of New York, but now he has to actually deliver on this mandate for change. But can he actually run New York successfully, and how might the capital ...
Nov 14, 2025•17 min
Refugees and people experiencing homelessness and food insecurity are London’s most disadvantaged groups. To support them, The Standard is launching our Winter Appeal with the backing of Rita Ora - and in collaboration with Comic Relief, who have pledged £500,000 to get us underway. We’re joined by The Standard’s Campaigns Editor David Cohen, and CEO of Comic Relief, Samir Patel, to discuss how you can help the most vulnerable people in society - those who are homeless, struggling with food inse...
Nov 13, 2025•15 min
Britain’s jobless rate has surged to its highest level for more than four-and-a-half years, as the labour market continues to weaken. London had the highest unemployment rate of any region in the UK at 6.5%, up 0.5% since the previous quarter, the Office for National Statistics reports. Hikes to employer national insurance contributions have been largely blamed for the trend. But the grim jobless figures make a December interest rate cut from the Bank of England a near certainty. The capital has...
Nov 12, 2025•14 min
Communities Secretary Steve Reed, who is in charge of local government, has said he is “appalled” that serving London councillors are campaigning to become MPs in another country. He wrote to Tower Hamlets Council after it was revealed by The Standard that at least two of the borough’s elected representatives had launched campaigns to stand in upcoming elections in Bangladesh. Residents in Mile End have called on Sabina Khan to resign after she announced she was standing for the Bangladesh Natio...
Nov 11, 2025•14 min
Is the world’s richest man about to become even richer? Tesla CEO Elon Musk is now in with a shot of becoming a trillionaire , after a record-breaking pay deal was approved by 75 per cent of his company’s shareholders. It would give him stock worth one trillion dollars, if he hits certain performance targets over the next decade, including delivering 20 million Tesla vehicles and one million robots. Ann Lipton, a law professor at the University of Colorado who specialises in corporate governance...
Nov 07, 2025•17 min
Did you know Britain's courts are in crisis? After years of cuts by politicians, pandemic disruption and operational failures, The Standard’s special report explores the spiralling backlog of court cases that define our broken justice system. Defendants and victims talk about the impact of being trapped, waiting years - sometimes until 2029 or 2030 - for their cases to even come to court. The Standard’s Courts Correspondent Tristan Kirk reports on this shameful decline , and how jury trials coul...
Nov 06, 2025•15 min
Today it’s been revealed that “human errors” led to some grooming gang police investigations being dropped , in the first stage of a massive review of cases involving child sexual abuse. The development came after The Standard's investigation uncovered cases of vulnerable young girls from across London who reported allegations of rape from multiple men but saw inadequate police action . Thousands of cases of rape and sexual assault are being reviewed as part of the National Crime Agency’s Operat...
Nov 05, 2025•16 min
Today Chancellor Rachel Reeves has given the clearest sign yet that she will break Labour’s manifesto promise not to raise taxes on workers , after delivering an unusual pre-Budget speech at Downing Street this morning. She said that after years of so-called economic mismanagement, the budget will focus on “getting inflation falling” and “creating the conditions for interest rate cuts”. But she hasn’t ruled out raising income tax. Stephanie Brobbey, a former private wealth lawyer and founder and...
Nov 04, 2025•17 min
