London

    Sadiq Khan has secured victory as London mayor, with Labour winning in more constituencies than the Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith. Khan had 44 per cent of first preference votes, with Goldsmith trailing on 35 per cent. Green candidate Sian Berry looks likely to come in third place with six per cent of the vote. London wide turnout looks set to reach as high as 45.6 per cent, up 7.6 per cent on 2012. Goldsmith got off to a good start as the Conservatives secured an early win in Bexley and Bromley, but went on to win just five more constituencies to Khan's eight. The Tory candidate also won in Barnet and Camden, Croydon and Sutton, Havering and Redbridge, South West and West Central. However, Khan took the rest (and some by quite a large margin): Brent and Harrow, Cit...

    The party's candidate has consistently held a solid lead over Conservative rival Zac Goldsmith, who is perceived to have suffered from running a negative campaign that controversially sought to link Mr Khan to extremism. And shadow chancellor John McDonnell set the Labour Party on the right path for success in the General Election in four years time. Labour has fought a strong campaign, working hard for every vote, standing up for working people who have been let down by the Tory party," he said. "If we can narrow that gap, we will demonstrate steady progress. "What we are looking to do is build over the next four years so that we steadily, steadily build our support and then we are ready for 2020." Shadow international development secretary Diane Abbott said a win for Mr ...

f     The London mayoral election started with an absolute shambles in one borough as voters were turned away from polling stations given incomplete electoral lists. Hundreds of residents in Barnet said they were told they could not vote without their polling card, while some carrying the document said they were also refused. Arjun Mittra, a Labour councillor for East Finchley ward, said the logistical nightmare affected every one of the borough’s 155 polling stations. Out of the seven people who came to my polling station in the first 10 minutes, only one was able to vote. She had come at 7am to vote because she was going away for the day, she said she was disenfranchised. It's a disgrace. For the first half an hour after voting started the majority of voters were turned away,...

    A fire on the tracks on one of London's busiest railway routes into the capital has caused chaos for commuters. Firefighters were called to Vauxhall railway station in south London at around 2.40am and the track could be seen smouldering hours later when commuter traffic was at its peak. One of London's busiest stations, Clapham Junction, has been evacuated due to overcrowding and British Transport Police are urging people to avoid the area. Electrical cabling and the power to the tacks at Vauxhall had to be switched off to allow the emergency service staff to reach the blaze. London Fire Brigade station manager John Ryan said: "Once the power was isolated firefighters quickly got to work to tackle the fire. "We're currently assessing how much electrical cabling has been a...

    Almost 11,000 jobs are at risk after BHS called in administrators on Monday, the UK’s biggest high street failure since the collapse of Woolworths in 2008. Sources with knowledge of BHS’s finances say that the payments to Retail Acquisitions included £2.8m in management fees, £2.1m in salaries and wages, £11m in legal and professional fees and £10m in interest payments. BHS is battling to raise £100m to pay staff wages and continue trading, with 10,000 jobs at risk at the struggling department store chain. The retailer is still trying to obtain emergency funding almost four weeks after creditors approved a survival plan that involved landlords accepting deep cuts to the rent on stores. The man behind Retail Acquisitions is Dominic Chappell, a former racing driver who has b...

    Members of a British police department were left scratching their heads when an officer snapped a picture of an unusual motor vehicle -- a giant foot. The photo, posted to Twitter by police in London's Wandsworth borough, shows a man driving the giant, motorized foot Sunday while a woman in a captain's uniform assists him. Spotted near Balham Tube, a typical day in Wandsworth...(anyone have an explanation?) the tweet read. Twitter users dug into the mystery of the mobile foot and discovered the footmobile was a promotion for the Wandsworth Arts Fringe festival. The festival said the foot was masterminded by the Ministry of Silly Ideas. Another Twitter user who spotted the strange vehicle riding around town shared -- ahem -- footage of the vehicle in motion.

    If things go according to plan, Sunday should be a memorable one in the Finill household. Julia Finill will be handing out finishing medals at the London marathon in which both her husband Chris and their youngest son, Nick, will be taking part. The aim is for Mrs Finill to present father and son with their medals, giving the family a unique perspective on an event in which one of the 38,000 runners taking part will become the millionth person across the finishing line since the marathon began in 1981. Making the family’s participation even more special is the fact that, while Nick, 22, hopes to be picking up his first London medal, Chris, 57, is aiming to collect his 36th, making him a member of an increasingly elite club who have participated in every single London marat...

    Go Fund Me More than 35,000 runners are expected to take part in the London Marathon on Sunday, including our new fitness hero, Diana Green. Diana will be running the 26.2 miles for the charity Breast Cancer Now after she survived the disease thanks to successful treatment. Sunday also happens to be her 82nd birthday. Diana was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002 at the age of 68. She was adamant she was going to fight the disease, and with no history of running at all, she declared she was going to run the London Marathon the following year. When my husband and I told my daughter I’d been diagnosed with breast cancer back in 2002 she just burst into tears," Diana told The Huffington Post UK. I told her not to worry, I was going to run the London marathon the following ye...

    The Independent President Barack Obama arrives at Downing Street to meet with British Prime Minister David Cameron (Picture: [copyright]) Barack Obama has hit back after suggestions by Boris Johnson that he harboured an “ancestral dislike of the British empire” because of his Kenyan heritage. The Mayor of London had recounted a story in which he suggested Mr Obama had moved a bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office when he became president. But Mr Obama explained that he still had a second bust of the former prime minister in his private quarters – and revealed why he had moved the one in the Oval Office. “My private office is called the Treaty Room. Right outside the door of the Treaty Room so that I see it every day, including on weekends when I’m going into that ...

    Great British Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain has presented the Queen with her birthday cake. After deciding on an orange drizzle cake filled with vanilla butter cream and orange marmalade, Nadiya finally got to present it to the Queen on Thursday afternoon during Her Majesty's walkabout in Windsor. The Queen cut a piece of her birthday cake prepared to the tune of another rendition of Happy Birthday. Nadiya was asked by Buckingham Palace to make a cake for Her Majesty's 90th birthday and since then she has been in her kitchen at home working on the creation. The Bake Off star impressed judges Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood during last year's competition, beating off 11 other amateur bakers to win the coveted Star Baker. She has since signed a book deal, appeared on numerous...