Articles

South West Londoner • 25th January 2024

Kingston nightclub owner calls in administrators

The owners of a popular Kingston nightclub have called in administrators due to the impact of the cost of living crisis on nightlife.

Rekom UK, the owner of Pryzm, said the south London venue remains open but financial restructuring must take place to secure the future of the company, which is the largest nightclub operator in the UK.

The Kingston-upon-Thames branch is both a nightclub and a concert venue which has hosted global artists including The 1975 and Billie Eilish.

Higher energy cost

South West Londoner • 24th January 2024

Heathrow Airport nearly at pre-pandemic passenger numbers

Passenger numbers at London Heathrow Airport nearly returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2023, the latest data reveals.

Nearly 80 million people arrived and departed from the airport last year, up approximately 29% from the previous year.

The number almost exceeded the peak of 80.89 million passengers in 2019, after which Covid-19 restrictions caused a decline in air travel.

It comes as the airport announced December was the busiest festive period on record, with an average of 216,000 passenger

South West Londoner • 11th December 2023

FEATURE: Big Ben - the ultimate British political symbol?

New Year's Eve 1923. The December night marked not only the end of the year when frozen food was invented and the start of the year when the first round-the-world flight took place, but also the beginning of a much-loved tradition in British broadcasting and politics.

For the first time, the sound of the bells inside the Elizabeth Tower, commonly called 'Big Ben', was heard beyond Westminster when the BBC broadcast the chimes to bring in the new year. And so began the tradition of the bongs rin

South East Londoner • 1st December 2023

WATCH: Blackheath elderly community site wins national architecture award

A day facility building for elderly people in Blackheath, south London, has won a top national architecture award.

The John Morden Centre, a part of the John Morden College community complex, was awarded the Stirling Prize for its use of sustainable materials and welcoming design.

Around 120 residents live independently in their own apartments, with around 30 others in a dedicated care home on-site.

The College is an almshouse charity, providing a home for older people in financial hardship w

South West Londoner • 27th November 2023

Heathrow Airport community leader to become chief of staff for David Cameron

The chair of the Heathrow Airport community relations group has quit to become chief of staff to the new foreign secretary David Cameron.

Liz Sugg, who previously served in Downing Street under Cameron, departed her role as Chair of the Council for the Independent Scrutiny of Heathrow Airport (CISHA) after 15 months.

The airport’s director of communities & sustainability said the organisation was disappointed by the decision.

Sugg said: “I am excited by my new role where I will be working to

South West Londoner • 10th November 2023

WATCH: Battersea Power Station holds re-development celebration

Battersea Power Station has held a week-long festival celebrating the success of its re-development, one year after doors opened to the public.

The Behind the Bricks Festival hosted performances from local musicians, heritage talks on the station’s history and children’s activities.

A total of 11 million people have now visited the attraction, which once provided around a fifth of all the power for London before it was closed in 1983.

The new complex boasts a range of shops, restaurants and o

The Scotsman • 22nd October 2023

Edinburgh University students speak of 'hurt' after six months without degree results

Students at the University of Edinburgh have still not received degree results six months after handing in final assignments.

Around 2,000 students at the university were among those across the country forced to graduate without results this year due to a marking boycott by the University and College Union (UCU).

Some students have since received results, while many still have 10,000-word dissertations and exam papers unmarked, which were handed in from April onwards, meaning their degree clas

North West Londoner • 16th October 2023

Old Oak Common HS2 construction like an earthquake, residents say

Communities around Old Oak Common in north west London say their mental and physical health is being damaged by the development of HS2.

Residents say the vibrations and noise created by construction for the high-speed line station in Acton, Ealing, are comparable to an earthquake.

It follows widespread political discussion over the progress of HS2, after the prime minister cancelled the planned section from Birmingham to Manchester.

Chris Peyton, 47, who lives on Wells House Road, outside the

South East Londoner • 9th October 2023

London tree planting programme launched amid warm weather

Young people in London are being encouraged to learn tree planting amid warm weather in the capital.

Environmental charity Trees For Cities will launch its Youth Programme this month, involving six training sessions over six months to teach young people how to plant and protect urban trees.

The charity works with councils across London, including in Croydon and Bexley, and those aged between 16 and 25 are encouraged to join the programme.

Youth Engagement Manager at Trees For Cities, Megan Ak

South East Londoner • 27th September 2023

Southwark Council flat not fit for humans, says mother

A mother of five says her Southwark council flat is not fit for humans to inhabit, amid a nine-year mouse and cockroach infestation.

Fatmata Koroma, 34, claims Southwark Council has failed to solve the severe pest problems in her Aylesbury Estate flat.

Cockroaches lay eggs throughout the home, including in the fridge of her council-owned property, and a dead mouse was found in her child’s cereal box last week.

Koroma, works part time as an NHS maternity support worker, said: “Even animals sho

South East Londoner • 22nd September 2023

Government accused of inaction over abortion clinic protests

The government’s failure to limit protesting near abortion clinics is exposing women in London to abuse, politicians and charities have warned.

The use of so-called ‘buffer zones’, which would make protests near clinics illegal, was approved by MPs in March as an amendment to the Public Order Act.

The law has not yet been ‘commenced’, or made legally enforceable, by the Home Office so buffer zones cannot be introduced.

An abortion clinic in Brixton Hill has seen a growth in pro-life protestin

The Edinburgh Tab • 10th May 2023

Edinburgh final years could be graduating without having dissertations marked amid lecturer strikes

Dissertations written by final year undergraduate students at Edinburgh University could go unmarked due to strike action, according to plans unveiled by the university.

The University and College Union (UCU) has been engaged in a continuous nationwide marking and assessment boycott since 20 April. UCU members are being encouraged to refuse to mark any work submitted by students as part of a dispute over pay, working conditions and pensions.

The University of Edinburgh told The Tab that in res

The Edinburgh Tab • 3rd May 2023

Edinburgh Students' Union forced to clarify renovation plans after backlash

A petition has been set up to stop the temporary closure of Teviot

Edinburgh University’s Students’ Association (EUSA) has been forced to clarify the reasons behind a plan to renovate its main campus building following student backlash.

EUSA announced on Monday that Teviot Row House in Bristo Square will close for over a year from October 2023 as part of a major renovation project for the popular student hub.

After frustration was expressed on social media, the SU has today been forced to rel

The Edinburgh Tab • 9th March 2023

Gay relationships ‘hurt god’, upcoming speaker at Edinburgh University has claimed

A researcher who claimed that same-sex relationships “hurt god” will deliver a talk at Edinburgh University next week.

Dr Calum MacKellar from the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics is being hosted on campus by the university’s student pro-life society.

MacKellar specialises in the moral implications of biological decision making. He has previously compared abortion to euthanasia, the controversial illegal process of ending a person’s life to “relieve suffering”.

In 2020, he claimed that pro

The Edinburgh Tab • 7th February 2023

Edinburgh University students to protest over 'rape culture' on campus

Students at the University of Edinburgh will protest on Thursday against what is described as a “rape culture” on campus.

Fourth-year student Aarti Mukhedkar is organising the demonstration to seek a change to the university’s system for dealing with sexual assault cases, after she says she was mistreated by university staff after reporting being raped on campus two years ago.

This week’s demonstration will mark one year since a similar protest took place in Edinburgh, after Mukhedkar’s online

The Edinburgh Tab • 2nd February 2023

Edinburgh University 'reviewing' how it detects plagiarism due to ChatGPT software

The University of Edinburgh is reviewing the potential implications that the new artificial intelligence software ChatGPT could have on plagiarism and academic misconduct, the Edinburgh Tab can reveal.

ChatGPT is a free online AI tool that is able to write essay-standard text in seconds, with extremely limited input from a human user. It has led to concern among university and school leaders about how to mitigate its impact on fairness in student assessments.

A spokesperson for Edinburgh Unive

The Edinburgh Tab • 1st February 2023

Over 10,000 Scottish students denied university accommodation each year

‘There must be no repeat of the chaotic scenes that we saw in the autumn’

Over 10,000 students at Scottish universities have been denied a place in university accommodation in each of the last two years, new figures show.

In 2020-21, 43,029 applications for official uni accommodation were received in Scotland, with 32,590 being offered places. Similarly, in 2021-22, 36,208 students received an accommodation place out of 46,351 applications.

The new figures, obtained by a Freedom of Informatio

The Edinburgh Tab • 25th January 2023

In pictures: Everything we know about the Edinburgh Jenners fire

A major fire broke out on Monday morning in the building that was previously home to the iconic Edinburgh department store, Jenners.

Fire crews were alerted to smoke emerging from the basement of the building, which sits between Princes Street and Rose Street, at 11:29am on 23 January.

The first two emergency crews arrived on the scene and found the building “well alight”, according to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.

A total of 22 fire enginges attended the blaze, which was described as

The Edinburgh Tab • 23rd January 2023

Firefighter in critical condition after Edinburgh fire

Five firefighters are being treated in hospital after a serious fire took hold in the centre of Edinburgh on Monday, according to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.

One responder is in a critical condition, and the families of all those injured have been made aware, said Ross Haggart, the service’s Interim Chief Officer.

The chief has called the fire a “very serious and complex incident”, with 11 emergency vehicles still on the scene.

Crews were alerted to the fire at the now-closed Jenner

The Edinburgh Tab • 17th January 2023

Only least privileged students accepted to study law at Edinburgh University

Some have applauded the university for helping to ‘break poverty cycles’

Edinburgh University chose to only accept students from deprived backgrounds to study certain subjects in 2022, figures show.

Of 1,205 applicants to study law, 555 were deemed to be from more advantaged backgrounds, whereas 650 were from deprived areas of the country or underperforming schools. 170 students from deprived backgrounds were accepted, while none from more wealthy backgrounds were offered a place.

The figures

The Edinburgh Tab • 4th January 2023

'It was a witch hunt': Alyssa and Meryl on The Traitors and their favourite Edinburgh nights out

The Traitors: it’s the BBC reality TV show that has gripped the nation for the last month, as 22 ordinary Brits have battled it out to win up to £120,000.

The Edinburgh Tab has sat down with locals Alyssa and Meryl, two of the show’s star contestants to get all the insider info and behind-the-scenes gossip about the hottest, campest, most chaotic show on TV.

The highly emotive game sees three contestants secretly selected to be ‘Traitors’, while the others remain ‘Faithful’, with the Faithfuls

The Edinburgh Tab • 2nd January 2023

Over a fifth of Edinburgh students say they are addicted to Elf Bars

21 per cent of students in Edinburgh say they are addicted to Elf Bar vapes, according to a new survey by The Tab.

This is the joint-lowest figure of all UK universities, with higher proportions of self-declared addiction among students at universities including Birmingham (27 per cent), Nottingham (29 per cent), Oxford Brookes (32 per cent), and Coventry (35 per cent).

However, nearly half of students in the Scottish capital have used the branded vapes since September 2022 (49 per cent), comp

The Edinburgh Tab • 22nd December 2022

Pictures show Edinburgh student flats riddled with severe mould

‘As a student, politeness seems to get you nowhere with landlords’

Students in Edinburgh are living in properties with extreme cases of mould and damp that are going ignored by landlords, The Edinburgh Tab can reveal.

Pictures show entire sections of bathroom and kitchen ceilings covered in black mould, as well as students finding their clothes and furniture becoming mouldy over time.

Numerous students have reported having to leave Edinburgh and return to their family homes during term time d

The Edinburgh Tab • 20th December 2022

Students mock Edinburgh University for selling £825 signet rings

Students have mocked the University of Edinburgh for “upholding its elite reputation” by selling university-branded signet rings for up to £825.

The Students’ Union (EUSA) has criticised the items for supposedly representing a “worrysome irony”, as the university seeks to increase profits while “failing to acknowledge” its responsibility over students’ welfare during the cost of living crisis.

Speaking exclusively to The Edinburgh Tab, Isi Williams, the Vice President (Community) of EUSA, said

The Independent

Opinion: My £40k student debt – and no degree to show for it

It hasn’t been a good few weeks for British universities. Or for students. Or for university lecturers. In fact, the whole system is on the brink of falling apart.

Staff at universities across the country are refusing to mark students’ work as part of a years-long dispute over pay and working conditions, in the hope it will bring university leaders to the table.

Personally, that means a 10,000-word piece of research which took me six months, and of which I was pretty proud, might never be look

The Student

COP26: All eyes on Scotland after years of anticipation

In the coming weeks, Glasgow will play host to world leaders as they meet to agree further steps to be taken to combat the climate crisis.

The Conference of Parties (COP) is a decision-making body associated with the United Nations’ efforts to slow climate change, with this year’s summit (COP26) taking place between 31 October and 12 November.

Leaders hope to build on the 2015 Paris Agreement, when all countries agreed to a commitment to limit global temperature rise to well below 2° C above p

Backbench

5 Problems Facing Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party

They may have been in power for eleven years and yield the party’s biggest parliamentary majority since Margret Thatcher’s days as leader, but the Conservative Party under Boris Johnson is far from indestructible. A delicate balance of factors is holding their support together, a balance under threat by several problems the party will need to confront sooner or later.

Boris Johnson and his personal image – the bumbling, the metaphors, and the hair – are a large part of what got him elected. He’

Backbench

5 Problems Facing Keir Starmer’s Labour Party

Politics is a funny thing. One day, the Conservative Party winning Hartlepool symbolises Boris Johnson’s continued erosion of Labour support and suggests the Tories will reign supreme for decades to come; weeks later, the Labour victory in Batley and Spen is touted as the beginning of a storming comeback under Keir Starmer. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle – these were, but two microscopic tests of public opinion, and both parties are facing significant long term electoral threats.

Backbench

Local Elections 2021: The View from Scotland

This week, millions of Scots will head to the polls to determine who wins control of the Scottish Parliament and the levers of power over Scotland’s future.

When created in 1999, the Scottish Parliament was Tony Blair’s crown jewel in New Labour’s devolution package, aimed to empower the regions and nations of the UK by increasing representation.

However, during the SNP’s uninterrupted 14-year period of governing Scotland, the country’s parliament and corresponding elections have been consumed

The Student

The hunger grows for ‘opinionated news’ in the UK

The UK’s broadcast news media landscape has changed greatly since the turn of the century, and the transformation is set to accelerate drastically in the coming years with the arrival of new outlets that promise to bring controversy, outrage and adoration in equal measure.

The UK has some of the most comprehensive media laws regarding accuracy and impartiality, meaning that on-air radio and TV presenters must deliver news and analysis with due impartiality, other than when it is made clear that

The Meridian

2020 in Review: the year when politics mattered

I hear it often, people saying: “Oh I’m just not into politics. Politicians are all the same so why should I care what they say?”. Widespread is the belief that politics is utterly irrelevant to people’s lives and that the theatre of Westminster is nothing more than reality TV for ugly people. For the record, I understand from where such feelings stem, but I profoundly disagree with them; politics has always and will always matter. It is the imperfect arena in which progress is forged, the vulne

The Student

2016 vs 2020: is this really so different?

Two things went wrong in 2016 with regard to election forecasting. Firstly, there was an average polling error that underestimated Trump’s vote share by three percent. Admittedly, a frustrating mistake, but given that all polls have a built-in margin of error of two percent, not the story of the century. Secondly, there was an approximate three per cent surge toward Trump in the final days of the campaign, following the FBI’s reopening of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails on 28 Oct

The Student

Kamala Harris: a smart pick for vice president

In nominating Harris, Biden has pulled off something of a masterstroke. Her sharp mind and relative youth will bring on board some much-needed charisma and focus, whilst simultaneously shaping the future of the Democratic party in a way that both promotes rising talent and champions electability.

The 55-year-old Senator from California – who was, until December , a candidate for president herself – was among twelve women on the shortlist for the role who have been vigorously vetted and intervie

The Student

Hamilton on screen: if American history were a fairytale

Nonetheless, the movie lays bare the lyrical genius of Lin-Manuel Miranda. The style of Hamilton is unlike any other in the industry, embracing rap and spoken word alongside more typical Broadway tracks. There is something uniquely hilarious and satisfying about hearing a revolutionary military officer in 1776 rhyme “anarchy” with “panic-y”, or having the conflicts of the day summed up by “how does a rag-tag volunteer army in need of a shower, somehow defeat a global superpower?”

First things f

The Student

Don’t be mistaken, a Biden victory is no certainty

Mr Biden is best known among people of my age for being President Obama’s Vice President, but less commonly recognised, particularly in the UK, is his other experience in US domestic politics for the best part of 50 years. Elected to the US Senate in 1972 to represent his home state of Delaware (a position in which he stayed for 36 years), Biden was one of the Senate’s youngest ever members. The minimum age to be a senator is 30, and with Biden entering office just six weeks after his 30th birth