London named 'best perceived' city in the world

 
Pic: London city
Staff reporter(wp/es):
London has been voted the “best perceived” city in the world after triumphing over Paris and New York in a new study.
In the poll of 30 global cities, London also emerged as the best in terms of living up to its perception.
Some 5,200 well-educated adults from 16 countries voted London top based on a variety of factors including culture, entertainment, infrastructure, health and general happiness.
Although the poll, published by consultancy firm PwC, was carried out in December 2015, months before the UK’s vote to leave the EU.
The report states: “London registers as a dynamic city, scoring well across the board in 29 of 36 image attributes.
“It’s No. 1 on attributes including having a well-developed infrastructure, being connected to the rest of the world, and having a well-developed legal framework. It’s in the top three in breadth of education for its population and for providing easy access to capital.”
 The study questioned equal numbers of “business decision makers”, “informed elites” and other general adults on 40 different topics to generate the rankings.

It rated Paris as the second best perceived city, followed by New York in third, Amsterdam in fourth and Sydney in fifth.
In terms of living up to those perceptions, Singapore and Toronto became the new second and third ranked cities respectively.
Nigeria’s capital, Lagos, ranked bottom of both lists while Bogota, Jakarta, Mumbai and several other South American cities also did badly.

Terror arrest after 'chemical incident' at transport hub

Crime reporter(wp/es):
A man has been arrested under counter-terror laws after a "chemical incident" at London City Airport.
Hundreds of people were forced to flee the airport following the incident on Friday, with 27 treated by paramedics and two requiring hospital treatment.
Police later discovered what was thought to CS gas spray, also known as tear gas.
Fire alarms sounded at about 4.15pm and hundreds of passengers were evacuated onto the tarmac outside.
One passenger, PR consultant Kim Fletcher, said: "There was a woman saying at first she thought she could smell deoderant but it became quite noxious with people coughing.
"I arrived after the airport was shut. Everyone was pushed out across the road."

Boxer David Haye tweeted: "Gutted can’t get to Scotland for @JoshTaylorBoxer fight tonight.
"As #CityAirport got evacuated when everyone started coughing uncontrollably!"
David Walker added: "No one has a megaphone so it's an airfield of Chinese whispers and confused looking people."
A spokesman for the Met said: "The man, 25, was arrested at a residential address in east London and taken to a west London police station. He was arrested on suspicion of using a noxious substance to cause serious damage - an offence under section 113 of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001.

"He has since been bailed pending further enquiries to a date in late November.
"Officers from the Aviation Policing CID investigate."

Teenager fighting for life after knife attack in South East London street

Crime reporter(wp/es):
A teenager is fighting for his life tonight after he was found stabbed on a street in south-east London.
The victim, believed to be 18, was rushed to hospital just before 5pm after he was treated in Grove Park Road in Lewisham.
Scotland Yard said detectives from the Trident and Gang Crime Command have been informed as police investigate the attack.
A Met spokesman said: “Police were called by the London Ambulance Service at 4:55pm on Monday to reports of a male suffering from stab injuries on Grove Park Road in Lewisham.

“Officers and London's Air Ambulance attended.
“The victim, believed to be aged 18, was taken to a south London hospital where he remains in a critical condition.

“Detectives from the Trident and Gang Crime Command have been informed. There have been no arrests and enquiries continue.”
Pictures taken from the scene show an air ambulance landed on a nearby football pitch while neighbours said roads had been taped off.
One woman tweeted: “Get home to everywhere closed off cause someones been stabbed... lovely.”

London banking sector to begin moving business overseas 'by early 2017'

Business reporter(wp/es):
London's financial services industry is already planning to move business overseas due to the uncertainty of the Brexit process, the head of the British Bankers' Association has warned.
Anthony Browne blamed fears that European Union (EU) politicians will want to erect trade barriers in an attempt to weaken the City of London during the Brexit negotiations for the planned moves.
Smaller banks could begin moving some operations overseas within weeks, with larger institutions following in the first few months of 2017, he predicted.
"Their hands are quivering over the relocate button," he said.
Writing in The Observer, he said: "Banking is probably more affected by Brexit than any other sector of the economy, both in the degree of impact and the scale of the implications.

"It is the UK's biggest export industry by far and is more internationally mobile than most. But it also gets its rules and legal rights to serve its customers cross-border from the EU.
"For banks, Brexit does not simply mean additional tariffs being imposed on trade - as is likely to be the case with other sectors. It is about whether banks have the legal right to provide services."

The industry would like to see the continuation of the EU's "passporting" regime, which allows financial services firms based in the UK to operate throughout Europe without seeking separate authorisation.
He warned that in European capitals and among British Eurosceptics "the rhetoric is hardening" and politics could trump the economic advantages of allowing the present system to remain relatively untouched.
"The problem comes - as seems increasingly likely, judging by the rhetoric - when national governments try to use the EU exit negotiations to build walls across the Channel to split Europe's integrated financial market in two, in order to force jobs from London.

"From a European perspective, this would be cutting off its nose to spite its face.
"It might lead to a few jobs moving to Paris or Frankfurt but it will make it more expensive for companies in France and Germany to raise money for investment, slowing the wider economy."
Banks have called for transition arrangements to be put in place after the UK leaves the EU but the uncertainty over the future - with years of negotiations with Brussels ahead - has left them with little option but to take steps to protect their futures.

Mr Browne said: "Banks might hope for the best but have to plan for the worst.
"Most international banks now have project teams working out which operations they need to move to ensure they can continue serving customers, the date by which this must happen and how best to do it.
"Their hands are quivering over the relocate button. Many smaller banks plan to start relocations before Christmas; bigger banks are expected to start in the first quarter of next year.
"London will survive as a global financial centre. Finance is inventive and will find a way through.
 "But putting up barriers to the trade in financial services across the Channel will make us all worse off, not just in the UK but in mainland Europe."

Suzanne Evans and Paul Nuttall announce plans to stand for UKIP party leadership

Political reporter(wp/es):
Suzanne Evans and Paul Nuttall are poised to go head-head in the battle to become the next Ukip leadership after they both joined the race to head up the crisis-hit party.
The politicians both promised to press the Government on Brexit if they are elected as leader.
But while Mr Nuttall pitched himself as the "unity" candidate, Ms Evans pledged to clean the party of its "toxic" image during a scathing attack on the Ukip hierachy.
She warned Ukip risked being turned into a Donald Trump-style party by Nigel Farage and his allies, but dismissed this strategy, insisting there is no groundswell of support for "far-right" polices in the UK.

Her announcement comes after Arron Banks, the party's most high-profile donor and former aide to Mr Farage, announced he is backing Raheem Kassam for the leadership.
Ms Evans told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show: "Our future as a political party in Britain does not lie in that far-right wing. I don't see a groundswell of opinion in this country for more far-right wing policies."
Ms Evans said she "absolutely" thought Mr Kassam will take Ukip in a far-right direction but "our members don't want that".

She said: "We've taken a lot of stick in Ukip because perhaps we have had a slightly more toxic image than we should have had.
"And our members, the ones that are doing the campaigning, have felt the brunt of that - being abused, being physically and verbally assaulted on the streets.
"They don't want to have a fresh injection of toxicity that's going to make it even more difficult for them, they want policies that help us win."
Ms Evans, who wrote her party's 2015 manifesto but has since fallen out with Mr Farage, was unable to stand in the last leadership election after being suspended from the party for disloyalty.

But she tried to brush off claims that her unpopularity with the Ukip leader and his close ally Mr Banks would harm her chances of being elected to lead the party.
She said there has been "too much testosterone" in Ukip and it is ripe for change.

She said she has "more than enough signatures" on her nomination form already, and dismissed claims the party's finances are in a perilous state.
And making her pitch for leader, she told the show: "I think I'm the right person to lead Ukip into the challenges ahead, to be able to beat the first past the post system that we have at the moment by broadening our appeal and getting MPs into Westminster.
"But first and foremost I think I am absolutely the right person to champion the cause of those 17.4 million people who voted to leave the European Union and are now seeing their democratic choice being undermined by the political class."
Mr Kassam hit back at the comments, saying: "It is sad that 60 seconds after she launched her campaign on the BBC, Suzanne Evans attacked me and my thousands of supporters as 'far right'. This is a project fear tactic and Ukipers are sick of these smears.

"But we're going to rise above it. When she goes low, we go high, to quote Michelle Obama."
Mr Farage criticised Ms Evans' remarks and said she should not be leader.
He told ITV's Peston on Sunday: "For her to talk about the party being toxic, for her to already declare one of the candidates who is running, Raheem Kassam, as being far-right, I don't view this as being a very good start.
He added: "I won't be voting for her no."
The leadership election was triggered after Diane James quit after just 18 days in the job.


Steven Woolfe, the frontrunner to replace her, quit the party in the wake of an altercation with another party member after which he ended up in hospital.
Announcing his decision, Mr Woolfe said the party had fallen into a "death spiral of their own making".
Paul Nuttall, North West MEP for Ukip, told BBC's Sunday Politics: "I've made the decision that I'll put my name forward to be the next leader of Ukip.
"I have huge support out there across the country, not only among people at the top of the party in Westminster and with the MPs, but also among the grassroots.

"And I want to stand on the platform of being the unity candidate - Ukip needs to come together. I'm not going to be on here and gild the lily. Ukip at the moment is looking over the edge of a political cliff, it'll either step off or it will step back.
"And I want to be the candidate that will tell us to come back."

gunman pulls out pistol and opens fire in Turn Pike Lane Norh London

Crime reporter(wp/es):
This is the moment a hooded gunman pulled a pistol from his tracksuit pocket and fired three times during a violent clash on a north London street.
Neighbours today told of their terror as two groups brawled in the middle of the road in Wood Green at 9.30pm on Wednesday.
CCTV footage captured the moment the rival gangs pulled up in three cars, headlamps blazing, and began to push and shove at each other before one man casually drew out a handgun.
Several shots were heard before the groups scattered, with five diving for cover into their hatchback and reversing away at speed, doors still open, to escape.
 The man brandishing the gun was held back by his friends who them jumped into their own vehicles, a BMW and Mercedes, to flee before police arrived.

Officers later stopped one of the cars believed to be involved and arrested three men aged 22, 27 and 31, for possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life.
They are being questioned in custody. Officers are still hunting for the blue BMW.
Residents today told of their shock at the shootout in Graham Road, a quiet street near Turnpike Lane station where three bedroom homes cost £600,000.
A 22-year-old waitress told the Standard: “I was just watching TV and the cars pulled up with their lights on really bright. I heard the noise as they started arguing and shouting at each other.
“I looked out of the window and it got really heated. Then one guy got the gun out and they all seemed to run away. There were three shots. Really loud bangs.
“When that happened I just got as far away as I could from the window and went and hid in the kitchen. I was really shaken up.
“I’m not from London and, while you do hear stories about gun and knife crime, when you see it on your doorstep like that it’s terrifying.
“I didnt go outside until the police turned up a few minutes later.

“It’s a nice street. There’s a green where people go with their kids and there’s lots of families on the road. It’s really scary it happened here.”
A neighbour said: “We heard the bangs and the young people running away. It’s crazy but I’m not that surprised really.
“The street is nice but the area is bad and there is always trouble around Turnpike Station.”
The incident comes amid spiralling gun crime in London with latest figures showing a 10 per cent increase in firearms incidents - up to 2,122 - in the past year.
Met commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan Howe has said a record number guns and weapons have been seized on the streets of London this year.
A report released yesterday by the Office for National Statistics today showed violent crime has soared nationally with knife crime up nine per cent and gun crime up seven per cent.
A Met police spokesman said: “Officers were called at around 9.30pm on Wednesday to reports of shots fired in the area of Graham Road.
“On attending the scene officers found a number of firearm casings. Police are not currently aware of any people injured.”

Man 'beaten to death' in east London high street

Crime reporter(wp/es):
A man is believed to have been beaten to death in a busy east London high street today.
Police have launched an investigation after a 52-year-old died following a suspected assault in the early hours of this morning.
He was rushed to an east London hospital with a serious head injury shortly after 2am and pronounced dead just before 9.30am.
Police were called to the hospital by staff at about 6.15am. They are treating the death as suspcious.
The London Ambulance Service had earlier been called to Leytonstone High Road, near the junction with Lancaster Road.
A crime scene remains in place and Leytonstone High Road is currently partly closed.

The manager of a business close to where the man was discovered told the Standard a police cordon was put up at about 11am.
He added: "Leytonstone is a pretty rough area. This sort of thing happens quite frequently.
"It is worrying but it is not a suprise."
A worker at a nearby shop said: "We didn't know anything until police started putting the tape up.
"I am frightened because I live around here.
"No one is being let into the cordon at the moment so we aren't getting any customers."

Next of kin have not been informed.
A post-mortem examination will be held in due course.
There have been no arrests. Officers remain on scene and enquires continue.