The capital's firefighters will withdraw their labour today and its Tube workers will do the same tomorrow tonight. The firefighters will also strike from Friday through till Sunday morning, coinciding with bonfire night and Diwali. Industrial relations in some sectors of the metropolis are not in a pretty state. We hear a lot about stroppy unions in this story, but stroppy politicians are part of it too. Has the attitude of Brian Coleman, the sometimes unsubtle Conservative who chairs LFEPA, helped or hindered? I know what the FBU thinks.
I spend part of last week out and about collecting the stories of Londoners with various kinds of housing troubles. Before too long I hope to share some of those with you, but in the meantime the politics of the government's housing benefit reduction plans continue to unfold. Yesterday's Observer coverage - be sure to read in full - mentioned a letter from Westminster council "asking ministers to reduce its duty to support families who are made homeless as a result of the cap." I'll be providing some detail about that correspondence later this morning.
One thing I won't be doing this week is spending time at City Hall, but you can watch webcasts of the assembly's busy week of committee meetings. If anything exciting happens, let me know.
