Luke Alsford

I am a journalist covering news, investigative and human-interest stories for Metro and The Londoners.

Politics and SEO Reporting

My reporting and analysis articles covering British politics, as well as SEO articles from the Autumn 2024 budget.

Metro •

Plumbers called to unblock 7,000 loos in government buildings in last two years

Civil servants have cost the British taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds clogging up their own loos.
Government buildings have suffered more than 7,000 blocked toilets and urinals in the last two years, data from the Cabinet Office and other departments have shown.
Toilets used by new Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, Bridget Phillipson and Michael Gove have all gone out of order, with the Department for Work and Pensions being the biggest culprits.
The cost of plumbing jobs to fix civil servants’...
The London Economic •

Labour landslide heralds in new era of quangoism

Keir Starmer’s Labour landslide has heralded in a new era of quangoism in British politics.
The Prime Minister’s National Violent Disorder Unit, announced at a press conference on Thursday, adds to a long list of new national units, programmes and regulators already promised in Labour’s manifesto.The government now has plans to introduce as many as twenty-six public bodies with influence over swathes of policy and daily life.
The National Violent Disorder Unit will be established after the deadl...
The London Economic •

Labour to remove requirement for new homes to be 'beautiful'

Already outraged that houses are to be built in their back yard, nothing could make the situation worse for NIMBYs than the news that those houses might be ugly.
That is, however, exactly what Angela Rayner and the new Labour government have in store for reeling NIMBY councils across the country, as they outlined plans to impose housing targets across the country. In Labour’s revised planning rule book, the government has deleted almost every use of the word “beautiful” in their requirements for...
The London Economic •

How Brexit resulted in immigration going up

Just weeks after the Conservatives left office with record-high levels of immigration, and years after Brexiteers voted to “take back control” of Britain’s borders, the latest round of Tory leadership hopefuls are promising to reduce immigration levels all over again.
The six leadership rivals have been queuing up to condemn the Party’s performance on immigration during their fourteen years in government. 
Robert Jenrick, one of the six running to lead the Party, admitted in a video on X that he...
Metro •

How does the Budget affect pensioners and DWP payments?

Rachel Reeves has announced a range of changes to Universal Credit, the state pension and the benefits system in her Autumn Budget today.
Let’s take a look at what the Chancellor laid out in her address and how it will affect pensioners and those receiving benefits.
Follow the latest updates on the Autumn 2024 Budget on our live blog
PIP benefits, issued by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), are for people who need help with costs associated with their health condition or disability.
It...
Metro •

Martin Lewis gives verdict on the 2024 Budget - as it happened

Martin Lewis described the Government’s plan to not make certain changes to child benefits as ‘bad news’ for single parents.
Major changes announced by Chancellor Rachel Reeves today included changes to employer National Insurance contributions, increases to Capital Gains tax, a fall in the price of pints and smokers paying more for hand-rolled tobacco.
But the finance expert said the Labour government’s decision to not shift child benefit to household income from individual income was ‘bad news...
Metro •

Inheritance tax debunked: Loopholes, rules and 2024 changes explained

Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government has unveiled its first Budget on Wednesday, with changes to inheritance shaping Rachel Reeves’ plan to tackle a £22bn black hole.
The Chancellor announced that the inheritance tax thresholds would be frozen for a further two years, from 2028 to 2030, saying she understood the strongly-held desire to pass down savings to children and grand children.
Reeves also laid out changes to agricultural and business relief for inheritance tax, while promising to protect...
The London Economic •

Humza Yousaf says EDL should be made terrorist organisation following Southport riots

Muslim advocacy and community groups have joined a call from Humza Yousaf to proscribe the English Defence League as a terrorist organisation after the violent clashes in Southport last night.
The former Scottish first minister has urged the government to “deal” with Britain’s “far-right problem” and the “evil ideology” behind it.
Merseyside Police said “a large group of people – believed to be supporters of the English Defence League” – began to throw items such as bricks towards the mosque in...
Metro •

Who is Rachel Reeves? Everything we know about the UK's first female chancellor

Rachel Reeves is set to unveil her first budget as chancellor next week, which she said will involve ‘tough decisions’ to fill a £22 billion black hole in the nation’s finances.
Reeves became the UK’s first female chancellor after Labour won the General Election in July 2024.
She previously served in Sir Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet as shadow chancellor from May 2021 until July.
As chancellor, Reeves has already overseen the scrapping of the winter fuel allowance for pensioners not on certain b...
The London Economic •

Badenoch once opened up about the profound impact Josef Fritzl had on her life, new biography claims

Kemi Badenoch once opened up about how the shocking case of Josef Fritzl had a profound impact on her life, a new biography has claimed.
The favourite to win the Tory leadership contest reacted in horror when it was discovered in 2008 that Fritzl had imprisoned and raped his daughter in a secret basement for 24 years.
Badenoch, who grew up in a Methodist household, later told a colleague that the revelations had such a profound effect on her that “something in my mind just switched” and she sto...
The London Economic •

£2.3 million Brexit border inspection post has conducted 2 checks since April

A post-Brexit border inspection post in Poole that cost £2.3 million has conducted only two checks since April.
The 2,000 square meter facility was launched in November, however delays to the government’s plans for a post-Brexit border regime saw physical checks on imports of plant and animal products from the EU only begin three months ago.
Back when the border post was first opened, chief executive of Poole Harbour Commissioners Brian Murphy expressed the port’s excitement “to start promoting...
The London Economic •

Badgers, trees and PR: The stories that dominated the 2024 General Election

The Badger Trust’s election guide to badger culling was one of the most shared social media articles of the general election campaign.  
With over 8000 shares, likes and comments on Facebook, the Badger Trust’s endorsement of manifestos opposed to culling was the seventh best performing articles on social media with “general election” in the title. 
Using the platform Buzzsumo, The London Economic has compiled a list of the top 20 best performing articles on social media with “general election”...
The Bubble •

Why Keir Starmer's tuition fees U-turn shows he wants to fight a cost-of-living election

If Keir Starmer has indeed developed one skill during his tenure as Labour leader that is necessary for life in Number 10, it is a knack for knowing when to drop bad news. In a week consisting of council elections followed by a coronation, Starmer will have hoped that his blink-and-you-miss-it U-turn on a previous promise to abolish university tuition fees would fly by undetected by voters. Not least because it did not go unnoticed by Labour’s political opponenets, who have already been lining u
The Bubble •

Tactical voting and the battle to save the union

Unionism in Scotland is at a crossroads and, alongside it, so are the Scottish Conservatives. This was no more apparent than in the muffled, cross-border dispute between Douglas Ross, the Scottish Tory leader and MP, and his Westminster counterparts. In an eyebrow-raising comment, Ross suggested that unionist voters should “look beyond their own narrow party” and use tactical voting to endorse candidates most likely to defeat the SNP. After the Conservatives south of the border clapped back that
Palatinate •

The ‘B word’: Why Sunak and Starmer hope Brexit is finished business

Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer can agree on something, and they want you to agree with them too: Brexit is now over.

Sunak is so confident of this fact that his own minister, Steve Baker, supposedly disbanded the hard-line Tory Eurosceptic European Research Group's WhatsApp group chat, as a declaration of Brexit's completion. The cause for celebration? The passing of the Windsor Framework into law. The EU-UK agreement, purporting to solve the once thorny issue of Northern Ireland's relationship w
The Bubble •

Boris Johnson's Partygate showdown: The future direction of British politics is at stake

Boris Johnson is coming up to the bat in the latest innings of the Partygate scandal. On Wednesday 22nd at 14:00, he is to make a live and televised appearance in front of the Commons Privileges Committee that is investigating one central question for the former Prime Minister’s political future: did he deliberately mislead Parliament over denials of covid-lockdown parties in Downing Street? Boris Johnson is not just at facing the prospect of a couple of hours of hostile questions; he risks bein