Exclusive: Mayor says Conservative government has put obstacles in his way each day of his eight years in office

Sadiq Khan has called the Conservatives’ treatment of London “unpatriotic” as he accused the government of putting obstacles in his way every day of his eight years running the capital.

The London mayor accused the Tories of “trying to do us down” at every opportunity for political reasons in long-running battles over police funding, cuts to London’s transport budget and in planning decisions.

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14-year-old killed in attack was a student at Bancroft’s school in Woodford Green; police say two men in their 30s were injured and suspect is in custody

The head of Bancroft’s School, Simon Marshall , has sent a statement to parents, in which Daniel Anjorin , the 14-year-old boy killed in the Hainault attack yesterday, was described as a “much-loved” member of the school.

The statement, seen by the BBC , reads:

I had been intending to write to you once the news has become public, but I understand that many within our community may already be aware of events yesterday.

It is therefore with great sadness and shock that I am writing to inform you of the tragic death of Daniel Anjorin, one of our pupils.

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Hall’s campaign has focused on cars and crime while the opposition has exploited her tendency to ‘shoot from the hip’

Paul Icely puffs out his cheeks – and then slowly exhales. He is visibly deflating. “I thought there might be a few more of us,” the 67-year-old black-cab driver admits, his eyes darting between the students milling outside Barking and Dagenham college. “You seen anyone else?” Icely asks Lisa Prager, 40, as she limps towards him with the aid of an NHS issue crutch.

Prager, who harbours a grudge against a Labour council over the loss of her job at a local park, appears to be the only other supporter of Susan Hall, the Conservative candidate for mayor of London, to have turned up on this sunny mid morning in Dagenham, east London.

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Susan Hall became member a day after an exposé about its contents – much of which is directed at Sadiq Khan

• Tory staff running network of anti-Ulez Facebook groups riddled with racism and abuse

Susan Hall, the Tory candidate for London mayor, has joined a Facebook group which contains Islamophobic hate speech and abusive comments about her opponent Sadiq Khan, the day after an exposé about its contents.

Khan told the Guardian these revelations “could have a direct impact on not just my safety but the safety of my family and staff”.

A YouTube video alleging that “Islamists” were “taking over Britain”.

Abuse towards Khan, including a post that read: “Seriously can’t believe Khan hasn’t been taken out yet … if dark forces can take out Princess Diana I’m sure they can take out this money grabbing little parasite”.

Examples of vandalism: one user shared a photo of an enforcement van with its tyres slashed, noting “two flat tyres and sprayed camera”. Another user responded: “Well done to whoever that was”.

Numerous Islamophobic comments, including one commenter calling Khan a “terrorist sympathiser”, and another saying that the London mayor “will see a big upsurge in public feelings and possibly major riots, mosques burnt down and innocent Muslims unable to walk the streets”.

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Exclusive: London mayor says poverty, alienation and ill health must be tackled to prevent crimes, after London sword attack

Too many people with mental health issues who have committed violent crimes missed out on treatment as a result of cuts to support services, Sadiq Khan has warned.

In an interview with the Guardian ahead of this week’s local elections, he said such crimes were preventable and said years of austerity has left NHS mental health provision on its knees.

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Police ask to be given time to probe apparently random attack that left boy, 14, dead and four people wounded

Detectives are urgently investigating why a man armed with a sword went on a 22-minute rampage in east London, killing a 14-year-old boy and wounding four other people in an apparently random attack.

The teenager was fatally injured when the suspect swung at him with the 30cm-long weapon on Tuesday morning.

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Sudanese man being held in Croydon after arriving for routine sign-in believed to be first potential deportation under new law

An asylum seeker who turned up for a routine Home Office appointment on Monday was detained and told that he was being sent to Rwanda, a charity has said.

In what is believed to be the first potential deportation case since Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda bill received royal assent, the Sudanese man was held in Croydon, south London, the charity Soas Detainee Support told the Guardian. The man told charity workers he had arrived to sign in but was informed that he would be deported to east Africa.

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This model of devolution should be the start of a bigger conversation about power and democracy, not the end

This Thursday, around 20 million voters in 10 regions in England go to the polls to elect metro mayors, which largely did not exist before 2017. Today these local politicians are national figures. With Labour riding high in the polls, the party could even see a remarkable clean sweep in the 10 contests, potentially winning the first-ever elected mayoralty of York and North Yorkshire in Rishi Sunak’s back yard. Such is their importance that the loss of the Conservative Tees Valley mayor, Ben Houchen, and his West Midlands counterpart, Andy Street, could hasten the end of Mr Sunak’s premiership.

Devolution is working. There have been signature policies such as Steve Rotheram’s high-speed broadband plan for Liverpool. Andy Burnham in Manchester has rolled out bus franchising to address the damage done by decades of deregulation. Mr Rotheram, Mr Burnham and West Yorkshire’s Tracy Brabin collectively are a powerful northern voice to counterbalance the south. Research from the More in Common thinktank suggests mayoral races are not a proxy for national politics. The race between the independent candidate Jamie Driscoll and Labour’s Kim McGuinness to be north-east mayor is too close to call. Mr Driscoll, who resigned from Labour after being blocked from standing as its candidate, clearly benefits from his outsider status.

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George Georgiou gave British rave culture its smiley face. Now he’s placing plaques where hardcore clubbers sweated till dawn. Our writers joins the designer – and DJs Danny Rampling and Nicky Holloway – on a face-melting trip

‘I remember this street being covered with hundreds of these all over the floor,” says George Georgiou, handing me an original smiley-face flyer he designed for the acid house club night Shoom. “I wish I’d picked them up because now they sell for up to a grand.”

The doorway we’re standing outside in London Bridge is one of many locations we’ll visit today, as Georgiou places acid house heritage plaques outside buildings that were once home to clubs such as Shoom, Raw and Sin. These locations are then tagged on an interactive acid house map on his website. We kick off the day 15 minutes’ walk away on Tooley Street, where the Special Branch club began life in 1984. It was here that resident DJs Nicky Holloway and Pete Tong lured suburban soul boys and Soho trendies to an old pub to get sweaty, while Gilles Peterson kept the footworkers busy by spinning jazz-funk in the other room.

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