Company says latest delay at central London site bought for estimated £378m is due to water leaking into basement

Ikea has pushed back the opening of its Oxford Street store to spring 2025 – about 18 months later than initially planned – after problems with water leaking into the basement.

The site, previously occupied by Topshop, had been scheduled to open this autumn and that date had already been put back by a full year.

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From Ulez to free school meals, London’s mayor introduced bold, principled policies – and won. Keir Starmer, take note

• John McTernan was political secretary to Tony Blair and is now a political strategist

Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner, but I never doubted that Sadiq Khan would win re-election as the city’s mayor – even when rumours of a surprise upset were being breathlessly repeated. Of course, Labour has always had the ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. But this has meant that the party is all too often fearful in the face of large opinion poll leads, with an electoral strategy defined by the lessons of painful defeats.

The time has come to learn from winning, and where better to start than Khan’s win in London. This was, to borrow the words of the former Australian Labor prime minister Paul Keating, the “ sweetest victory of all ” – a victory for the true believers. What has gained Khan the two largest personal mandates in British electoral history has been his politics.

John McTernan was political secretary to Tony Blair and is now a political strategist for BCW

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Woman died of wounds in street after stabbing in broad daylight on Burnt Oak Broadway, Edgware

Detectives have launched a murder inquiry after a woman was stabbed to death in broad daylight in a north London street.

The Metropolitan police said they were called at about 11.50am to Burnt Oak Broadway, Edgware to reports of a stabbing and found a woman wounded in the street near to a bus stop.

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Marius Gustavson, 46, was involved in procedures that were ‘little short of human butchery’, UK court heard

• How ‘eunuch maker’ livestreamed extreme body modifications

• Warning: this story contains graphic descriptions of bodily mutilation that some readers may find upsetting

The leader of a “grisly and gruesome” extreme body modification network who streamed mutilations on his “eunuch maker” website has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 22 years.

Marius Gustavson, 46, was the “arch manipulator” of vulnerable victims and was said to have been involved in at least 29 procedures, which were “little short of human butchery”, the Old Bailey in London heard.

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Force says Right Care Right Person scheme has saved 34,000 officer hours but concerns lead to calls for it to be paused

The Metropolitan police have said their refusal to routinely go to mental health calls means officers can spend more time at crime scenes, but charities say the policy could endanger lives.

Six months ago the Met introduced a scheme called Right Care Right Person , aiming to cut the time officers spent dealing with mental health calls, which it said was diverting the force from fighting crime.

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Christopher Kirker tells members that normal waiting times will apply for most women as concerns raised about tokenism

The chair of the Garrick has told its members that the club may consider “allowing one or two exceptional … lady members” to join in the near future but that normal waiting times will apply for the majority of women.

A leaked email from Christopher Kirker to all members on Wednesday described Tuesday’s vote ending the London institution’s men-only rules as “momentous” and addressed questions about how quickly the club might move to admit women.

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Passengers waited more than three hours for passport checks on Tuesday, as the country’s 270 e-gates malfunctioned

Thousands of passengers were left waiting in queues for more than three hours at airports, on Tuesday evening, after a nationwide failure of the electronic passport gate technology system.

Nearly all major British airports were affected as the country’s 270 e-gates, the automated facial recognition systems at the border, were closed for more than four hours.

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It started from scratch – and became one of the world’s greatest collections. As the National Gallery celebrates its 200th birthday, we pick five sublime works – from a serene statesman to Van Gogh’s blazing blooms

The National Gallery in London is 200 years old on Friday, but what makes it so special? Founded in 1824 when public museums of fine art were in their infancy, it was different from rivals such as the Louvre (founded 1793) and the Prado (1819) because they inherited royal collections. By contrast, the National started from scratch and has intentionally built up the world’s most systematic corpus of European paintings. In that same thoughtful spirit, the gallery and the Guardian have charted a timeline of 20 of its masterpieces . Here are five of those to take you on a trip through 600 years of insight, sensitivity and genius.

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All-male private members’ club in London has voted in favour of women joining after Guardian coverage

• Garrick votes to accept female members for first time

London’s Garrick Club has finally voted to allow women to become members, 193 years after it first opened its doors.

The vote was passed at the end of a private meeting during which several hundred members spent two hours debating whether to permit women to join. In the end, almost 60% backed the move.

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