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"With the 'Tractor Tax' protests filling the news for several days, yesterday delivered an email from Lib Dem HQ informing me that our MPs are demanding that the tax be axed. I was both surprised and disappointed to see our MPs siding with some very wealthy vested interests on this issue." Nick Baird says Lib Dem MPs are wrong to campaign against the government's changes to inheritance tax.

Alexandra Hall Hall on the changes the Democrats must make: "They voted for [Trump} ... not because they approve of his character, but because he successfully managed to come across as more in-touch with them and their concerns than any of the Democrat policy wonks crafting Kamala Harris' campaign messages and strategy, or the celebrities who endorsed her."

"The Armenian genocide of 1915-1917 ... is still denied by its perpetrators; indeed, politicians praise the men responsible and even make scornful jibes about the victims. The issue for Armenians is not so much about 'closure' as a fear that the same undercurrents of hatred are still brewing and will inspire further violence, a fear in part realised last year when Azerbaijan, Turkey’s ally, carried out what human rights groups called the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of over 100,000 Armenians." Britain's energy policy is making us allies of the Armenians' enemies, argues Ed West.

Ruairí Cullen explains new British Academy interactive maps that reveal cold spots in social sciences, humanities and arts in UK higher education, especially affecting disadvantaged students.

Lawrence Buell goes in search of the Great American Novel and returns with some recommendations.

"There doesn’t seem to be an obvious reason to create the crescent-shaped street. Perhaps it was a creative whim or perhaps it was an attempt to maximise space; whatever Stuckey was thinking, he created a crescent which can supposedly boast the smallest radius in Europe." Look Up London takes us to Keystone Crescent near King's Cross station.

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The media must start holding Reform and Nigel Farage to account, says Hardeep Matharu. The normalisation of racism and dog-whistles will only get worse if the press continues to treat Farage as an entertaining figure representing the 'real views' of the British people.

Imran Mulla and Peter Oborne examine Rishi Sunak's worrying links with India's far right.

"Compared to similar size towns in the UK, Clacton has a limited heritage and cultural offer. It has a wonderful but very small museum space run by active volunteers in the public library. There’s room for about five visitors at a time, and it’s open just twice a week. Sadly, other venues where Clacton’s hidden heritage was celebrated have shut, such as museum dedicated to Pirate Radio which closed in 2016." Tony D. Sampson and Andrew Branch argue that Nigel Farage’s populism distracts from what people in Clacton are really proud about.

"Across the world there must have been so many of us who experienced a similarly uncanny sense of déjà vu upon reading Nineteen Eighty-Four for the first time. That is because for those of us who come from “wounded democracies” or autocracies-in-the-making or downright dictatorships, Oceania was never some far-fetched dystopian land set in an unforeseeable future, but something closer, much more visceral. And frightening too. It was not even a prescient warning about where things might lead if politics went unexpectedly wrong. For us, Nineteen Eighty-Four was already here. It was already happening." Elif Shafak on the undiminished power of George Orwell's novel remains as powerful as when it w

Richard Williams pays a visit to Robert Wyatt in Louth.

The King's Cross district of London got its name from a memorial to George IV that everybody hated and which lasted only 15 years, explains Matt Brown: "The octagonal base survived two further years after the statue was removed. It served variously as a police station, beer shop and advertising space. When it was pulled down in 1845, few people mourned. Newspaper accounts of the removal were scarce and short."

Meet the four Piccadilly Lines

"This one’s tricky. You may need to concentrate," says Jago Hazzard about this video. It takes us through the four different schemes that combined to bring us the Piccadilly Line.

You can support Jago's videos via his Patreon page.

The mystery of the King's Cross lighthouse

Jago Hazzard is our guide to this prominent but enigmatic structure.

You can support his videos via his Patreon page.

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"The second Elizabeth was born on April 21, 1926, and has reigned over Britain since 1952. She was six weeks older than Marilyn Monroe, three years older than Anne Frank, nine years older than Elvis Presley - all figures of the unreachable past. She was older than nylon, Scotch tape, and The Hobbit. She was old enough to have trained as an army driver and mechanic in the last months of the Second World War." Helen Lewis on the end of the second Elizabethan Age.

Max Ghenis, Nikhil Woodruff and Charles Bauman make the case for bringing the taxation of land values and universal basic income together.

Tom Ravenscroft looks at 20 significant buildings opened by the Queen during her 70-year reign.

"We read to prepare for life. It follows, then, that we are raising our boys to dismiss other people’s experiences, and to see their needs and concerns as the centre of things. We are raising our boys to lack empathy." Caroline Paul says boys should read books with female protagonists.

"Harold was in high spirits, and read to us his favourite lines about cricket, from Francis Thompson’s poem 'At Lord’s', with added relish: 'For the field is full of shades as I near the shadowy coast,/ And a ghostly batsman plays to the bowling of a ghost,/ And I look through my tears on a soundless-clapping host/As the run stealers flicker to and fro...'" Shomit Dutta remembers playing cricket with Harold Pinter.

David Cantwell senses a Creedence Clearwater Revival revival.

Up Caledonian Road to Copenhagen Fields with John Rogers

John Rogers takes us on another London walk. This time it's from Gray's Inn Road up the Caledonian Road to Caledonian Park in Islington.

I was in Housmans bookshop [09:00] the other week and emerged with a novel by Rose Macaulay. I still haven't got the hang of this "left wing" thing.

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"Biden labelling Afghanistan 'the graveyard of empires' is, at best, historically illiterate and, at worst, utterly self-serving. It not only negates thousands of years of Afghanistan’s history as a flourishing centre of civilisation, but also - in an act of supreme imperial hubris - shifts the blame for U.S. failures there onto the land and people of Afghanistan themselves." Alexander Hainy-Khaleel takes issue with the Western perceptions of the country.

"As in many other countries, most of the research funding in Norway comes from the government. Thereby, the government funds all stages of research production, but must then pay again to access the research results." Martin Hagve explores the strange economics of academic publishing.

Emma John exposes cricket administrators' regular claims that the game faces ruin and the uses they make of them.

Callum Marius reports moves to reopen York Road tube station to serve the King's Cross Central development.

Jade King traces the development of the artist Graham Sutherland.

"As great as it is to be able to choose whatever you want on Amazon, sometimes what you really want is to have no choice at all." Mark O'Connell makes the case for bad bookshops.

York Road and Maiden Lane: Two lost stations north of King's Cross

York Road was on the Piccadilly Line, closing in 1932. Its revival has often been forecast but never taken place.

Jago Hazzard, whose video this is, thinks Maiden Lane on the North London Line may be a better bet. It closed as early as 1917 in the first round of closures to hit the British system. Medbourne in Leicestershire went at the same time.

Keystone Crescent near King's Cross station

At Five Leaves Bookshop in Nottingham a year or two ago, I bought a copy of Curious King's Cross, which they had published themselves.

Curious London quotes a review of it from the International Times:

Recently a friend gave a me a copy of Curious King’s Cross by the broadcaster and social-cultural historian Andrew Whitehead. I immediately wondered if Bob Dylan’s gig at the KX pub The Pindar of Wakefield in 1962 was mentioned and blow me down here’s a chapter, Don’t think twice, which does exactly that. I was at that gig – the only time I’ve seen BD live – and here’s Brian Shuel’s famous photo of him in the corduroy cap and faux-suede jacket he wears on the sleeve of his first LP. 

This is a gem of a book which tells me all sorts of things I didn’t know about KX and reminds me of all sorts of things I’ve forgotten about its places and people. Want to know about Platform 9 3/4 for the Hogwarts Express, about Mary Wollstonecraft’s burial in Old St Pancras, what happened to KX’s gasometers, about cruising in St Pancras, ice wells, Grimaldi the clown, how a fish and chip shop was bugged by MI5, the history of Housmans’ radical book shop and its association with Peace News at ‘5 Cally Road’ (where you can undoubtably buy this book) and about the filming of The Lady Killers? Enough already – just buy it. It’s so teeming with info, energy, and enthusiasm I wish it had an index.

Another chapter looks at Keystone Crescent, which lies off the bottom end of the Caledonian Road.

Inspired by that chapter, I went to photograph it last summer.

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"The smaller party in a future coalition must be wary of sacrificing too many of its core values for the sake of government unity." Judi Atkins draws some lessons on how to make coalition work from Britain's 2010-15 experience.

"We live in an age of increasing polarisation and fraction with bitter conflicts between opposing groups, whether this is in the case of Trump, Brexit, One Nation or other extremist or populist movements. These results remind us that we should be wary of assuming that our followers are thoughtful and caring but their followers are brainwashed and hateful — not least because from their perspective the opposite is likely to be true." A University of Queensland press release quotes the psychologist Nik Steffens on how we see members of ingroups and outgroups.

Maya Kosoff on the problems facing Twitter.

Londonist looks at the chances of York Road station on the Piccadilly line north of King's Cross being reopened.

"The view comes courtesy of Britain’s growing rubbish problem from a boom in commerce through the 60s, 70s and 80s. You’re actually standing on one of the biggest rubbish tips in Britain." Helia Phoenix takes us to a favourite Cardiff viewpoint.

Anthony Teague celebrates 'Stand by Me' and Ben E. King.

The church moved to Wanstead to make room for St Pancras

A passing reference in a Londonist article on King's Cross and St Pancras sends you to the website of Wanstead United Reformed Church.

And there you read its remarkable history:

Our building has an almost unique history. Built in the parish of St Pancras and known as St Luke’s, it was consecrated in May 1861. Only two years later the old Midland Railway wanted to extend its line into London and needed the site of St Luke’s for a terminus station – it was the only site available. 

In Wanstead, a group of Congregationalists wanted to build a church for their worship and heard of this building in the Kings Cross area. They bought St Luke’s for £526, and a builder from Walthamstow demolished, transported and re-erected it on our current site. The foundation stone was laid on 7th August 1866 and the church opened for worship on 30th May, 1867. 

The site wasn’t quite the right size and shape to receive St Luke’s in its original form; the main body of the church is now shorter; the entrance and porch on the north side were not rebuilt. This is a photograph of the original plan for the building with a huge central spire. Our Cromwell Hall (on the Nightingale Lane side of the church) was also part of the original building.

The picture above, taken from Google Street View shows the church today.

A new St Luke's was built in Kentish Town to serve its parish at St Pancras. It was in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust for 20 years, but reopened as a living church in 2012.

Walking the River Fleet through North London

Another video from Londonist. Matt Brown is an engaging guide as we follow London's most famous lost river.

Secrets of the Piccadilly Line

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If I had to name a favourite Underground line, this would be it.

Your favourite may well have featured here before: the District, the Central, the Jubilee, the Northern or the Bakerloo.

Locomotives through Barbican to King's Cross

A couple of weeks ago I photographed the disused platforms at Barbican station in London. This video shows them being used by a locomotive-drawn commuter train from Moorgate. We stay on board it until we emerge, via the Hotel Curve, on the western side of King's Cross station.

This curve was closed in 1976 along with the York Road platforms on the other side of the station, where trains, some drawn by locomotives, stopped before diving into a tunnel to reach Farringdon, Barbican and Moorgate. I have clear memories of watching them do that one winter afternoon.

King's Cross station in 1956

Mallard and a Deltic on their way to Grantham

Mallard broke the world speed record for steam locomotives on Stoke Bank, south of Grantham on the King's Cross line, 75 years ago. This weekend she is on display at Grantham station as the centrepiece of an exhibition to mark this anniversary.

This video shows Mallard on her way to Grantham and Mallard 75 along with the Deltic Royal Highland Fusilier (55 019), hauled by a modern freight loco.

Imagine idling beside the railway and seeing this little lot hammer past.

Deltic locomotive returns to haul commerical freight trains

[Later. You may also enjoy this recent video of a Deltic hauling freight in the Scottish Highlands.]

It' s rather like finding a Derby winner pulling a milk float, but Dan Falchikov reports the welcome news that a preserved Deltic locomotive has been hired to haul commercial freight trains because of a shortage of locomotives.

Deltics hauled the express trains on the King's Cross to Edinburgh line in the 1960s and 1970s, though by the time I was a student at York they had been relegated to heading the stopping trains from there to London.

There was something very attractive about Deltics: that hunched, powerful shape and the throaty roar of their engines. People used to say that people would never mourn diesels they way they had the old steam locomotives, but I suspect the last days of the Deltics and the crowds they attracted formed the high-water mark of rail enthusiasm in Britain. Certainly, I spent their last evening in service (2 January 1982) beside the track near Little Bytham.

Dan has the video of a news report about the return of the Deltic and you can also see them in the opening titles of Get Carter...

London King's Cross c.1962

britishrailways.tv

King's Cross and Pick of the Pops

Another video combining vintage railway footage with a contemporary soundtrack.

This one combines film taken in and around King's Cross station in the 1950s and 60s with Pick of the Pops from 28 May 1960 and 18 July 1963 as an accompaniment.

It is interesting to see what a mess the area in front of the station was in those days. In the 1930s there was even a new house standing there, built to advertise new estates that could be reached by train.

If you enjoyed this you may also enjoy:

• London termini in the 1960s
• The Ladykillers locations
• London in the 1960s

Thanks to Londonist and BritishRailways.tv.

Camley Street Natural Park, London

Last year I wrote about the nature reserve at Camley Street next to St Pancras station for the New Statesman website:

Each year more than 50 schools visit its oasis at Camley Street, which is open to the public seven days a week. Into two acres beside the Regent’s Canal are packed ponds, wetlands, woodland and open grassed areas. Within them you will find kingfishers, reed warblers, reed buntings, rare fungi and a teeming variety of insect life. Geese, mallards, coots and herons make regular visits, while the cutting of the grass is subcontracted to the park’s resident rabbits Coco, Patch and Merlin.

Camley Street was created from a former coal yard. It opened in 1985 as a joint project between the Trust, the Greater London Council and Camden Borough Council when such partnerships were a novelty. Now the Trust runs more than 150 days of family activities here every year: its volunteers carry out maintenance work on the various habitats and lead guided walks and play schemes over weekends and school holidays.

As I said in that article, there are concerns about what the redevelopment of the King's Cross area will mean for Camley Street.

I was there again yesterday afternoon. Talking to the volunteers it seems that relations with the developers and Camden council are good, but that the increase in visitor numbers that will result from the redevelopment may lead to some areas being closed to the public and only being seen on guided tours.

So get down to Camley Street while you can still wander around it freely.