Why subscribe?

The UK’s capital city is poorly served by the media. Too much of the journalism about London, whether from left or right, is negative and simplistic. I’m doing my best to provide an antidote to that, both as an individual and as publisher of OnLondon.co.uk, whose operation and freelance writers my earnings from this Substack help support.

I publish here only articles by me, most of which have already appeared at On London, along with my end-of-week Friday newsletter, On London Extra, and my smaller Tuesday one, On London Latest, which brings people up to speed with all of On London’s output, by all its writers, over the previous seven days.

All the republished (and other) articles here are free. The two weekly newsletters are for paid subscribers only. As supporters of On London those subscribers will also receive occasional offers of free or discounted tickets to events graced by influential Londoners with which I am involved.

London has many strengths and many problems. My job, as I see it, is to report and illuminate the full range as best I can in partnership with the many excellent writers I am fortunate to be able to publish at On London.

Before founding OnLondon in February, 2017, I was, from 2008, the Guardian’s award-winning, self-publishing London commentator working as a freelance from home. I’ve been a London-based freelance writer since 1981, having moved to the city as a young man in 1979.

I am the author of Olympic Park: When Britain Did Something Big, which tells the story of how London came to host the 2012 Olympiad and the huge regeneration programme in the east of the city, near where I live, that it entailed. That book led to my researching and writing an award-winning BBC Radio 4 documentary, presented by Gabby Logan and produced by Andrew McGibbon.

I am also a trustee of The London Society, in partnership with which I make two kinds of podcast: scripted, radio documentary-style shows with Andrew called London Explained, and conversational ones with significant Londoners, which I co-host with London Society chair Leanne Tritton.

Alongside all the above, I write London sketches, reflections and fiction under the pen name John Vane, who has his own Substack and also appears at On London. As John, I have also written a novel - a political satire called Frightgeist, inspired by the pandemic, the rise of populism and today’s social climate of volatility and anxiety.