With polling day approaching, the Prime Minister is offering up some enticing inducements to entice Londoners to vote Conservative on July 4th rather than backing Labour or switching to the Reform Party, Liberal Democrats or Greens.
He also addressed issues between Downing Street and London Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan over housing and crime.
Opinion polls have shown Labour holding a 33-point lead in the capital, but signs of an anti-Conservative mood could make it difficult for the Conservatives to hold on to a string of close seats in the July 4 election.
Taylor Swift has just completed three sold-out concerts at Wembley Stadium, which also featured guests Sir Paul McCartney and Prince William, before her Erasus Tour returns to London in August.
Evening Standard editor and writer Elle Hunt meets with Mark Blunden in the newsroom to talk about the music and atmosphere of Swift's Wembley show and the singer's love for London.
The automatic records are:
This is The Standard podcast from London. I'm Mark Blunden.
Screaming, clapping, stomping on the floor
The whole stadium shook
She understands the culture and loves London.
Taylor Swift's London hat trick is set to continue later this summer
But first, with polling day fast approaching, the Prime Minister has a sweet offer to entice Londoners to vote Conservative on July 1 rather than backing Labour or switching to the Liberal Democrats or Green reformers.
In a wide-ranging interview with the Evening Standard's political editor, Nicholas Cecil, Mr Sunak hinted at future interest rate cuts, hinted at a fight against red tape after Brexit and also spoke about the future of London and civil service reform.
He also addressed issues between Downing Street and London's Labour mayor, Sadiq Khan, over housing and crime.
Opinion polls have shown Labour holding a one-point lead in London amid a growing anti-Conservative mood, which could make it harder for the Conservatives to hold on to a string of close seats on election day.
Nick, what did you grill him about and what do we know about plans for future rate cuts?
He was surprisingly optimistic, even as the party was embroiled in a massive election betting scandal, its election campaign was losing steam and its approval ratings were sagging.
He was actually ready to talk about his vision for London.
He explained how he thinks the Conservatives can solve London's housing crisis.
It's about making London as dense as Paris or Barcelona.
And, interestingly enough, he also hinted at the possibility of lowering interest rates.
And he said they were on their way.
Of course, we don't know that for sure.
The bank's 20.5% inflation target was achieved last week.
This means banks are likely to ramp up route operations in the coming months.
But he was very forceful in making the point that life for homeowners and renters may soon get easier.
What else did you ask him to do for London?
The other is London's night-time economy.
Many of London's pubs, restaurant bars and restaurants have yet to fully recover since the COVID pandemic.
Many of them are struggling with huge debts.
Customers aren't returning in the same numbers as they were before the pandemic.
And many companies are struggling to find enough talent.
So the Prime Minister was basically saying he would remove all the burdens, regulations and bureaucracy that are causing problems for the hospitality industry.
And that will help them prepare things.
And when he talks about bureaucracy, he's talking about planning and licensing laws.
However, a key issue for many companies is finding the right talent.
And one of the problems is that Brexit has meant fewer EU citizens coming to work in the UK.
And that's always a shortage of staff.
The government's policy on this is that it wants to reduce immigration and improve the skills of the domestic workforce.
So we're trying to encourage more people who are already in the UK to take up these jobs, which, hopefully, is probably a very good policy.
But there are signs that so far it's not enough to fill the workforce gap.
So what about the strained working relationship between Downing Street and City Hall?
Yes, well, certainly I have questioned the Prime Minister on a number of areas, including housing crime and whether he can have a more constructive relationship with the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.
Obviously he's a Labour politician and we have a Conservative government and the relationship is quite strained.
Regarding housing, I asked him if we could have a better relationship.
But the Prime Minister showed no signs of wanting to build bridges here.
He said it was important that Sadiq Khan took responsibility for his record and failed to meet his own housing targets.
So there's no sign of any retreat from government in terms of a frontal relationship with the Mayor, which some people think is fundamentally holding back London's economy and other improvements in the capital.
Also, the latest opinion polls in London show some interesting developments.
Yes, this was a very interesting poll conducted by Savanta for the Marent Institute at Queen Mary, University of London.
And it showed Labour leading the Conservatives by a percentage point in London – a big lead.
Labour has held big leads before, so this is nothing new, but this is certainly a high bar.
And what's really interesting is that it shows that about % of Liberal Democrat voters plan to vote Labour.
And what university academics are picking up on is suggesting that this is a manifestation of an anti-Conservative movement in the capital, that people think it's time for a change of government, and they just want the Conservatives out.
This means they are prepared to vote for the party they think can beat the Conservatives in various constituencies around the capital.
Support for the Liberal Democrats is falling, but that may reflect less their fault than the fact that many Londoners want the Conservative government to go.
Up next is the end of an era for now, with Taylor Swift winning three consecutive nights in the nation's capital and hopes of more to come.
Well, Taylor Swift's American football star boyfriend, Travis Kelcy, took to the stage at Wembley Stadium last night to close out the weekend's concerts.
Let's go into the newsroom and hear from Elle Hunt, editor and writer at the Evening Standard.
As I left the tube station, it felt like I was walking down Wembley Way, with fans in fluffy cowboy hats, some dressed in Swift-era costumes, some wearing feather boas.
Taylor Swift was blasting in every store.
Everybody was singing together
At this point the door had only just opened.
This was a few hours before the show started.
So we headed down Wembley Way.
The atmosphere was very cheerful and there were lots of people taking photos and singing along.
I walked in. My seat was at the exact same height and there was a square stage in the middle with a catwalk coming out from behind.
I was pretty low level in Tier 1.
It was great to see everything she was doing and it was also great to see the whole audience in the front row dancing and having fun.
And the roar from the crowd was one of the loudest I've ever heard.
Who were some of the celebrities in attendance? Were there any surprises? What was it like having Travis Kelce make a special appearance?
I can safely say that the biggest surprise guest on the night I visited, opening night, was Prince William and his family dancing to “Shake It Off” from the top of the stadium.
Some fans were excited to hear about it.
Taylor Swift took a selfie with them at the end of the show, which was her own way of forcing a connection with Travis.
I think this is the first time they've been photographed on Instagram with the British Royal Family.
It wasn't my night for celebrities, but Travis was clearly there.
His brother Jason and Taylor Swift's parents were in the house.
Nicola Coughlin from Bridgerton and Derry Girls was there too.
On the third night of the tour, she did a scene in the show where a butler-like figure in a top hat comes in and revives her and applies makeup while she flops around.
Most of the time, they were just her backup dancers.
This time she managed to sneak Travis onto the stage wearing a top hat.
I think he had custom made Louboutin shoes to match hers.
He then appeared as a backup dancer and the audience went wild.
The funniest part is that fans watch him like hawks the whole time they walk him out of the VIP tent and onto the stage, singing and pantomiming each other's lines.
So they sent Paul McCartney into the crowd as a decoy to sneak him out unnoticed.
So he went out dancing with the Swifties
Everybody was looking at that
Travis rushed onto the stage.
You mentioned some of her biggest hits earlier, but was there a particular song that took the audience into outer space the night you were there?
Each night during the Evermore Folklore section of the show, he plays songs from two folk-inspired albums he made with The National's Aaron Dessner during the pandemic.
She performs a song called “Champagne Problems,” which has become a bit of a tradition on Ellas tours, and can last for minutes as the audience cheers her on, screaming, clapping, and stomping on the floor.
The whole stadium shook
It happens every night, but I don't think that feeling of people screaming ever gets old.
For me, the highlight was seeing how big the fandom is.
Can you tell us a bit about her connection to the capital?
She dated many British men throughout her career, and sings about her love for them in “London Boy,” a song about her ex-boyfriend Joe Alwyn, with whom she lived in London for many years.
She sings about afternoon walks in Shoreditch, nights out in Brixton and going to the pub with the rugby boys.
She understands the culture and loves London.
You can read more of these stories in the Evening Standard and online at standard.co.uk
