Ken Livingstone

London mayor Ken Livingstone was never going to get an easy ride over his planned changes to the congestion charge, and Porsche's threat of a legal challenge is perhaps no big surprise. Famed for its fast, sleek, inefficient cars, it claims the new £25-a-day charge on gas guzzlers is "unfair and disproportionate".

As well as the promised judicial review, the company has started a petition for the Jeremy Clarksons of this world to voice their opposition to Ken's plan. "We know that huge numbers of people in London and across the rest of the country support our case," they claim. "They agree with us that it would be bad for London - that it is unfair and sends the wrong message about what sort of a city London is whilst having no meaningful benefit on the environment."

All four leading candidates for the forthcoming London mayoral election have joined forces to fight Gordon Brown's push for a third runway at Heathrow Airport. Ken Livingstone, Boris Johnson, Brian Paddick and Sian Berry have all agreed to feature in a new anti-expansion advertising campaign launched today. The ad features in the Times, Guardian, Independent and Evening Standard newspapers.

In the news today are reports of the first zero-carbon home being unveiled in London. Housing minister Yvette Cooper has been touring the site, nodding in a ministerial way at the insulation, solar panels, water recycling and construction methods that went into the first home to meet the top standards of the government's sustainable housing code.

According to the report on this morning's Today programme (you can listen again for the next seven days), the ultra-efficient abode cost 40 per cent more to build than a 'normal' house but as more are built, the economies of scale will bring that down. As the government intends to make all new housing zero-carbon by 2016, that price fall should start in the near future, although Cooper was evasive when quizzed about exactly how many of the 160,000 homes planned in the Thames Gateway region would be zero-carbon. A rolling increase in standards was all she would commit to.

Part of the Trident: we don't buy it tour blog



After sailing around a substantial chunk of the UK's coastline - via Leith and then Greenock - we've finally reached London. I've entered the city by train, car, bus and bicycle before but I have to say, sailing into London beats them all. We slipped through the Thames Barrier and up past the Millennium Dome, Canary Wharf and the Docklands to our mooring spot by Tower Bridge, where we settled in and watched the lights come on over the London skyline. We're just 100-odd metres from the bridge so give us a wave if you go past (or better still, come and have a free tour of the ship this weekend - more info below)!